fate/destiny..

[the SovieT]

i saw a thread like this one in politicsforum so i thought it would be cool to see whats your opinion about this stuff...

so here is goes:

"Who here believes in fate or destiny? Or 'an eternal plan' for that matter? "


and hers my 2 cents:

well i myself dont believe in fate or any kind of destiny...

and this isnt just about me, it is about everyother person taht claims to be marxist as well...

we marxist believe in teh "cause-efect" theory...
this is, something (efect) only happens or its created by something else (cause)
yet not only that happend after the cause is necessarly efect of the same.. for example, the night comes after the day, yet the night isnt a efect of teh day nor is the day the cause of teh night...
evry cause as a efect, this is if other cause doesnt cut the former cause (sounds a litle complicated, but after a wile you will understand)
for example, if we press the trigger of a loaded rifle the bullet will necesasrly go out... yet if the poweder of the rifle is wet, or the bullet is somehow stuck the efect wount happen... so this leaves us to the conclusion that in order to a cause have a efect it is necessary a condition...
it hapens sometimes that some causes have a motive...
yet the motive isnt capable of making the efect by itself...

some philosophers think that there is also a casual efect...
wich is tehre are something that dont have causes, just happen...
this is wrong, everything, every reaction has a cause...
everything is a efect of some cause....

yet one cannot think "why" for not all efects have a motive...

or at least this are my 2 cent....

(all other marxists please correct me if i am wrong)


(Edited by the SovieT at 1:20 pm on April 27, 2003)

[exploding toast]

i dont believe ub fate or destiny.. i believe that you have control over everything you want to do. if you want to take a piss out of a window onto some guys head thats not your fate thats just you wanting to do something... i guess mymain reason for not believing in it is if you do believe in it you realy have no control of your life so it sucks.. i like to be in control

[the SovieT]

as i said comrade, cause and efect....

youm being the cause (or sometimes motive) creaete situations, in other words efects..

[Umoja]

I believe in an odd concept of Fate. In hindsight everything in the past existed once, and had to have happened in a certain way to determine where we are now. So an event has only once chance to occur in one way..... It's not exactly fate/destiny, but that's what I believe.

[exploding toast]

thats a good point never thought of it that way

[Conghaileach]

from Umoja
:
So an event has only once chance to occur in one way.....

Einstein theorised that the possible outcomes of any event do happen, in alternate realities. Each one is just as real at the next, but it's based on the different choices we make.

For instance, if you're making tea and consider whether or not to put in a spoonful of sugar or not, there's one situation where you do use the sugar, and another is created where you don't.

[Umoja]

That's also a Hindu philosophy. Regardless if that's true, alternate realities aren't ours. They are other realities so completely seperate from how we percieve events happening. Einstein was a Pantheist though, I wouldn't trust him. ;)

[Donut Master]

I'm a determinist. Since the big bang, the universe has been a sequence of non-random events. I suppose you could call it fatalism, but fate usually implies the belief that a devine power is in command of all events in the universe, obviously something that I - as an atheist - do not believe.

Determinism is really pretty simple. It's all about cause and effect, just as Marx believed. There are no seperate realities, because there's only one way everything is going to happen. There is no probability, no randomness. This goes against modern quantum physics, as did Einstein, refusing to believe that anything could be truely random.

Here's an example: flipping a coin. What determines how the coin will land? Trillions of variables - the strength of the flip, the velocity of the coin, the rotation speed, the surface it lands on, etc. If you were to measure all of these variables, you would be able tp predict exactly how the coin would land, each and every time. (Of course, Heisenburg's uncertianty principle prevents us from actually doing this, but it's just an example... bear with me.)

This would also effectively mean that at the creation of time, the outcomes for all events to ever occur in the universe were predetermined.

This is an easy concept to understand, but people have trouble carrying it over to human terms. If this were true, would it not mean that we have no free will? That choice is only an illusion?

Humans, which are really just like complex machines, are subject to the same laws as everything else in the universe. Thus, the laws of cause and effect apply to us just as strictly. All actions we make are caused by something, so we simply follow the chain of cause and effect as "victims" of the enviroment. If you are a materialist, then this is an obvious conclusion. "Free will" is really a subjective term anyway, so take it as you will...

[Umoja]

I sort have played with that philosophy as well.

[Palmares]

I guess I kind of believe in casuality, but not absolutely.

I am vehemently against fatalism, and sort of against determinism, but I do see some logic in it.

I do not believe in destiny/fate, which are very much linked to the religious concepts of faith and hope.

That brings me to predestination. Freedom with chains? Bah!

Such things are so blind (ie faith), and are very much concepts for the weak minded who are unable to accept the overwhelming eternal uncertainy.

Personally, my opinion upon this matter has nothing to do with my Marxism, rather, perhaps more with my existentialism.

I ask this, for those who believe in fate/destiny, do you believe in preminitions and the matter? That is, that they are true to their word?

(Edited by Cthenthar at 1:41 pm on April 28, 2003)

[Donut Master]

My belief in determinism is not at all rooted in any kind of supersticion or belief in a "higher power". It's just a logical observation of how things work.

It is impossible to know the future, it violates the law of causality. The moment know the future, it has changed!

[Palmares]

I do believe in some determenism, but I must admit much of my dislike for it has to do with its links with fatalism.

I believe that the existence contains innummerable randomness.

[Umoja]

Fate doesn't need to be religious, the way I view it. (Although I am religious).

[Conghaileach]

from Donut Master:
This would also effectively mean that at the creation of time, the outcomes for all events to ever occur in the universe were predetermined.

Would you say then that it was predetermined when the Earth was created that humans would come along and poison its atmosphere and wipe out some of the planet's other species?

Every choice we make has an effect that cannot be determined until that choice is made, and the action is carried out.

[Umoja]

The past is set in stone, not the future but it doesn't mean it's not gonna happen, because time is a one way street, with certain things being at certain points.

[Palmares]

Quote: from Umoja on 10:17 pm on April 28, 2003
Fate doesn't need to be religious, the way I view it. (Although I am religious).


Nevertheless, both religion (no offence) and the belief in destiny/fate is blind (e.g. faith and hope, with the latter very closely linked to destiny/fate).

Anyway, if you are relgious person who is an adherent to Christianity/Islam/Judaism, etc, then you are supposed to believe in predestination.

Predestination is a contradiction in itself, freedom with chains... Paradoxical really...

BTW, how can you be communist and religious? Can you explain how this works?

[Umoja]

Predestination, I can understand from a different point of view. It only means a higher power knows everything that'll happen, because it's not confined to one point in time like we are. It doesn't in any way imply we can tell what's happening in the future, or what happens to us when we die.

I'm curious how you can claim fate/destiny is based on hope, in the cases I'm explaining. I believe it exist, but that we don't "see" it or comprehend it well enough to know what's going on with it.

EDIT- This comes from the idea that we don't have control over our actions, and that could easily be true. Although it may seem we have optionions at every event, we are only able to choose one.

(Edited by Umoja at 12:29 pm on April 29, 2003)

[Conghaileach]

from Umoja:
I'm curious how you can claim fate/destiny is based on hope, in the cases I'm explaining. I believe it exist, but that we don't "see" it or comprehend it well enough to know what's going on with it.

Fate/destiny is based on blind faith, like religion. If we can't see fate or comprehend it in any way, how can you truly be sure it exists?

(Edited by CiaranB at 4:35 pm on April 29, 2003)

[Umoja]

It's only a theory. I can't be sure we aren't all just brains in jars, but I believe we aren't. I'm just saying based on my own thinking that fate exist. To my knowledge Christianity doesn't have fate as a central precept like Hinduisms (And Buddhisms) concept of Dharma/Karma, it is just a common western worldview (although some may consider it archaic).

[Palmares]

Although hope is different in definition to different people (to state the obvious), from what I understand hope is the belief of something better in the future, however it also implies this "betterness" has already been planned. This is the link to predestination, quite obvious since both are Christian concepts.

I belief there is a chance, or opportunity of something better, but I do not know for sure that something better is ahead.

I'm a bloody commie and existentialist (Kierkegaard aside) anyway.

BTW, you didn't explain how a religious commie works...

[Umoja]

I'm not a "Commie", so maybe that was a misnomer. I don't follow any of Marx's teachings in any manner that would make me a Marxist.

But isn't Socialism/Communism a hope for a utopia in the future? Or do we know we are guarenteed it? I'm confused how you think fate is tied to hoping for a better future. Fate is set in stone, in my opinion, even if we don't know it's there. It's like many of the principles in math, they exist we just don't know about them.

[Palmares]

You're not a commie? WTF? How are you allowed in here? It makes no sense...

Anyway, Utopia is idealistic. We not not say it will happen (I suppose some do acually), just that it should happen. I do not believe anything is absolute, nothing is definitive. Possibilities and randomness.

It is all about the choices...

Religion, is an arbitrary choice (Kierkegaard isn't that bad really, I guess).

[Umoja]

Not everyone here is a Commie. Everyone here is a hard-leftist though.

Being idealistic is hoping for something in the future.

[the SovieT]

Being idealistic is hoping for something in the future.
wrong, being idealist"ic" is believing in the spiritual conception of the world.... this oposing the materialist conception of the world... were only matter exists...

(Edited by the SovieT at 12:47 pm on April 30, 2003)

[Donut Master]

Actually, the SovieT, if you are speaking of idealism in terms of philosophy, you are not completely true. Idealism is not simply belief in the spiritual, it is the belief that there is no matter at all, that everything is made up of thoughts. One type of idealism is called silopicism, and this hold the idea that everything in the universe is a product of your mind. Only you exist. When you exit a room, it ceases to exist because you are no longer precieving it. There are also absolute idealists, who believe in more than one mind, and a supreme mind (God?) that precieves the entire universe.

However, there is another definition of idealistic... to be utopian or a dreamer. I believe that was the definition Umoja was using in this case.

[Umoja]

Yeah, DM is correct. I wasn't reffering to the philosophy.

[Palmares]

Idealistic in the context of perfectness was what I thought Umoja was using. That is why I disagree with the fundamentals of his/her argument.

BTW, the philosophical interpretation of idealsim is pure insanity paranoid psycho philosophy. I know someone who said the first Gulf War did ont happen because they did not percieve it. Them me they aren't a philosophy freak? I love philosophy, but I am also a realist.

P.S. Umoja, what kind of leftist are you may I ask? How does religion intergrate within it?

[the SovieT]

i would say that Umoja is somewhat a christiansocialist.... am i wrong?

[Umoja]

I'm not much of a Christian anymore, considering how loose all my thinking is. I'm just a Democratic-Socialist (quite a few here are slightly religious leaning). Religion doesn't need to integrate with politics for me though, as long as people are doing things by their own accord, and not hurting anyone but themselves (since I'm not opposed to alcohol or drugs either), then it shouldn't be messed with. I'm touching off something though, I don't want to turn this into a religion vs. Communism thread.

[Donut Master]

I don't want to turn this into a religion vs. Communism thread.

Right, there's already several other threads dealing with this. :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:

[Umoja]

Exactly.

[Lefty]

I don't believe in fate, per se. However, I believe that by doing things that we aren't aware of, we influence the future, or that things that other people aren't aware of doing influence my future. Kind of a chain-reaction type of fate, if you will. This is why I am nice to as many people as it is humanly possible. What goes around comes around.