FATE

fate implies predestination, thereby cancelling free will

I don't see how it cancels free will. I mean has nothing ever happened to you where you thought - SHIT, this is simply too much of a coincidence to be true, or MAN, this is incredible? My whole life is a series of such events - I have had the kind of luck you WOULD NOT BELIEVE! I'll give you examples which will make you think - NO WAY! But it's true. I still had to CHOOSE whether I wanted to approach these events as opportunities or simply nice/unusual occurences, which - and I hasten to add this - had nothing to do with spirit and occult!!!

My mother always says I lead a charmed life, but I've always believed in fate...for the good stuff and the bad.

Do you believe in choice also?

maybe not something as predestined as fate... how about karma?

For myself, choice is an illusion...I know what "choice" was always in the cards...

it's not in our power to love or hate, for will in us is overruled by fate. when two are stripped long ere the course begins, we wish that one should lose, the other win. and one do we especially affect of ingots gold, alike in each respect. the reason no man knows- let it suffice what we �

it's not in our power to love or hate, for will in us is overruled by fate. when two are stripped long ere the course begins, we wish that one should lose, the other win. and one do we especially affect of ingots gold, alike in each respect. the reason no man knows- let it suffice what we behold is censured by our eyes. where both deliberate, the love is slight. who ever loved that loved not at first sight? (marlowe)

(oops...sorry... postus interruptus or something)...

Stacey: KARMA? Please do tell me you believe in choice as well as in fate, because what I have just read frightens me. . . To Autumn and Nick: I just cannot agree that it is 'all in the cards'. I have always thought of fate as a kind of stream. We drift along, and every now and again this predestined 'course' presents an off-shoot - you have to decide whether to carry straight on or choose the alternative course. Do you know what I mean? Choice within the course of destiny.

ask me no more. thy fate and mine are sealed. i strove against the stream, and all in vain. let the great river take me to the main. no more, dear love, for at a touch i yield. ask me no more. (tennyson)

Oh, Nick, don't give me that!! It's frustrating! Tennyson did not have a choice, because he was not thinking with his head. What he thought with lied somewhere a little below the waist, and more or less in the middle. I want to ask you something - you know I have this notion that the chemistry between us just isn't right, so my question will probably set it off again. But bear in mind that I don't want to insult you. It's just that you always answer with poetry, and I was wondering: is it the only way you can express yourself? Or is this just your way of establishing a unique cyber identity? But you don't have to answer if you don't want to - I'm just curious and perhaps a little confused.

the idea I may believe in karma frightens you Riette? Perche?

thinking hurts. barely do it, 't all (when i got my druthers)... 'cause what's the use of having thoughts?- when i can borrow 'em (from others)? (when i'm really busy- like the past few days- and my time is limited, respond with the first thing that pops into my head... which is usually poetry, of varying degrees of irrelevence... ummm, really all there is to that)... your insight into tennyson is valid, i think (though i would differ, probably, with the conclusion you derived from it)... without doubt, he was no milton or coleridge, intellectually... and this is among the reasons i love him so...

No, Stacey, Karma interests me, 'cos I have not a clue what it is . . . my English is only as old as my relationship with Mr. C., and so is my knowledge of 'exotic' things - yeah, that's probably why you sometimes think: what the HELL is this woman going on about. I have not a clue what Karma is. Tell me, please.

Nick, that is truly odd! OTHER people's thoughts 'pop' into your head when you you are thinking, not your own? I believe you are possessed! Who am I speaking to now?! Elvis? I don't really read poetry, so forgive me if my interpretation of your different voices turn out to be blunders. An inevitable thing, I suspect, when one cannot even work out the meaning of *roflmao* by oneself . . .

your point is well-taken... it is my belief, however convoluted, that poetry is the ultimate expression of spirit and intellect... that is to say, it is the highest form i know, within this form i inhabit...perhaps the language of the sublime aspect we suspect (hope) adheres to us (against all logic)... i see the work created by those i read as being a continuing line of thought, treated within that aspect, and within that particular understanding... sort of like a dialogue, i suppose, possessed of intimacy and clarity unique among the disciplines i'm familiar with... and creating a connection (though i realize that sounds trite) that is profound in it's scope, because it encompasses just about every portion of human awareness, and does so within just about every perspective (and expressed in that amazing language, emanating, as i asserted, from spirit's intellect)... so (um, anyway)... simply thinking their words, or repeating them (or whatever) does not remove me (or my own point-of-view, such as it is, or thoughts, such as they are) from the processes of understanding, nor necessarily from expression of it (nor preclude either from being as uniquely my own as any other)... (and insofar as it does- or would or could or whatever- it doesn't matter... it is a privilege simply to be able to read those words, much less to think them, feel them, etc...)...

open a topic, nick :-) song: "All we know, is that we don't know, How it's gonna be, please brother let it be, life on the other hand, won't let us understand. We're all part of the MasterPlan. "

Thanks for that, Mike. You have a few damned good lines of your own, you know. But I'll deal with the poetry, and give you a good laugh with my lack of insight . . .

Nick, glad to see you back! It's been a while... Riette: Choice within the course of destiny--I like that. It's very plausible.

(hi autumn)

if there is fate and destiny yet there is a slew of opportunities to choose from would the choice made be fated? if so, would that be free will? i can see how it would feel like free will at the time i feel like i can get the hang of where different people are coming from on this just need a little more help from ya --really, i'm trying honestly to understand --probably only a few more missing links that are not missing for you, but they are for me --what are they? --i feel like i'm asking what BTW stands for when you guys already know what it means

by-the-way I do believe in free will but sometimes I rationalize it within a variable fate/destiny like this... remember those 'choose you own ending' books where at every major (or often minor) event, you (as the reader) were forced to make a decision? You could choose to stay or go, speak up or remain unheard, act or simply stand by... but there were only a certain number of possible outcomes... you had 'free will' but only within a predetermined range. The outcomes could still be totally different, but there were only so many outcomes per book. Well... If any of you read those books like me, you kept your finger on the decision page and turned swiftly back (to make the other choice) if the outcome didn't suit your tastes! (BTW, I'm still tossing the idea back and forth. I'm not sure I believe in fate and destiny, but when I consider the possibility, that is the way I rationalize it with free will)

isn't the question itself something of an exercize in mind-f******? if free will is an illusion (made so by "destiny" or "fate" or whatever) it is not a thing we can know, anyway... i dunno... i waver in my attitude re: this issue, too, i suppose... can say this... if fate does exist (or destiny) it seems a sorry thing, to me... to believe that everything that seems to be is supposed to be is a frightening thought...

(actually, Stacey, I used to read those kinda books straight thru...)

*laugh*

Gee, Nick, thanks so much for calling my topic an exercise in mind-fucking. It makes me feel all warm inside.

not your topic Riette. the question itself. (deep breath, no harm done) and, if you consider it, most of these topics are excercises in just that. do we really feel as if we are going to stumble upon an answer? I think I just enjoy exploring the general consensus, seeing how I fit it, seeing what else is out there, coming to my own conclusions. BUT... if I let myself get too wrapped up, I come out looking like last month's JELLO mold!

I meant it humorously! Don't worry, Stacey, it's only been two weeks . . . I'm not going to go bonkers right now! Ha-HA! God, am I that unstable?!?!?! I apologize.

there is fate; there is not-fate. life is both determined and non-determined. we have parameters of freedom -- but beyond that we hit the wall.

*peeling myself off of the wall* Hi Americ! Great to see you here again!

AMERIC! (thought we drove you away!) ummm... so do you believe in fate? (or not?)

sounds more like fatesque or psuedofate to me

or just another definition of the word

Yeah, Americ, tell us about the determined part---that fate stuff. Is that wall made of fate? Does fate like to come late and take its time with crime? Does it come too soon with a tablespoon of cartoon? Does it like to hide in wait and set up the blind date? What does fate look like when it stands out in the limelight? Why does it do what it wants to? Does fate want? Do you ever find it wanting? What's it based on? Who is it? Who really is Fate?

would that be the wall of Lack of Knowledge or maybe the wall of Too Much Knowing?

maybe the wall of too-much-knowing (of our) lack-of-knowledge (or's it the other way around?) either way, i believe strongly in the inexorability or whatever of fate, at least on some level...

Fate is a strange thing. What exactly does it mean? 'Inevitable destiny', the dictionary says. But I wonder how much that inevitable destiny depends on the choices we make. Also, doesn't 'inevitable destiny' provide us with an all to convenient excuse for our own lapses in judgement?

Me getting deep here (snicker)-- Fate and life choices are intertwined. I see life as a road with many crossroads and forks. We decide which one we'll take, and fate is the consequences of our decisions and actions. I don't believe in fate as predestination because I wasn't raised Protestant.

Help me here, George, clear me up---are you saying that since I decided to apply for a job and since I acted on that decision by submitting an application, and since I got the job, that it was therefore fate that I got the job? Does that mean that once my decision was made, and my action completed, that, in this case, I was predestined to get the job? Would you say that you would agree with the last sentence if the word "fate" replaced the word "predestined"? If so, what's the distinction? I was trying to take your meaning of fate by fleshing it out with an example, to see if the example would zero in more on how your meaning for fate really diverges from the 'predestination' meaning.

some things are inevitable, other's not, i suppose... and the consequences of choices are evident too (esp. bad ones)... i see fate as being perhaps more accurately a design woven through one's life that is removed somewhat somehow from choice or motive or even (seeming) desire or (ostensible) need (sometimes)... sometimes choices still cannot entirely obscure it, depending upon how strong it is or we are or whatever... (planning on naming child 'fate', actually...when we decide to have one)

OK then, maybe there is no fate. There is no predestination except that we all need to eat, drink, sleep, and (one day) die. Nothing else is inevitable.

just about everything attached to human beings is 'inevitable' taken from the larger view... from our own, who can tell? a matter of conviction or faith or whatever i suppose... it is i admit a belief rooted in mysticism... anti-intellectual fundamentally, which isn't altogether bad...

Let's say that life is an inevitable design, because it doesn't matter what anyone chooses or what their motives or needs or desires are. Life will be there for however long it lasts, no matter what. How do we know that life, that design called life, how do we know that it's inevitable. Let's say we know that it exists, that life exists. Do we say that life is inevitable because it exists? Do we say it was inevitable because it means something, because it has meaning? Life has meaning, it's a design, therefore it was/is fate that there is life? What if there are lotsa other things going on in the universe that are quite different from life, but are just as fundamental to existence---could it be that life wasn't fated to happen, it was just one of an infinite number of possibilities that came to be? In other words, how do we tell the difference between inevitability or fate, and just whatever we might consider non-inevitability and non-fate? How do we know, how do we tell, that there is any of this stuff? Is it intuition? Some sentient capacity? Does fate have to hinge on this ability to be able to tell whether something is or is not fated, or was or was not fated? So if we're talking about fate, we're also necessarily talking about this ability? Let's say fate does not depend on this ability to tell that something is fate, how can we say that? What's enabling anybody to say that? Intuition again? Or just some capacity that we can't explain or comprehend? If so, how do we know that this capacity is not some possibility among an infinite number of possibilities where it's just something that seems to be this capacity but is really something else, very mysterious, but not this capacity to tell that there is fate or that something was fated or is fated to happen? In other words, with fate, it's all about belief? What is belief all about (if that's what fate really comes down to)? Couldn't we say that any design, that we notice, is inevitable? How do we pick the inevitable ones from the non-inevitable ones? By noticing that choice and need and desire and motive are not involved, right? But not according to George. What if the choice was inevitable. How would we know if a choice we made was inevitable or not? Which is another way of saying.....how would we know if the choice or design is inevitable or not? Which is another way of saying that fate depends on how we know what we say we know---and isn't that another way of saying that it depends on belief? So, again, what does belief depend on? So it would be this, that fate is a belief that depends on _________ I mean what do we mean when we say "I believe this" or "I believe that"? Are we saying that we don't know what we're saying, and that it's as good as speculation? So if we're not saying that, we're saying that belief is some inexplicable impression that we're getting, and it has some sort of mysterious realness about it somehow. And what always goes through my mind in those moments when I hear my or someone else's belief, is that there may be other possibilities, other designs, that if they were apprehended, they would make the belief inconclusive (it would take the inevitability out of it). But if someone says, "well, no, they may both be inevitable designs---this belief and that other possibility---they may both be fate", then it just comes back to belief and the question, "what gives belief to belief?" Why do we believe our belief is so believable? Somewhere along the line it feels like there's a real heavy emotional investment going on around the outcome---a real strong need. The belief holder feels that's not so. The belief holder feels it's unrelated to herself or himself, and that it is beyond what we can know. I just wonder why it isn't also beyond what we can believe. What is it that is believing? Could it be fate, by any chance? Fate (not chance) is believing itself through us, maybe?, who knows..... It's so self-referential and self-sealing, insulated, it's completely fool-proof, the perfect closed circuit, the thing that conveniently stores some kind of certainty, some answer, and keeps providing security.....and keeps on providing. But all these thoughts I just had here, they're really very little different from a belief, if you ask me.....I know belief is supposed to have a little more or alot more going for it than just some thoughts about belief or fate, but maybe they're all three (1, thoughts about belief and fate---2, belief---3, fate) up to the exact same tricks, same mind candy. Good old language making boundaries where none exist, perhaps?

Didn't see Responses 42 and 43 before doing 44.

dammit jim! I had to read this conference to find out you were gainfully employed (or at least given the opportunity!) congratulations on being chosen to slave 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. (not particularly MY personal view but a view held by some)

That's FATE for you!

FATE is like luck. To some degree, you make your own.

It's funny how that "dammit" happens when it does. I got one from Autumn when she found out I "knew" French. I get one from you, Stacey, when you found out I "have" a job. When I said the thing about the job, above, in this conference, I didn't even have it---I just was trying to think of a real-life example to talk better about what we were talking about then. Now I have a job, though. But it does feel good to hear (read) someone say dammit like that. Because maybe I matter or something. Or maybe something about me or something I have matters. But I don't really wanna matter. Feels vain. Feels conditional. I don't think I matter much (except in some way that doesn't have anything to do with mattering). It doesn't matter anyway. This kind of thinking is so stupid. But it's fun and funny when Holly Hunter thinks like that out loud in "Living Out Loud"

wow Jim, that gives me a whole new perspective on the word dammit! Although I do think I kinda know (maybe not!) what you're talking about. It's like when I make someone mad REALLY MAD, it's kinda nice in a way because obviously they give a damn about what I've done, said, thought or think. Or perhaps it's more like negative attention is better than no attention at all. nah. I think it's that other stuff.

Man! Food for thought. like someone hitting you over the head with a 4x4 to get your attention. Makes you wonder what else you've been oblivious to.

here's a strange thing: when I feel touched by someone I sometimes say that the way it happened doesn't matter and that it even happened, even that doesn't matter and then I ask myself what I mean by that like how could I say such a thing and here's how: when I let go of a good thing and it really becomes real gone there's this beautiful freedom that feels sorta pure or something it reaps me wide open and the next moment I'm in touch with that person it's new it's fresh it's like how the desert feels when it feels and it feels for the flame in a person's heart

At times like this, I wish I could print off the contents of the screen. Unfortunately all the printers are locked up.

Jim is good at doing that. And then he imagines that he or something about him doesn't MATTER to us? Of COURSE it does, Jim!

i have to print jim's comments off then read them later. they are too rich for my little peabrain to absorb in one sitting in front of the computer.

I wish I could print them off. I'd like to save them. Jim is a real wordsmith. You don't find many around. I am a fan of Edgar Allen Poe. I think that jim has easily as much talent. And, he's not as morbid.

he's damn creative, that's for sure. personally, i think he is actually either: 1) a disembodied human brain living in a jar and connected to a computer, or 2) a superior artificial intelligence living "out there" on the net somewhere! ;)

ha-ha! What if you're right, Ray?? Oh my God, how creepy! But it's true: Jim has a way with words that is just out of this world. We should persuade him to write a book, seriously.

I agree. It'd be a hell of a lot better than most of what is out there now.

Topic 24 of 33 [philosophy]: FATE Response 57 of 59: Ray Lopez (ratthing) * Thu, Nov 19, 1998 (15:31) * 12 lines he's damn creative, that's for sure. personally, i think he is actually either: 1) a disembodied human brain living in a jar and connected to a computer, or 2) a superior artificial intelligence living "out there" on the net somewhere! ************ Wish I could tell you all for sure, but he wasn't answerin the phone when I was whirlwinding around Austin Jim, I gotta admit, that does give some creedance to the brain/jar theory!

ooh, my brain just got jarred. that was quite a jolt. if anyone wants to visit me, my new residence is at the St. Louis zoo. the orangutan now has a pet. pet-in-a-jar, now that's more accurate. it's me. Stace, I work from 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and, but, your voice did visit me. it was really something. the way your voice sounds was such a surprise, but then again it was a surprise visit, so...... but man, I was just carrying the sound of your voice around with me in my head for such a while. when the orangutan blew bubbles in the jar, it made your voice come back on and leave a message. it was like.....surprise again.

the new job sounds perfect for your biological clock! "Bubble, bubble. Toil and trouble..."

How's your new job, Stacey?

Wow! I was about 4 weeks shy of my company's mass layoff before bankruptcy when you asked that Paul... and about 10 weeks shy of becoming a Mommy. Now I'm a full-time Mommy and part-time contractor (instructional design and project management)... and happy about it!

What's a typical project like for you?

Depends on whether the intended training is lecture-based, print only or a computer-based project. I do turn key projects on a variety of topics but lately have been doing mostly computer-based stuff. I work with the company/individuals to write the training and verify accuracy, we story board it out and then I either take the programming on myself (using Authorware) or farm it out depending on the size of the project. I also arrange for voice over talent and the necessary down-sampling of the files, any video shots and the editing involved as well as CD duplication. Everything depends on the scope of the project really... I'm picking and choosing projects pretty carefully now... I want to have ample time to spend with my children and not run myself too ragged.

How much technical expertise is required to use Authorware? Do you like it? What does it do, exactly?

Just about none! *grin* I love it. Basically, it is a drag and drop programming tool that allows to you create a program flow by stringing icons together. You can attach pictures, movies, sound files, etc. to individual icons to create a movie-like program. There are opportunities for creating variables and coding certain 'traits' into certain icons as well. Director is another tool I use however, that program is a bit more complicated, with the added reward of having more features and versatility. Both are Macromedia tools.