I'm not actually sure if I have this in the right category on this site...

I wish to explain how I view fate and free will. I haven't read anything on the topic myself though from high school I remember my 10th grade English teacher once giving us an assignment to explain whether we believed in free will or fate. I was the only kid in the class that didn't pick one or the other. I tried to explain my reasoning but wasn't able to put it into words well. It made sense to me but I couldn't explain it. It's been 2 years now and I just thought I'd toss up some ideas to now try and explain were I'm coming from. Again I don't know what the popular thought is on the topic so please remember that when reading what I've written so simply replying saying "that's what so and so refuted" or "that idea is 100's of years old" I'm not saying I'm expecting that my ideas are to be anything new. Though I wish to put them down before being influenced by reading about what other say on the topic.


Let's define some stuff real quick. I grabbed these definitions off of Dictionary.com


Fate: something that unavoidably befalls a person.
Free will: free and independent choice; voluntary decision
Freedom: (my definition) the ability to partake in things not restrained by makers of the law.


So this is how I see it. I would say that every living thing on earth has free will. When I say that I say that they can choose to make their own decisions that their isn't if you will a marionette type force that makes them do things that they do not wish to do. This does not exclude people put into life threatening situations where someone points a gun to their head and says "do this or I will kill you" I think some would say that that is an act that at that situation would show that free will does not encompass all decisions at all times. Though I would say that just by the way that what the offender worded his phrase to you it is evident that there are at least 2 choices. Simplistically there are 2 choices. 1. Do as he says. 2. Do not do as he says. The victim is the one that makes those choices thus an act of free will. Now he is limited to 2 simplistic choices but the way in which the victim acts while completing those choices can also vary even more to an infinite degree of options. Even if the offender takes a hold of the victim and man handles the person into completing their desires the victim still has the options of whether or not to resist or to comply. Again he has an infinite amount of ways in which he can play out those 2 options. So I would say that this example of a lack of free will is an awful refutation because it is no different then when someone goes through life making all of their daily choices. Yes there is a difference in that the act intervenes with your freedom as a person that is enforced by the government but that is different then free will. You may disagree and I will give this example. You are driving down the road and someone cuts you off and you have to slam on the brakes to keep from colliding with them. No one wishes for someone to cut them off while driving so it's safe to say that it is a negative action directed at you. That negative action may have not been something that you wanted but you wouldn't go so far as to say that my free will was violated by him cutting me off impeding me entirely from maintaining my current speed as I so desired. It would have been impossible for the victim to have maintained their current speed as they so desired. If they did not choose to slow down then they would have rammed into the back of the car and their current speed would have been decreased. [which it would have to be since the only way to make contact with the car is if the driver behind accelerates or the driver in front is decelerating] Either way the instantaneous speed before collision is less then the instantaneous speed after the collision. Of course if the victim slams on the brakes he is slowing down. So its safe to say that his desire of continuing forward without slowing down has been violated. Now back to free will. Is the violation of his desire to continue forward without impedance a violation of his free will. No, his desires and freedom to do as he pleases with in the laws of the government are simply desires. The law does not forbid people to participate in sports. Though someone paralyzed is not able to on their own power participate in sports that does not mean that they don't desire to participate. Let's say that a paralyzed person desires to participate in sports there is nothing stopping them from doing so other then an unavoidable situation that is not able to be circumnavigated. So someones free will is to be restrained by unchangeable forces. Example: Lots of children wish to fly yet it is physically impossible. Being physically impossible is the unchangeable force. I relate this back to the driver his desires are bound by the actions of those around him. Also I will relate this to someone physically being forced into a displeasing act. They do not desire it, though unless they can change the situation so that it is avoidable then it is an unavoidable situation that can not be overcome. So the persons simplistic definition of free will as a freedom is violated but it is only that freedom. So the person who is having their freedom violated in a certain situation does not also have their free will also violated in that situation because free will is not part of that situation. Meaning their free will is neither violated nor observed. In the situation where the child desires to fly you would not say that their free will was violated or observed because their free will is not even present in situations where a decision can not be made with at least 2 options. So in no situation is their ever a violation of free will. Now to tie fate into things.


Fate, repeating the definition again is "something that unavoidably befalls a person" I'm not sure I entirely like that definition because it does not speak the opposite of free will. Is fate merely all unavoidable occurrences? If so then when the person was cut off above while driving they were fated to be cut off yet that doesn't interfere with their free will, that interferes with their freedom. So if fate is merely those unavoidable circumstances then you can easily have free will and fate in the same world as they do not interact at any time on any level. Following that definition you could define free will as the lack of fate. Though I'm not going to talk in depth upon that interpretation of the definition I'm going to talk more about what I have heard others say about what fate is. Some say things like "you were fated to marry that person" by that they mean you could not have chosen other wise. Though the issue with disproving them you run into is that you did already make that decision so you can't say "well your wrong because I won't marry her\him" since you already did. So the person making the statement has an advantage over you whether or not they know or intend to have it. They say it as if they know the future though the future has now become the past so they are simply stating that about the situation. Someone could say "you were fated to do that" about everything that you have done in your past without running into any trouble or so they think because you have already done it. Could you have chosen other wise back when you proposed to said person? Of course you could have their was no force that forced you to complete the act without your say in the matter. If you had chosen other wise the universe would not have exploded, imploded or ceased to exist. That decision would have been your fate. So something does not become fate until you have decided it. I think you can view free will as all things in the future and fate as all things in the past. Fate = History, Free will = Future. How can I say this? Well lets look at an example. When an author has completed a fictitious book and we'll say he has agreed not to update the book with a new printing with changes. (I can't think of an example where a author that published a fictitious book then reprinted with the main character having different qualities for example) Once the book is completed whomever reads the book will always read the same story. The characters in the story will always do the same acts. Though before a reader first finishes the book they do not know what decisions the characters will make nor do the characters in the book know their future. Yet the author knows that by the end of the book exactly what decisions would be made. From the characters point of view he has free choices. Yes he doesn't really have free choices because the author made those choices for him. In a real life example there is no actual author. Even the person making the decisions is not their own author per say because they do not know the decisions that they will make in the future. Though its not hard to say that after the decision has been made that you can't document that decision. It happens all the time in history books where past decisions are put into words. So in a real life example we know that at the end of our life we could write a biography of what we did. Since we can do that we know that there will one day be a time when the decisions in the past have been made. The book may have not been physically written yet though that doesn't mean that it doesn't theoretically exist. Many things can theoretically exist. An invention that has not been invented yet. Even before the idea has been thought up we can be sure that as long as it does not go against laws of nature then without even knowing what the invention is we can safely say that it is a possibility and could definitely be a reality. But it will only be one reality. You can't say that the inventor invented the wrong thing. He invented what he invented. He may have been trying different things to invent one thing and by accident found something else to lead him to another invention but that then is part of the process. Lets say that the reader of this believes in a being that is all knowing. The reader will never be able to do anything that the all knowing being will not foresee. Sometimes when I was little I would play little games where I would be walking straight then go to make a right turn but quickly switch to make a left turn and joke that I had fooled my future. Then I would quickly realize that the entire act of thinking about changing your future heading one way then turning to head the other was all part of my future. The all knowing being will have foreseen that attempt to "change your future" though that attempt wasn't even in the least bit successful in changing the future. It was the future you just didn't know it yet though the all knowing being did. So you can not change the future. You are merely living out what you are already going to do, though since you don't already know it you can't avoid doing it. If time travel were a possibility then it would kill my whole explanation because the person would be able to know their future and since they know their future then they could change it though if they could change it then they didn't actually know their future... blah blah blah yeah good old paradoxes. So we are presupposing that time travel is impossible though I'm not going to philosophically prove that because I don't feel that most believe that time travel is possible. So fate is unavoidable in the sense that you can not choose differently then you are going to choose because you don't know how you will choose though what you do choose is your fate and always is.


So in quick summary. Everyone has the free will to choose to do as they please and the decisions that they make are if you must their "fate".


So as I said earlier in even simpler terms.


Fate = Historical decisions
Free will = Future decisions


I think the problem is that most people view both as matters of future decisions.




What do you think of my arguments or analogies? Do you think I view all angles and answer any issues that would disprove what I say? After reading things over myself it all seems jumbled and messy though I wouldn't know where to start on fixing it up other then rewriting everything.



Thanks for reading! :bigsmile: