Concepts of fate

[Icarion]

Ok Rik, I cant comment on the hologram stuff, which is just so far outside anything i've ever read up on, i cant place an informed opinion.

But your other points:

1) I perhaps used the wrong wording when i used reject. The category should be more properly called 'unproven'. It contains both untested and rejected hypotheses. You're more than welcome to re-test a previously rejected hypothesis under different conditions or whatever... thats a fundamental concept of science. It's just that my view of the world consists only of proven hypotheses. You can prove the table is flat, so I accept that it is flat. No-one has proved God, so he's firmly in the 'unproven' pile, and therefore does not fit into my world view unless someone DOES eventually prove God's existence.

2) You missed part of my point about prediction. Even if you COULD predict events, it's still only a prediction. Were you told about it, you could change it. Hence, that prediction does not constiture Fate, per se. If it did constitute Fate, you could not change it even if you knew it was going to/likely to happen.

3) Why do atoms have to be in the exact same place twice? It's very unlikely for any atoms to be in any particular one arrangement. But look, all those atoms are together, forming a person at one point in time.. that's now. Who says they have to go back to that exact same arrangement twice? Besides, even if the universe DOES go on forever (in space and time), why shouldnt it just go on as a few balls of rock... I dont understand why having an infinite universe means matter should suddenly spring back to a form it held once before.

4) I was studying Biology at uni, with a strong focus on evolution.

5) When did i say that I didnt believe that things are driven by reactions of particles? I never said that. I just said that some things are impossible to predict. I seem to believe in an element of randomness that you wish to eliminate.

[-(aaK)- Deltz]

Nice post Rik.
And for the record i was very drunk when i posted that. LOL.
I was trying to remember an expirment i read about so i did a google and found the closet thing i could find.
It was something like slitting a beam of light in two, and sending each beam through a prism.
No matter how many times they did it, both went in identicle directions.
Freaky stuff.
And the holograms thing you were talking about, reminds of a Dan Simmons book called The Hollow Man.
Great book if you ever get a chance to read it.

[Rik-[FD]]

Thanks Delta....I'll look out for that book.

Kat:

1. Ok, fair enough...I thought we might have been arguing at cross purposes on that one.

2. But if I predicted your fate and didn't tell you then its back in the realms of fate rather than prediction again. But I do take your point. However, if you could predict things as accurately as we are talking about then you would be able to predict the reactions to the predictions. Unfortunately, this would put you in an infinate loop of predicting these reactions.

3. You'll need to argue that one with the inventor of the Infinate monkeys + typewriters + infinate time = complete works of shakespear at some point in that infinate time. Have a feeling it was Mr. Einstein but I'm not sure about that. However, I do see what you're saying but given an infinate universe for an infinate period of time, I don't think its going to stay a ball of rock for any relative length of time. However, it will be a ball of rock at some point as given the infinate universe/time, everything will happen.

4. Ok...just wondered - sounds interesting.

5. If all things are made of particles and those particles react in a certain way to things (on the most basic level, it gets hit by another particle, it is going to react in a certain way and if it gets hit again given the same conditions, it will react in the same way). Therefore, there is no randomness in the universe there is just stuff we call random because we can't yet explain all those reactions.

[Buzz]

-(aaK)-FD said:

However, it will be a ball of rock at some point as given the infinate universe/time, everything will happen.

[glow=red,2,300]
Ah yes the old favourite does this not mean we have already had this conversation though [/glow]

[-(aaK)- ICE]

[glow=blue,2,300]I jus started reading this thread and am hooked already by this debate.....Now awaiting next post (Nav u PUSSY get in here and put a word in!)[/glow]

[Rik-[FD]]

-(aaK)- said:

[glow=red,2,300]
Ah yes the old favourite does this not mean we have already had this conversation though [/glow]

Yes...in fact, we've had it an infinate number of times....don't you remember?

[glow=red,2,300]No, oh hang on yes now I do, i read it this time next week[/glow]

[-(aaK)- Nav]

Im abstaining from posting as I opened a can of worms which im afriad of commenting on. I am a watcher.

[Rik-[FD]]

But have you made the choice just to sit back and watch or was that choice just an illusion as you follow your fate?

[Icarion]

Ok, point conceded on the randomness thing. At an elemental level, I agree, particles react in a predictable way. I personally can't shake the feeling that at higher levels of complexity things can happen differently, but I can't back that up, so I concede.

However, on a logical and semantic level, I still maintain that prediction cannot ever equal fate, as a prediction can be changed. Your infinite loop of recalculating preditions would occur, and thats just silly. Even if the prediction isn't changed, it still isn't fate, because the point is that it COULD be changed.

On a more physical level, while things may be able to be predicted to a very high level of accuracy, you'd need a implausibly huge computer, and detailed knowledge of every single particle in the universe. This means insanely complex equipment. Plus then you got the whole quantum element where if you observe something you change it... and you've got no real way of doing it. So between the semantic and physical arguments, you have to accept that the idea of fate can't play a part in our lives, from a scientific point of view. To invoke fate, you necessarily have to accept a higher power that causes specific things to happen.

[Rik-[FD]]

With the point of randomness conceaded (however grudgingly), the existance of fate is proved. If nothing is random and (as I previously theorised) everything is just action and reaction then obviously we do have our fate mapped out.

The only problem comes when you actually try to predict that fate or more to the point, when the person who's fate is being predicted sees it...that's when you fall into the infinate loop.

But, without those predictions being made (which we have said is extremely difficult and would only happen a long way into the future), fate exists and is there for all of us.

And as for insanely complex equipment and understanding of the universe...just imagine what someone from the 19th century would think of what you are looking at right now! Hell, the Apollo astronauts can't have imagined they'd be writing their memoirs on computers more powerful than those they took to the moon.

[Rik-[FD]]

In fact, I like that. What a great paradox:

Each of us has a predictable fate right up to the point that someone predicts it.

[Icarion]

"With the point of randomness conceaded (however grudgingly), the existance of fate is proved. If nothing is random and (as I previously theorised) everything is just action and reaction then obviously we do have our fate mapped out."

Grrrr. You were waiting ages to say that, weren't you? I don't like this. I KNOW that's not right at all, but I can't express why. Perhaps its just an ingrained desire to keep hold of my free will and not have it theorised away. I find the idea of being a predictable automaton very unnerving, and don't wish to continue the discussion.

I can't articulate what I mean to say, and even if I can, I can't back it up. Congratulations, you win the argument due to my inability to defend my perspective. I'm not a physicist, I'm a biologist, and I deal with a complex environment and the idea that animals make decisions and react to them.

However I will add that you haven't changed my mind at all. I'm still not happy with the idea of non-randomness, OR the concept of fate in the way I define it. I still think that complex systems gain a randomness that you can't predict from simple elemental reactions. To back it up I invoke the idea of chaos theory, but I don't really know many details about it, so I can't actually argue using the concept.

Since I'm now rather depressed with the whole idea, and don't have the knowledge or will to defend myself further, I retire from the discussion. If anyone else wants to pick it up please do.

[Rik-[FD]]

To be honest, I was waiting more for Chaos Theory than I was your surrender on randomness.

I reject your congratulations however as I have not been arguing, mearly exploring and as such, I don't believe there can be a winner. Particularly as we have both conceeded points along the way.

It is very worrying to think that our whole lives might be mapped out already and the only way for us to have some modicum of control over it would be to predict that fate. Although saying that, I might have just changed my mind....with the amount of stress and worry there is in the world wouldn't it alieviate a whole load of pressure if we all knew that whatever is going to happen will happen and although we have to make choices, the choices have already been decided. Makes me feel a bit better about some of the wrong choices (women) I've made in my life, I can tell you.

Now I'm going to go away and read up on Chaos Theory so I can argue amongst myself lol.

[Rik-[FD]]

Ok, can't use Chaos Theory because it actually reinforces my "non-randomness" theory as it refers to an apparent lack of order in a system that nevertheless obeys particular laws or rules.

The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems - no matter how complex they may be - rely upon an underlying order, and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events.

Now I'm going to have to go off and think of some other reason why what I've said is complete crap....I could do with some help here guys

I've just read more of the definition of chaos theory (you can read it here: whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci759332,00.html) and it seems to be saying that although everything is predictable if you can measure everything precisely enough, they believe it is impossible to be that precise. So, that seems to be confirming some of what I've been saying and some of what Kat's been saying at the same time....I need some sleep before I think about that some more lol.

[WarGod]

If nothing is random and (as I previously theorised) everything is just action and reaction then obviously we do have our fate mapped out.

(I think it was Rik that said this but oh well)

I'm going to work backwards in trying to proove "fate" is non existant so I'm starting with prediction of "fate":

1. If it was at all possible to predict our "fate" then the prediction would only be useful up until the point when someone had predicted it.......Like what you mentioned earlier with the paradox. (sorry if I'm repeating a little there)

Let me put a scenario to you:

Say you knew someone was going to die in a car crash outside your house, but you didn't know who or when.

Even if you didn't try to directly avoid this "fate" of theirs the mere fact you knew it would change the course of the future; making the prediction useless.

For example say instead of going to the fridge as you might've done not knowing what will happen, you start pacing up and down in your front room contemplating the "fate" you've been made aware of.

This simple action may make you miss a stray cat in your kitchen which steals some food, and then goes out into the back garden quiet contenly.

However if you hadnt been told of the "fate" then you would've gone to the kitchen scared the cat away and caused it to run out of the house, into the front garden, in front of a car which swerves hitting a pedestrian whose "fate" it was to die.....

The point I'm making is that fate is that predicting "fate" is ridiculous because a) there is no way of doing it and b) Because as soon as you predicted it, the "fate" would change. Even if it still happened it may be changed by a tiny tiny factor such as TEXT the "fate" happened.

And as for "fate" itself, the whole idea is INSANE. Quite simply because of the fact that there are too many choices.

Basically even if it was very certain someone would carry out an action, he/she could choose not to. There is allways that CHOICE even if the choice itself is insane it is still there.....therfore making the whole idea of fate immpossible.