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Author Topic:   Destiny/Free Will
peke
Inactive Member


Message 1 of 28 (8078)
04-01-2002 9:17 PM


Just wondering what people's views on Destiny/Free Will are.
I believe that people can control their fate, that not everything is a predetermined sequence of events. It has been shown that believing in something strongly enough can make that something happen, however improbable it may be. A study has shown that patients in a hospital who are prayed for have a better chance of recovery. The human mind can influence things in a non-predetermined way.
Issac Asminov wrote a trilogy about something he called phycho-history. It concerns the calculations of how a large group of people will act, mob psychology in a way. The actions of a large group could be calculated, but the calculations could always be thrown off if an individual with enough conviction/belief appeared to change the psychology.
Even if humans are bound by destiny, I believe that humans would eventually become aware of it and break the hold that 'destiny' would have. Like the way humans can fight down INSTINCTS in favor of being CIVILIZED. The instincts of an animal will always drive it the same way. A human can change that, the same way a human can change it's fate.
Attack this all you want! My only reservation being that you attack my ideas, not my words or my analogies.

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by nator, posted 04-02-2002 12:18 AM peke has replied

  
peke
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 28 (8124)
04-02-2002 10:08 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by nator
04-02-2002 12:18 AM


quote:
It's actually true that people heal better when their OWN outlook is upbeat and hopeful, and if they have a support group.
It still proves my point. People can change their 'fate' with enough willpower/emotional support.
I'm arguing that destiny cannot be because that would mean that humans could only improve to a point. That would be true for most other creatures in a way, but humans are tool-makers. Whatever we cannot improve by ourselves, we'll improve by building something to do it for us. The fact we can keep improving ourselfs excludes destiny, because we would eventually find some scientific laws that would predict what humans would do. Destiny would have to keep itself secret, because if the rules were known to us, we would change them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by nator, posted 04-02-2002 12:18 AM nator has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Brad McFall, posted 04-03-2002 11:20 AM peke has replied
 Message 10 by nator, posted 04-07-2002 10:11 AM peke has not replied
 Message 13 by compmage, posted 04-09-2002 11:10 AM peke has not replied

  
peke
Inactive Member


Message 7 of 28 (8195)
04-04-2002 8:02 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Brad McFall
04-03-2002 11:20 AM


???? I have no idea what your last 2 messages were about...

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Brad McFall, posted 04-03-2002 11:20 AM Brad McFall has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Percy, posted 04-04-2002 8:31 PM peke has not replied

  
peke
Inactive Member


Message 28 of 28 (19755)
10-12-2002 10:54 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Percy
10-12-2002 7:57 PM


Ohh... back after all this time... just had some free time to kill
The indeteminancy in quantum physics doesn't matter on any scale that we humans use. Yes, atoms and such can't really be pinpointed in any given place, but we don't see objects as shifting blurs. Also, I believe that the overall randomness would cancel out, because all atoms of the same type act the same way. Just like how if everything moved 'left' a metre, we wouldn't notice.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Percy, posted 10-12-2002 7:57 PM Percy has not replied

  
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