The Energon Pub

What do believe about destiny or being predestined to do something before you were born? Is it something you can change during your lifetime or something that doesn't have to be followed, or are you following it? Or, quite simply do you believe in it at all?

Here's the funny part:


I do.


People like to say they don't believe in fate because they want to be in control of their own lives. But that is just a desire, it has no bearing on reality.

I am very interested in the whole extra-dimensional thing. What would the world be like if we could see four sides of something, instead of just three. If we could see the fourth dimensional dip in space that massive objects like stars and black holes supposedly create.

Some like to say that the fourth dimension is time, or more accurately, that time is a fourth dimension. If we could see it, we would see the whole world; ourselves, the planet, space, everything, in all moments of its existence at once. In other words, a fourth-dimensional filmstrip.

That means therefore, that you could see the future. That it does, in fact, exist right alongside the past and present. A fourth dimension is not some higher plane, some place you could get to with a portal. No, it is all around us, but our brains are not smart enough to see it, outside of the illusion of passing time. But then that brings up the question: are insects that fly, like bees, smart enough to see even the third?

At least, that's my understanding of it. Some people might be able to clarify. Tammuz?


And no, the positions of the constellations have no effect on the future. Nor do they indicate what is about to happen.

My life is the same whether there is such a thing as "destiny" or not. It ultimately does not matter if I do what I do out of genuine free will or if it was the only possible outcome.

I dont know enough about this topic voice a real opinion, I find it quite interesting but lots of maths is involved and I cannot fully grasp the consept. I need someone to explain it to me . But I do predict that Im going to tell Omega Charge that his sig looks like dino sex

I think it's piss. I mean let's say a baby is born with severe complications and dies right after delivery. So, would you say that baby was predestined to die? No, that's stupid.

Are suicides predestined? No.

Destiny is some magic force guiding the outcome of everything in your life. Magic doesn't exist.

You and the world around you controls the outcome of your life.

Flashbang wrote:I think it's piss. I mean let's say a baby is born with severe complications and dies right after delivery. So, would you say that baby was predestined to die? No, that's stupid.

Are suicides predestined? No.

Destiny is some magic force guiding the outcome of everything in your life. Magic doesn't exist.

You and the world around you controls the outcome of your life.

If someone believes in fate then yes a baby could be predestined to die. In their mind, if a baby dies at or before birth, there is a reason and yes it was predestined. Nothing happens without reason in fate. Perhaps the baby's death caused an awakening in the mother or at least started her down the path she needed to be going. Perhaps she was nearing death herself because of a bad lifestyle and the guilt from her baby dying caused her to change. Maybe she was a good woman and the sorrow of her baby's death lead her to help comfort women that had been through the same situation. That comfort would in turn keep other mothers from losing their sense of self worth.

Similar situations arise from suicide. As grim a message as it may be, it can bring awareness to something that people would otherwise not take seriously or pay enough attention to.

Fate doesn't mean that someone's life is worth keeping because they're going to do something that changes the world in a profound way. It simply means that what needs to happen will happen and no one is sure of the way. All we can do is fine a way to make our lives work for ourselves.

I'm not saying I believe in fate, I'm just saying that it's more than just a silly idea. I do believe that even if it exists, we can't possibly know what our own fate is and we should continue to live our lives the way we feel they should be lead.

I totally believe in fate, i think most people are closed minded to it as its far to scary for most people to think they have no control over their own lives.

My take on it all is that all time already exists we're simply coasting through it until such time as we die and as such every choice we make has already happened and been predetermined, all the second guessing and times we change our mind does not ultimately change the end result.

Example:

I'm going on holiday on 7th December this year. I have a bad feeling the plan will crash, i decide not to go, then the plane crashes/explodes ala Final Destination.

I could say i changed my own fate and saved myself, but in truth i was never meant to get on the plane, all the times i kept changing my mind were irrelevant as i didn't board that plane.

I really do hate people who think there that important in cosmic events that they control every aspect of their lives and cant see that bad things do have some silver linings.

When people die or have a tragedy/bad tim hit them or their family it makes them more aware and changes the course of their life, my example of this was as follows:

Quit my well paid job in city of London as i hated it, ended up temping with a firm my friend worked at for very little money, was an okay job i enjoyed but i had no spare income, and was living in a hotel come bedsit and couldn't afford my own place, what was worse all my furniture was in storage eating all wages each week as well.

This scenario carried on for 18 months, until i took a slightly better paid job, this involved lots of travelling each day and i didnt really like it, however it gave me the chance to save a deposit for a place with my aforementioned friend. We choose an appartment based on renting long term as i was sick of constant moving, anyway after 2 weeks the neighbour told us the landlord only rented his property out during the winter and cancelled the tenancy after 6 months and had done so for the past few years and mislead all his previous tenants in the same way. This meant i would be looking for somewhere else in a few months, then my company were moving operations from UK to Asia, so this generally meant lay offs.

At this point everything seemed so crap, and i was uber depressed, then i discovered they were moving to Singapore (uncle and aunt live there) and they were offering me a promotion if i moved in a few months.

End result if it hadnt been for landlord wanting to kick us out after a few months i would have had to turn down this great offer, and before that if i had kept my job in London i would not be living on the other side of the world.

I tend to see all of this as fate as all the bad things that happened, if they had played out differently would not lead me to where i am now, people tend to focus on where they are now and forget that if it were not for certain bad things happened in their lives then things would be very different.

we cannot choose who we are, but what are we but the sum of our choices?

Tangent wrote:But I do predict that Im going to tell Omega Charge that his sig looks like dino sex

That's because it is meant to. That's the joke. I'm 99.999999995% certain that's why he chose it.


Oh and, you don't need to make sex a littel font. We all know what it is. It's not naughty any more.




Holy crap, I just realized this is a transformers site.

skyshadowprimus wrote:I totally believe in fate, i think most people are closed minded to it as its far to scary for most people to think they have no control over their own lives.

My take on it all is that all time already exists we're simply coasting through it until such time as we die and as such every choice we make has already happened and been predetermined, all the second guessing and times we change our mind does not ultimately change the end result.

Example:

I'm going on holiday on 7th December this year. I have a bad feeling the plan will crash, i decide not to go, then the plane crashes/explodes ala Final Destination.

I could say i changed my own fate and saved myself, but in truth i was never meant to get on the plane, all the times i kept changing my mind were irrelevant as i didn't board that plane.

I really do hate people who think there that important in cosmic events that they control every aspect of their lives and cant see that bad things do have some silver linings.

When people die or have a tragedy/bad tim hit them or their family it makes them more aware and changes the course of their life, my example of this was as follows:

Quit my well paid job in city of London as i hated it, ended up temping with a firm my friend worked at for very little money, was an okay job i enjoyed but i had no spare income, and was living in a hotel come bedsit and couldn't afford my own place, what was worse all my furniture was in storage eating all wages each week as well.

This scenario carried on for 18 months, until i took a slightly better paid job, this involved lots of travelling each day and i didnt really like it, however it gave me the chance to save a deposit for a place with my aforementioned friend. We choose an appartment based on renting long term as i was sick of constant moving, anyway after 2 weeks the neighbour told us the landlord only rented his property out during the winter and cancelled the tenancy after 6 months and had done so for the past few years and mislead all his previous tenants in the same way. This meant i would be looking for somewhere else in a few months, then my company were moving operations from UK to Asia, so this generally meant lay offs.

At this point everything seemed so crap, and i was uber depressed, then i discovered they were moving to Singapore (uncle and aunt live there) and they were offering me a promotion if i moved in a few months.

End result if it hadnt been for landlord wanting to kick us out after a few months i would have had to turn down this great offer, and before that if i had kept my job in London i would not be living on the other side of the world.

I tend to see all of this as fate as all the bad things that happened, if they had played out differently would not lead me to where i am now, people tend to focus on where they are now and forget that if it were not for certain bad things happened in their lives then things would be very different.

No offense, but I think you're a little delusional. I mean, you seem a little too affected by lame stories and Hollywood and you probably listen to whatever some new-age hippie says. Look at things scientifically. Use logic.

Also, why does there have to be a reason or purpose for something good or bad to happen? Good things just happen and bad things just happen. The cosmos doesn't control anything. The cosmos is just stars and planets and gases.

Flashbang wrote:

skyshadowprimus wrote:I totally believe in fate, i think most people are closed minded to it as its far to scary for most people to think they have no control over their own lives.

My take on it all is that all time already exists we're simply coasting through it until such time as we die and as such every choice we make has already happened and been predetermined, all the second guessing and times we change our mind does not ultimately change the end result.

Example:

I'm going on holiday on 7th December this year. I have a bad feeling the plan will crash, i decide not to go, then the plane crashes/explodes ala Final Destination.

I could say i changed my own fate and saved myself, but in truth i was never meant to get on the plane, all the times i kept changing my mind were irrelevant as i didn't board that plane.

I really do hate people who think there that important in cosmic events that they control every aspect of their lives and cant see that bad things do have some silver linings.

When people die or have a tragedy/bad tim hit them or their family it makes them more aware and changes the course of their life, my example of this was as follows:

Quit my well paid job in city of London as i hated it, ended up temping with a firm my friend worked at for very little money, was an okay job i enjoyed but i had no spare income, and was living in a hotel come bedsit and couldn't afford my own place, what was worse all my furniture was in storage eating all wages each week as well.

This scenario carried on for 18 months, until i took a slightly better paid job, this involved lots of travelling each day and i didnt really like it, however it gave me the chance to save a deposit for a place with my aforementioned friend. We choose an appartment based on renting long term as i was sick of constant moving, anyway after 2 weeks the neighbour told us the landlord only rented his property out during the winter and cancelled the tenancy after 6 months and had done so for the past few years and mislead all his previous tenants in the same way. This meant i would be looking for somewhere else in a few months, then my company were moving operations from UK to Asia, so this generally meant lay offs.

At this point everything seemed so crap, and i was uber depressed, then i discovered they were moving to Singapore (uncle and aunt live there) and they were offering me a promotion if i moved in a few months.

End result if it hadnt been for landlord wanting to kick us out after a few months i would have had to turn down this great offer, and before that if i had kept my job in London i would not be living on the other side of the world.

I tend to see all of this as fate as all the bad things that happened, if they had played out differently would not lead me to where i am now, people tend to focus on where they are now and forget that if it were not for certain bad things happened in their lives then things would be very different.

No offense, but I think you're a little delusional. I mean, you seem a little too affected by lame stories and Hollywood and you probably listen to whatever some new-age hippie says. Look at things scientifically. Use logic.

Also, why does there have to be a reason or purpose for something good or bad to happen? Good things just happen and bad things just happen. The cosmos doesn't control anything. The cosmos is just stars and planets and gases.

In what way am i delusional?

I don't buy into stuff on a whim and am a very logic person but i am open to the fact there are forces in life i cant understand much less explain.

That said i dont think everything is divined and holds a deep meaning, i just think bad things happen for some reason and are part of a bigger far reaching series of events that are the backdrop to our lives, i guess its just my way of looking at crap that gets dealt and not seeing the bad in it and finding how it has knock on effects months/years down the line.

The main point of my original post was to highlight all our choices are as immutable as a novel and no amount of hope or wishing will change the ultimate outcome

So, if I put a gun to my head it's not really my choice whether I live or die - a cosmic force has already decided whether I pull the trigger or not?

That's basically what you're saying if you believe in destiny.

This is a question that no one will really be able to answer for sure. The theory of destiny would explain a lot of things though, and simply cannot be disproved.
If you look at the history of Earth from the beginning up til now, you will see a definite storyline. Everything makes sense when you see the pig picture.
Also there have been a LOT of cases where people could just tell that something bad was going to happen before it did. It suggests that there is a way, some way we don't know yet, to tap into time in an extraordinary way that allows us to see future events, or, perhaps, the entire timeline. Something like that would be very dangrous. But perhaps the future is only fixed untill someone taps into it and can find out how to change it.
If someone could discover the secret to unlocking time, things beyond your imagination will happen. If time is predestined and someone managed to tap into time and change something, the future would be scrambled or break down entirely. Or perhaps time would always find a way to correct itself, even by eliminating the person destined to try to change it. But perhaps...

You're all talking about science FICTION and not ACTUAL science! You're just making things up. There is no evidence to support any of it. Cite your damned sources.

Flashbang wrote:So, if I put a gun to my head it's not really my choice whether I live or die - a cosmic force has already decided whether I pull the trigger or not?

That's basically what you're saying if you believe in destiny.

That's fatalism-- that the universe controls you. Versus total variability (need a better word)-- that you decide everything. What I believe SSP is going for is balanced determinism-- the universe controls your fate, but you are part of the universe, so you have some say in that. You can't choose whether the guy breaks in front of you in traffic, but you can choose whether or not to run into him. What you want is predetermined, every choice you make would not be chosen if the world hadn't presented the problem to you, but yet you have control over how you deal with that. Don't sell yourself to short or too far.

Dark Zarak wrote:

Tangent wrote:But I do predict that Im going to tell Omega Charge that his sig looks like dino sex

That's because it is meant to. That's the joke. I'm 99.999999995% certain that's why he chose it.


Oh and, you don't need to make sex a littel font. We all know what it is. It's not naughty any more.




Holy crap, I just realized this is a transformers site.

I just like to whisper! It was also the first thing I thought of.

I dont know about this whole predetermind thing, it's not simply that I dont like the idea, it's just that there are so many posible outcomes of everything, and I have yet to have seen a totally convinving argument in favor of it, at the moment, it's still speculation.

If everything IS predetermind, and our actions have no meanings, not only what is the point of everything, but how could absolutly everything have an imoble set outcome? What determines this outcome? This is the main thing I dont understand.

Tangent wrote:If everything IS predetermind, and our actions have no meanings, not only what is the point of everything, but how could absolutly everything have an imoble set outcome? What determines this outcome? This is the main thing I dont understand.

Nothing has any inherent meaning-- there's no worth unless somebody puts value to it. Even if there's a god to put worth into everything, it's still his opinion, his viewpoint. Just because I like rabbits, doesn't mean you will. Perspective counts for a lot. As Nietzsche said, it is not so much the truth that condemns a man, but how he views the truth. There's a silver lining to everything.

A paraphrased proof (just wiki 'determinism' for more complex stuff): Everything within the universe (at least all observed) affects everything else in the universe in a rational manner. The definition of the universe is everything in existence, so thus it can't be affected by anything outside it. Thus, everything in the universe is made by the actions of the past and affects the actions of the future.

This can be extended into the concept of Eternal Return based on the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter-- everything repeats an an infinite loop, but that isn't necessarily what's being asked.

Nothing has any inherent meaning-- there's no worth unless somebody puts value to it. Even if there's a god to put worth into everything, it's still his opinion, his viewpoint. Just because I like rabbits, doesn't mean you will. Perspective counts for a lot. As Nietzsche said, it is not so much the truth that condemns a man, but how he views the truth. There's a silver lining to everything.

A paraphrased proof (just wiki 'determinism' for more complex stuff): Everything within the universe (at least all observed) affects everything else in the universe in a rational manner. The definition of the universe is everything in existence, so thus it can't be affected by anything outside it. Thus, everything in the universe is made by the actions of the past and affects the actions of the future.

This can be extended into the concept of Eternal Return based on the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter-- everything repeats an an infinite loop, but that isn't necessarily what's being asked.[/quote]

Okay, I understand that, it's nice and logical. I didnt mean to ask if any action had an inherent value or worth, I'm bad at explaining.

But if you help explain one more thing. I still dont get how everything in the universe interacting something could affect people, you know, on a really basic level, such as simply agreeing or dissagreing with someone about something. That simple act would affect the future, and be based on expeience from the past. But such thought processes are simple electrical signals the the brain, so how can something such as that be predetermind by the actions of universe as a whole?

Perhaps I have simply missed something...

Tangent wrote:

DesalationReborn wrote:Nothing has any inherent meaning-- there's no worth unless somebody puts value to it. Even if there's a god to put worth into everything, it's still his opinion, his viewpoint. Just because I like rabbits, doesn't mean you will. Perspective counts for a lot. As Nietzsche said, it is not so much the truth that condemns a man, but how he views the truth. There's a silver lining to everything.

A paraphrased proof (just wiki 'determinism' for more complex stuff): Everything within the universe (at least all observed) affects everything else in the universe in a rational manner. The definition of the universe is everything in existence, so thus it can't be affected by anything outside it. Thus, everything in the universe is made by the actions of the past and affects the actions of the future.

This can be extended into the concept of Eternal Return based on the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter-- everything repeats an an infinite loop, but that isn't necessarily what's being asked.

Okay, I understand that, it's nice and logical. I didnt mean to ask if any action had an inherent value or worth, I'm bad at explaining.

But if you help explain one more thing. I still dont get how everything in the universe interacting something could affect people, you know, on a really basic level, such as simply agreeing or dissagreing with someone about something. That simple act would affect the future, and be based on expeience from the past. But such thought processes are simple electrical signals the the brain, so how can something such as that be predetermind by the actions of universe as a whole?

Perhaps I have simply missed something...

The problem is, even on the molecular and subatomic level, the exchange of matter and energy in the universe affects what happens, and every individual instance divides and twists in it's rippling affects a thousand over, so it's hard to track. I suggest reading "A Sound of Thunder." It's a really short story that, although hypothetical and fantasy in many instances, helps broach the subject.

Due to our chemistry, our own disposition and mentality is determined by two things: A) the construction of our brains, and B) the instances that affect the development of it. Since you inherit your genetics from your parents, your own disposition is not only determined by what happened to you today, but your parents meeting, falling in love, and the proper mixing of germ cells into a zygote. They themselves are not only products of their parents, and their parents parents, and so forth, but of the food they and their parents ate, whether they survived long enough to reproduce, and what specific instance sparked their love, etc. And any grouping of the thousands of variables are determined by not only the actions of others, but the environment. They would not have met if their reactions to the world around them didn't lead them to do so, and their reactions are determined by their personal dispostion, which again formed by the actions of the past.

It's not necessarily the cosmo's direct affect on their brains, but the instances, the things that make them, intertwine so tightly it's hard to distinguish.

Even on a genetic level, many mutations in our DNA rely on a single photon breaking through a cells' membrane to hit a certain area in a DNA molecule, which is determined by, among many other things, it's trejectory, which is determined by it's placement in the sun's surface, which is determined by it's position when gravity fist pulled the molecules together, which is determined by...

It can go on forever. Try to apply this as well to photosynthesis in plants and how it becomes the bread you eat, the gravitational and other forces affecting the earth that allow for our existence, how a few photons at first can lead to the formation of a hurricane, etc.

I think that was what you're asking. Anything I'm not answering?

Nope, you explained that perfectly, thanks. I think I understand properly now. I'v read the story in that link before too, and many similar. Good stuff.

I don't know if there is something like destiny, if there is that would explain my life, f not it doesn't make a difference, cos I do what I think is my free will.

And No I don't think you can change it, not even Raziel could do that and he was soposed to be able to.

Tangent wrote:Nope, you explained that perfectly, thanks. I think I understand properly now. I'v read the story in that link before too, and many similar. Good stuff.

Yep-- and sorry if that link seemed a little kiddish-- it was the only full-text link on wikipedia. Wonderful site, though one does have to be careful.