Fate and Free Will?

After reading through some posts here, I was wondering what the Taleworlds folks think on the matter. Fate, or Free Will? Which do you believe in?

Both don't exist. Or well. I'm less sure about fate - it may exist, or it may be chance. Free will certainly doesn't exist.

Make this a poll.

I believe that if the reigns life are held too loosely, then fate takes you for a ride.
However if you hold the reigns too tightly, then you can't enjoy the ride of life.

All philosophy and voodoo aside, I think you have the option of choosing fate or free will.

Didn't we already have a thread on this?

Archonsod said:

Didn't we already have a thread on this?

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Do we? I recall a thread on religion, but not one specifically on fate and free will.

Free Will.

I believe Fate is something that people assign to events when they are looking back at them, in hindsight. For example, if a woman misses a bus, then has to catch a later bus instead, she might consider that bad luck or a bad start to her day. If then on the later bus she meets a man and they strike up a conversation, get on well, agree to meet in a public place for drinks, eventually fall in love and end up getting married and having six kids and living happily ever after, the woman may look back at the event that caused her happiness (ie, missing her bus) and decide that it must be fate that had led her to do so. She will probably be less likely to assign the even to chance, because chance isn't as romantic as fate, and people like to be romantic (at least while things are going well).

I believe that all events are down to a combination of free will and pure chance, I don't believe that fate actually exists. I think it is just something that people use to feel like their actions are guided and that there lives are how they should be.

Though you will notice that people rarely talk about fate in relation to bad things. People in concentration camps during WWII never thought "Oh well, this must be fate", because believing in fate is to believe that something is meant to be and could not or should not be changed.

Pharaoh Llandy said:

Free Will.

I believe Fate is something that people assign to events when they are looking back at them, in hindsight. For example, if a woman misses a bus, then has to catch a later bus instead, she might consider that bad luck or a bad start to her day. If then on the later bus she meets a man and they strike up a conversation, get on well, agree to meet in a public place for drinks, eventually fall in love and end up getting married and having six kids and living happily ever after, the woman may look back at the event that caused her happiness (ie, missing her bus) and decide that it must be fate that had led her to do so. She will probably be less likely to assign the even to chance, because chance isn't as romantic as fate, and people like to be romantic (at least while things are going well).

I believe that all events are down to a combination of free will and pure chance, I don't believe that fate actually exists. I think it is just something that people use to feel like their actions are guided and that there lives are how they should be.

Though you will notice that people rarely talk about fate in relation to bad things. People in concentration camps during WWII never thought "Oh well, this must be fate", because believing in fate is to believe that something is meant to be and could not or should not be changed.

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I think people talk about bad fate more than that. When they're too weak of a person to accept their blame or believe that the world is that cruel and blame a higher power/fate.

Secondly, I don't think people talk about fate period very much, after the decline of religions stating that your life is pre-decided(greek and norse).

Fate exists, but free will is limited to some point. There are some facts we can't control or make in our life (related to fate); like you birth date, where you were born, whose you father and mother are, our death etc... These made up the beginning of our fate. There are two things certain about fate, which is common for everyone and which is that it has two certain points in this life. The first one is that we are born, and the second one is that we die. The things we can give shape to our fate lies between these points. I think that's the free will. As I said, we can't change some facts with our free will so our free will is limited.

Fate in no one way exists, all is chance and variables and decisions.
Of course you can't argue with fate believers, because whatever happens it was fate.

Redcoat - Mic said:

Of course you can't argue with fate believers, because whatever happens it was fate.

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Not all fate believers agree that whatever happens was fate. For example I do. I believe that we can design our fate with the free will, but if something happens that you can decide with your free will, it is so dumb to blame it on fate.

If you knew the position of every quanta at the start of the universe, and had the power to extrapolate their movements across time, then according to science you can predict the future.

Swordmaster said:

Fate exists, but free will is limited to some point. There are some facts we can't control or make in our life (related to fate); like you birth date, where you were born, whose you father and mother are, our death etc... These made up the beginning of our fate.

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That's not "fate", that's just a mixture of random events and someone else's free will. You are using "fate" to describe inevitable events.

As a simple example, say you parachute out of a plane. What happens? You will come back down to the ground; while the parachute slows your descent, you must inevitably reach the ground within a reasonable period of time. This does not mean you are "fated" to fall, however, your body is simply adhering to the rules of the world (gravity, wind resistance, whatever). As soon as you are conceived, processes are set in motion that determine your eventual birth date; while this can be affected by various factors, birth is inevitable. The same applies to your death; you can ensure you live your full lifespan by eating healthy food and not taking up smoking/drugs/etc., but no matter what you do your body has a finite lifespan which you will eventually reach.

The only way "fate" could work in the manner you are describing is if some sentient entity was overseeing each person and pulling the strings of humanity as a whole to ensure predetermined goals were met. There is no way "fate" could exist as a concrete flow of events without a mind of some sort controlling it.

Swordmaster said:

There are some facts we can't control or make in our life (related to fate); like you birth date, where you were born, whose you father and mother are, our death etc...

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Facts cannot be related to fate. Facts can be quantified (if we assume that reality is what we perceive around us). You were born. Fact. You will die. Fact. The plates move. Fact. You missed the bus. Fact. You fell in love. Fact. But there is no consciousness behind the actions and events that lead to what happens in your life. It is down to a mixture of how you react to your situations, and the decisions that you make.

For example, my brother is a useless lazy bastard who can't keep a job because he keeps turning up late, or not at all, or going to work then going home 'ill' so that he can go out with his friends instead. It wasn't fate that led him to be this way, it was his own laziness and the desire to take as much as he can from society without putting anything into it. He moans when he has no money and tries to sponge off the rest of the family, but if he just grew a pair and started working, he could earn his own money. It is his free will to not turn up for work and get himself fired, therefore it is his free will that he has no money.

I face a choice tomorrow; I can get up and go to work, or I can stay at home. That I choose to go to work is not fate, it is me being aware of the consequences of my actions (something which my brother chooses to blissfully ignore) and not being a complete moron.

Plus, it was never fated that you be born. You, as a person, are continually developing your personality, who you are. If you had been born on a council estate, the son of a whore and a crack dealer, and then you likewise became a pusher, then according to you, that would be fate. If you killed a man tomorrow, that would be fate. It would also be fate if you didn't. It would be fate if you ate a burger and contracted BSc. Or it would be fate if you didn't.

The concept of fate works on an action and an event. You don't walk down a street and think "It's fate that I walk down this street", because nothing has happened to cause you to think like that. Why should it matter, in that moment, what street you walk down? But if you walk down the street, see a friend across the road, cross over to meet him, and a few seconds later a car crashes into the exact spot where you were stood, you might think "It's fate that I saw my friend and crossed over at that exact moment before the car hit." Only looking back can you decide if something is fated, and that is what makes it a human perception, rather than something that actually exists and can be measured.

I subscribe to the Pratchett view on the matter.

"Stuff just happens, what the hell."

Exactly why over think life, til death?

Fate is bollocks, free will can't exist by definition. (Edit: Fate being predestination with a purpose. Determinism seems a reasonable assumption to make.)
e.g. You will always do the same action given an identical situation (in every way) this isn't free will. If you do something else, that's random and also isn't free will.

That isn't to say that a choice is less of a choice, it just means that the choice was always going to turn out the same way.

I'm not contesting what you say, since I have no viewpoint on this matter, considering it fairly irrelevant, but I'd be interested to know how you deal with these points.

If free will is the ability to choose a given response to a given choice, then I don't see how you can deny that we have free will. I can randomly choose to do an action that is within my capabilities to do, and I am exercising free will. There are no restrains put upon me to stop me attempting absolutely anything.

If I am given a choice of two pills, each being exactly the same, how do I not have free will? There is nothing driving me to take one pill or the other. I could make any number of choices, including punching the guy offering the pills in the face. If free will isn't the ability to choose what actions you wish to take when presented with a choice, what is it?

Our minds determine our will entirely from outside stimuli, and as thus it is entirely dependent. It'd be predictable if we had all the variables.

How can you be sure of that? If I shut my eyes right now and begin a train of thought, is it not entirely dictated by what I choose to think of?

Yes, what I think of is governed by past experience, but that doesn't entail a lack of free will, it entails an absence of choices open to me (i.e. If I knew everything, I could choose to think of anything)

And that doesn't answer the question of the neutral choice. If given a choice of two pills, both of which were identical in every way, what stimuli could possibly affect that choice? Surely there is there an element of free will, in that there can be no predictability in that case. (And if free will is present there, it can exist elsewhere too)

Cleaning Agent said:

I subscribe to the Pratchett view on the matter.

"Stuff just happens, what the hell."

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****! I came into this thread with the express intention of posting that