Philosophy

GranmasGotGame

GranmasGotGame

[09] Warrior
Since I didn't really find any threads devoted to philosophy and/or philosophical topics, I figured I'd make one.

In this thread, feel free to post any and everything philosophy related and or be ready to defend or attack said philosophical issues.

Please don't take any criticisms in this thread as attacks on one's personal beliefs and or life style. This is meant to be a thread for logical discussion.

*A note to trolls. Since I really have no way to stop you, I'll probably just ignore you.
 
To kick things off to anyone who wants a topic to discuss, I hold the belief that one's future does not (and in fact) can not change. A type of predetermination if you will (without anyone that predetermines it of course).

My belief goes as follows

Any choice you make, you have already made. While you technically have not chronologically made the choice yet, the outcome will remain the same as if you have already made the decision.

Some believe that as you go through life, your future is constantly changing based on the choices you make; I.E: If I decide to go to become a dentist, My future is to become a dentist. If I then change my mind and want to become an artist, my future changes according to my respective decisions. I, however, believe that while you may make the decision to become a dentist, it was always in your future to decide to become a dentist. Then should you decide to become an artist, your future does not change because you were never going to become a dentist, you were always going to first decide to become a dentist and then later change your decision and become an artist. So while your decisions and desired life outcome changed, you future stayed the same.

To explain, try viewing life like a walk along a very foggy path. Every fork in the path represents a decision you make in life. At the beginning of the path, you have not made many choices yet and the path is very uncertain. However, as you walk along the path (go through life) you make more and more choices until you reach the end of the path (death). Having reflected on the route that you took, it can be said that from the very beginning of your travels, each and every time you made a decision, you were always going to make that decision. It matters not that you could have made a left instead of a right because you were never going to make a left in the first place.

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Edit: When I say it was always in your future to decide to become a dentist, I'm saying the decision you make was always in your future; not your final occupation. So while yes you were always going to decide to become a dentist, that does not necessarily mean that it is in your future to become a dentist.
 
GranmasGotGame said:
To kick things off to anyone who wants a topic to discuss, I hold the belief that one's future does not (and in fact) can not change. A type of predetermination if you will (without anyone that predetermines it of course).

My belief goes as follows

Any choice you make, you have already made. While you technically have not chronologically made the choice yet, the outcome will remain the same as if you have already made the decision.

Some believe that as you go through life, your future is constantly changing based on the choices you make; I.E: If I decide to go to become a dentist, My future is to become a dentist. If I then change my mind and want to become an artist, my future changes according to my respective decisions. I, however, believe that while you may make the decision to become a dentist, it was always in your future to decide to become a dentist. Then should you decide to become an artist, your future does not change because you were never going to become a dentist, you were always going to first decide to become a dentist and then later change your decision and become an artist. So while your decisions and desired life outcome changed, you future stayed the same.

To explain, try viewing life like a walk along a very foggy path. Every fork in the path represents a decision you make in life. At the beginning of the path, you have not made many choices yet and the path is very uncertain. However, as you walk along the path (go through life) you make more and more choices until you reach the end of the path (death). Having reflected on the route that you took, it can be said that from the very beginning of your travels, each and every time you made a decision, you were always going to make that decision. It matters not that you could have made a left instead of a right because you were never going to make a left in the first place.

_________________________________________________________________
Edit: When I say it was always in your future to decide to become a dentist, I'm saying the decision you make was always in your future; not your final occupation. So while yes you were always going to decide to become a dentist, that does not necessarily mean that it is in your future to become a dentist.
Click to expand...

I don't necessarily agree or disagree but I think that it has a lot to do with the infinite, finite, and conception of free will.

To explain, if you believe that the initial conditions determine the final condition of a thing, then, yes, that will always be true (so long as the things that govern the way things interact with every other thing in all possible situations is always the same).

The problem is when you introduce free will (or 'other worlds') into the equation. Before getting into freewill, let me say that, as far as I know, every human experiences only one reality at once and chronologically (therefore the world that we exist in and experience is the only one we can experience). With that being said, there's no way to prove that things can be any other way because this is the only way we can know things. But being able to only experience one reality does not mean that reality cannot be changed (only that it can be experienced linearly).

With that said, if you believe in free will, sentient objects have the ability to change the course of events through time because they can effectively change another objects course. When you add the ability of something to 'act or not act as it would', you're changing the course that the initial conditions of something would have had. And, when you throw in free will, to do or not to do is always an option. Thus, you're adding a degree of randomness to the equation and, any one random thing in any system causes the final condition of that system to change (and other degrees of randomness moreso).

Something related to this is also that one math guy's proof that you cannot prove something about a system from within a system (or some ish like that--that's just the best way I remember it). And I think that applies here when you consider what I said about 'many worlds' (or an object that does not experience things as we humans do). Only an object that could effectively prove that things can be one way or another (in this not experiencing time linearly or one reality) could really say whether or not that's true. But that's the way I'm looking at it.

But, then again, I'm rambling now but I'm wondering the value of intermediate states--if the initial and final states of an object are always the same (I'm thinking equilibrium in this case) do the intermediate states even matter?
 
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