NationStates Jolt Archive

"There is no such thing as coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence."

-V for Vendetta

So...do you guys thing there is such a thing as fate? Do our decisions have meaning, or are they all just part of natural human nature and the physical world?

Any thoughts?

The only fate is the one that we make.

The only reason is within our own heads.

I have no idea.

But I do know that I was the only person posting on here in the span of five whole freaking minutes just now and was just asking myself if everybody else maybe couldn't access the forums when this thread popped up.

So at the very least, that's a rather nice coincidence. :)

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I think that's an impossible question to really answer. I mean, we know that the universe is non-deterministic thanks to quantum physics, but at the same time we're not really sure whether human beings are truly free in the most objective sense.

However, I do not think that human beings are simply products of naturalistic forces. There is simply no evidence for that being the case; naturalistic factors affect us as part of the physical world, but they do not dominate us. I can consciously reject biological and social impulses, and that's a pretty convincing sign at least to me that we are not deterministic.

And meaning is up to us to determine. Even in a fatalistic universe, we would still have different individual meanings to pursue in order to achieve whatever teleological ends the system desires.

"There is no such thing as coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence."

-V for Vendetta

So...do you guys thing there is such a thing as fate? Do our decisions have meaning, or are they all just part of natural human nature and the physical world?

Any thoughts?"There is no such thing as coincidence, Delia." Get it right!

Other than that, coincidences probably don't exist. It's all some mastermind plan to make my life miserable.

i don't believe in fate in any mystical sense. that said, everything that happens has it causes and effects stretching out on a continuum. things that are happening now are happening because of what has happened before, and what happens in the future will happen because of what is happening now and previously. certainly we are sealing our fate to some degree with every action but i don't believe in any fixed, predetermined course, there are many possible responses and outcomes to any given situation.

Yes and no to the question. I'll answer it from my Christian perspective.

I believe that God puts things in our lives, so thus some things are..."predestined", perhaps, but we are given a choice on how to react to those events, and that leaves fate in our own hands.

There is no fate. We rise and fall on chance.

No, I don't believe in fate. Our actions are influenced by what has happened in the past, and in turn, our actions have their own consequences. However, I don't believe anything is predetermined.