I was feeling good last night. Well of course I was because I was drunk, but I asked myself a question. Is there such thing as a destiny. It has not been proven that there is, but if I have a destiny I think it is to become an aesthetic. It might be the solution to my negative outlook. To get suicide and homicide out of my mind. To show people the mind of a bi-polar youth. The type of shit we misfits go through. That could be my purpose in life.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=aesthetic http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=ascetic
Destiny is just a romantic notion, there is no evidence or reason to think everything or anything is predetermined - unless it is us personally doing our pre-determining (if that is even a word). So I guess one could definitely say our destiny is what we make of it.
Of course there is no proof of fate or destiny or anything like that. How could there be? That being said, there is no proof of free will, either. Arguments in favour of either are nonsense. It's not that the question is unanswerable either; I mean that it is quite literally nonsense, jibberish. I also find it strange how most people use the word "destiny" when referring to things that conceivably could not have happened, like "It was my destiny to fall in love with you." If it is, in fact, destiny, then how could it not happen? Yet no one says "It is my destiny that I should breathe five minutes from now," which could, conceivably, not be the case (I could drop dead right now). But it's certainly far more likely than me falling in love with one particular girl. We use the word "destiny" to refer to something entirely otherworld or remarkable. Destiny is a concept which belongs in art, not philosophy; so is free will.
Common Sense Agree. There is no free will.. But one can make choices. [within possible bounderies] And these choices create paths that become reality. We are only free. when we come to a fork in the road. Occam AS for destiny...Occam has only ever seen it ...after the fact "Occams destiny is to create his own destiny" Is the stock answer to any who believe that what will be has already been decided [predestined] This is fine for gross physical mater/processes. But falls down when self aware consciouness is introduced.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that free will does or does not exist, same goes for fate. I'm saying that the question of free will is meaningless, and something that's meaningless can't have an answer that's true or false. If there are such forks in the road, I'd like to know how I can identify them, so that when I reach one, I'll know it. I can either pick this pen up, or not. Does that qualify as a fork in the road? How could I know? And if I can't know, then how can I use words like "free" or "predestined" in a philosophical/scientific context? If I can't, then what business do I have mascarading those words up as facts? I hope this helps to clarify a little, but is it really so surprising that I'm at a loss for words when the whole subject we are discussing is meaningless? Maybe that's no excuse, in which case I will continue to elaborate further until reaching perfect clarity at some other time.
Common Sense... Ah thats the interesting part... How do we know what a fork in the road is? Occam suggest...Any situation where you must think about what choice to make. [you ballance choices in your head] Is a fork in the road. Suprisingly... is it is a rare thing for most. Just about all human life is lived on conscious autopilot. Occam
I'm not exactly sure what your position is, Occam. You say there is no free will, yet we are still able to make choices. You go on to say that a fork in the road is a situation in which one must make a conscious decisions. But if you must make a decision, then you have no choice in the matter. Besides, it seems like one could think really hard about any decision at all, no matter how trivial. It seems like you're making more of a point about human nature than a point about metaphysics. Really, I like your effort to naturalize a very confusing metaphysical problem. I have few disagreements about the way you're solving the problem. I just have no idea what your answer is.
I agree that our freedom to make decisions at any one time eliminates some of the possibilities of DESTINY but.. what about the factors that may influence our decisions at that period of time ie.: emotional state, tendencies passed on from parents, tendencies from previous experience and so on. So there does exist a certain pull for us to head in a preditermined direction but not enough to make it a certainty. Which comes back to balance, as it allways does. Rode
so the decision at the turn of the road is like a balance where each factor adds its' weight and it comes down to which side has the most. "I do not ascribe to the will, that unintelligible necessity under which we are all supposed to lie like matter. But I ascribe to matter, that intelligible quality, call it necessity or not, which the most rigorous orthodoxy does or must allow to the will"(Hume-Treatise on Human Nature)
Common Sense Sorry for the confusion....Occam sort of continues thought on such things from other posts and times and no doubt this leaves holes in his position in more recent conversations. Literally 'Free Will' to occam indicates the abillity for will to act 'as it wishes' Not possible in a reality that limmits action to what is POSSIBLE for humans. [at this time] But in the generally accepted human definition of god. This is the power god has. Free will..wish it,, and it becomes reality...Acausal creation.. 'Choice' is the application of reason/will to opportunities of choice allowed within the largely deterministic reality we are embedded in. You have slipped "must make a descision" into your reply to his post. Occan never said that, but, will let you off.. At a fork in the road... One only needs ONE Option. The other may be defaulted to by determinism if no choice is made to utilise the option available to choice. While falling from a cliff.. *there is the default option. do nothing. the choice is made to make no choice...and one falls *Or to grab that handy branch that can save you. Literally, while driving down the raod..you may notice a turn off. [option of choice] *Choose to ignor the option and continue as before. *Or turn off Many have said to occam that all reality is determined That if 4 blank cards are placed before you. All having a symbol on the other side. You will ALWAYS pick the same card if the situation was repeated ABSOLUTELY THE SAME. Occam believes this to be a result of those people not comprehending the random factors modern quantum theory has introduced to the concept. He believes that in a situation [experiment..all of this is gedankenexperiment. or imagineering] Where there are 4 rooms with 4 you's all ABSOLUTELY the same. Then the experiment wil result in different cards being chosen. Cascading of quantum randomness 'upwards ' into the gross physical world. Has in occams understanding. Destroyed the determinist arguement against choice. And more importantly..The cascading of the resultant choices amongst 6 billion choosing humans produces an adeterministic synergy . A determinist says observered Reality for example may have had state A soon after the big bang. And that state WILL ALWAYS RESULT, 14 billion years later, IN JENNY SNODGRASS OF COWPOKE KANSAS BREAKING A Nail ON THE DOOR OF HER NEW CHEVY COMPACT at 11:01:12 ..14-5-2005 [human time] Think about that..then your name. Occam
This is philosophy; there's always confusion. But thank you, this post was quite clear. Doesn't that suggest a sort of determinism? For example, it could be said that I am destined never to draw a round square because such a thing is logically impossible. Your exact words were, "How do we know what a fork in the road is? Occam suggest...Any situation where you must think about what choice to make." I was paraphrasing but it's the word "must" that is troublesome. Since we're in the existentialism forum, I'll say that existentialists run into a similar problem. Since, so they say, everything we do is a choice, we can do nothing other than choose. They say you can't choose not to choose. And then we run around in philosophical circles for a while. So, you see why I am critical of both sides of the argument. I don't entirely understand what you mean here. If there is only one option, then it's not much of a fork. However, you do mention an alternative. It seems like you mean that the alternative is based on the particular nature or disposition of the agent involved, at least that's how I interpret the word "default". In that case, I am clearly not interpretting the word "default" correctly. It would surely be in the nature of anyone but a suicide to grab the branch. Is the default option always to do nothing? So, I decide that I want to go to the mall. I get in my car and drive along my usual route to the mall. I could turn at any intersection, but I don't. Why? Because I'm going to the mall. But that still begs the question, was it my decision to go to the mall, or could it not have happened any other way? Also, say I'm going to the mall and I discover that I'm running low on gas. Is going to the mall still the default option, or is turning off to go to the gas station? But that could obviously never be the case. Even if you were to recreate the situation as close as humanly possible, you'd still be picking the card at different times. No experiment could ever be created to prove it one way or the other. But even then, the four you's all have different relational properties in space. Now, granted in normative science we usually don't have to take into account relational properties of time and space, but this concept is so otherworldly that I think we must. In fact, it's so otherworldly that it falls outside the realm of science all together.
A round square is a logical impossibility, which means that we will never be able to draw a round square. I don't know if a two dimensional being can draw a sphere because I have never had the pleasure of meeting a two dimensional being. I do not know what a four dimensional tesseact is. Whatever it is you have in mind that electrons do today, that function is not a logical impossibility nor was it impossible (strictly speaking) 150 years ago. But you tell me, what is it that suggests to you that it will one day be possible to draw a round square? No, I do not say we must choose. As I have written before, I think that the notion is meaningless. But you do understand my point that if it is necessary that we exercise free will, then that is just another way of saying that our actions are in some way determined. How do you respond to this? Occam, that doesn't make sense. If there is only one option, then one option exists. Many options certainly do not. Your wording is altogether too cryptic, and I must ask that you clarify. So, the default choice is determined by things such as the laws of physics. However, I don't see why there can't be, say, laws of psychology that are every bit as universal as the laws of physics. There could conceivably be universal laws of sociology too. If such is the case, then a person grabbing or not grabbing a branch could potentially be known with just as much certainty as we know a rock thrown from the top of a cliff will hit the ground. I told you, I believe the question to be meaningless. So far I have scarcely offered a positive position. I am only criticizing yours. To clarify once more, I am not a determinist, I am not an indeterminist; the question of free will, I think, is meaningless. I don't follow. Let's say the closest. But why does it matter? Of course that is the determinists' argument. But my point is that there is no way to create such an experiment in any where but your mind. You can "imagineer" it all you want to, but if you can't recreate the experiment in the real world, then I don't see why I should pay too much attention to it. No, I say that the question is meaningless. I don't see how there could be 4 me's, all of which being exactly the same. If the me's are in four different universes, then I don't understand how the situation is exactly the same. If the me's are in the same universe, then I don't see how we can all be in the same place at the same time. Even the word "you" suggests that there is only one of me. True, in English the word "you" can be both singular and plural. However, that is clearly not how you're using the word. In French, you'd say "tu's" not "vous'". In German, you'd say "du's" not "ihr's". When we say "you" in the plural sense, we are always talking about two or more different people. If you used "you" in the plural sense to talk about the same person, that wouldn't make any sense. I hope this clarifies my positive position a little better. And now that you have clearly shifted the burden of proof on to me, you may criticize it any way you can. Thank you. I look forward to your response.
No logical system is absolutely complete because it can be used to come up with something that does not fit within itself- therefore you always have to add new rules. The new rules will produce new conflicts, which in turn mean you need to make newer rules to define the way to use the new rules. A square circle can be rendered mathematically in higher dimensional mathematics (explained numberically, not represented graphically), so from one perspective the squircle is a square and another it is a square ... circle.
Common Sense Wellmet Well we seem to have 'tossed about a whole bunch of ideas' But we miss eachother more oft than not No problem... all minds work differently, and utilise different perspectives, especially ones who enquire. Occam will try to draw our thinking towards a a locus. From what you say you are not a determinist. You may be interested that occam fought this battle years back. With himself. Even the greatest free thinker was just a puppet to his psychology and his premises. Choice seemed a vague and mystical thing Then it became clear All it takes is for ONE PERSON... to make a true choice. At that point reality changes fore-ever to a new path. And Determinism dies. Do you agree that humans have made such a choice? Occam
A choice based on pre-existing conditions. Don't you think the conditions would determine the choice the person makes? I promise to laugh if you don't... For example: having experience with both pleasure and pain: do you want to have a painful or pleasure filled life?
Kharakov. Everything is based on pre-existing conditions. [reality] Otherwise it would'nt exist. Those conditions rule out free will and acausal creation/action. [except to a possible god,, and that is a definition of one] They do not rule out probabillity paths open to self aware reasoning minds that comprehend the options and the paths they may lead to. Within that framework of physical reality it is quite possible to have choice. Human consciousness is not understood by humans. Yet you say you know it well enough to state that it is not possible for such a consciousness to make a rational choice between two options. [ one of which may be to do nothing.] Sorry.. Occam does not believe you know any such thing.. He believes human consciousness to be a SYNERGY... I thing that cannot be totally predicted.. A standing wave of such complexity and inter-relationship with so many factors. Most of which we seem totally ignorant of. That it is fact 'free' within the parameters of the options. Occam
