Is Fatalism Incompatible With Free Will?

@manored,

manored;153962 wrote:

I didnt say that there are no absolutely clear cases.

Indeed, this is what I meant.

But not what you wrote.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;153972 wrote:

But not what you wrote.

Indeed, you approached it from a different angle, but the conclusion seems the same.

@manored,

manored;154453 wrote:

Indeed, you approached it from a different angle, but the conclusion seems the same.

And the conclusion is?........... Anyway, conclusions independent of the arguments for them, are worthless.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;154454 wrote:

And the conclusion is?........... Anyway, conclusions independent of the arguments for them, are worthless.

The notion of free will is relative

@hue-man,

hue-man;150988 wrote:

Fate is usually defined as inevitability or a future of which an agent's prior actions do not determine. Now I think we can all agree that an agent's actions do matter when it comes to the proceeding events that such actions effect. However, if we simply define fate as the thesis that future events are inevitable because of an agent's actions or because of the necessary causes of an agent's actions is fatalism still incompatible with free will? In other words, can we conceive of a fatalism that is compatible with free will?

As I see it, we are like passengers on a train, we can do whatever we want to do aboard the train, but we will go a certain predefined path.

Read up on statistics, and see how suprizeingly few random things there are, all relates to eachother.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;159028 wrote:

As I see it, we are like passengers on a train, we can do whatever we want to do aboard the train, but we will go a certain predefined path.

Maybe it is like that. Of course, even passengers on a train choose which train they wish to take. They needn't take a train that goes to Milwaukee if they want to go to Denver. And, then too, they can get off the train at its various stops, if they want to, and change trains.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;159056 wrote:

Maybe it is like that. Of course, even passengers on a train choose which train they wish to take. They needn't take a train that goes to Milwaukee if they want to go to Denver. And, then too, they can get off the train at its various stops, if they want to, and change trains.

How often does it happen that we choose something just for the sake of choosing?

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;159117 wrote:

How often does it happen that we choose something just for the sake of choosing?

Not often. Why would you think that a person who changes trains does so just for the sake of changing trains? He may just change his mind, and not go where he originally intended to go. People do change their minds. Or, someone may not change his mind, but decide to stay over in a town because he likes what it looks like. That happens too.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;159147 wrote:

Not often. Why would you think that a person who changes trains does so just for the sake of changing trains? He may just change his mind, and not go where he originally intended to go. People do change their minds. Or, someone may not change his mind, but decide to stay over in a town because he likes what it looks like. That happens too.

Yes, in theory, but in practise ..when does this happen, has there ever been evidence of your claim?

Someone did this and that to provenly changeing their destiny! ..never?

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;159151 wrote:

Yes, in theory, but in practise ..when does this happen, has there ever been evidence of your claim?

Someone did this and that to provenly changeing their destiny! ..never?

People never change their minds? Maybe not in Denmark. In America they do all the time. If I think that something bad will happen unless I do something about it, I do something about it, if I can. Don't you? For instance, suppose I see that unless I get out of the way, a car will hit me. So, I get out of the way. I am not fool enough to continue as I was, and let the car hit me. What do they do in Denmark? Let the car hit them? And then tell others that it was their destiny to be hit by the car. Don't people in Denmark say, "Well, if you were able to get out of the way of the car, why didn't you do so? It was not destiny's fault you were hit, it was your fault"? Of course they do.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;159155 wrote:

People never change their minds? Maybe not in Denmark. In America they do all the time. If I think that something bad will happen unless I do something about it, I do something about it, if I can. Don't you? For instance, suppose I see that unless I get out of the way, a car will hit me. So, I get out of the way. I am not fool enough to continue as I was, and let the car hit me. What do they do in Denmark? Let the car hit them? And then tell others that it was their destiny to be hit by the car. Don't people in Denmark say, "Well, if you were able to get out of the way of the car, why didn't you do so? It was not destiny's fault you were hit, it was your fault"? Of course they do.

Have there EVER ..just once been proven that someone could change their destiny?

Sure we change our minds, maybe it's because our spatial navigation are disfunct.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;159157 wrote:

Have there EVER ..just once been proven that someone could change their destiny?

Of course! That is why people think that if a disease is going around that can be prevented with a vaccine, then people should take the vaccine, and prevent contracting the disease. If they thought that they would catch the disease whatever they did, why would they take the vaccine? And, of course, we know that taking the vaccine will make contracting the disease must less likely. We have controlled studies and experiments that show that. In America, we have the FDA, (the Federal Drug Administration) that decides, on the basis of such tests whether or not a drug or a vaccine is effective. Don't you in Denmark? I am sure you must. Why, on earth would you, or anyone believe that whether or not we take the vaccine, we are going to get the disease when empirical studies show that is not true? What do you think such studies are for if not to show that we can prevent disease by taking precautions. How do you think that polio, and other diseases have been eradicated?

@hue-man,

hue-man;150988 wrote:

Fate is usually defined as inevitability or a future of which an agent's prior actions do not determine. Now I think we can all agree that an agent's actions do matter when it comes to the proceeding events that such actions effect. However, if we simply define fate as the thesis that future events are inevitable because of an agent's actions or because of the necessary causes of an agent's actions is fatalism still incompatible with free will? In other words, can we conceive of a fatalism that is compatible with free will?

I've read most of these post and what seems to missing is that WE DO NOT KNOW THE FUTURE. No matter how much we know. Think of this will the world stop by our actions, will life stop because of us, even greater will time stop because of us. We and all things live through time and time goes on without our actions and we must deal with it. Think about it: if we are getting older because of time do we really have free will? We can cannot control how long our life will go because time is not in our grasp, therefore how can we say we have free will. Time is literally forced on us and we can't do anything about it. If our lives is based on time and time pushes us along without our permission then our lives are heading towards our destiny what ever it may be, but we don't know. So all our actions that seem like free will were going to happen in some way but it is no reason to reject good and evil because then we are trying predict the future then but what do we know?

@JPhil,

JPhil;159172 wrote:

I've read most of these post and what seems to missing is that WE DO NOT KNOW THE FUTURE. No matter how much we know.

We do not, I think, know the future as well as we do the past, but that does not mean that we do not know, for example, that we will die. Or that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning. Why would you think we do not know those facts about the future, I wonder. Of course, I cannot be absolutely certain of the future. But then, neither can I be of the past.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;159174 wrote:

We do not, I think, know the future as well as we do the past, but that does not mean that we do not know, for example, that we will die. Or that the Sun will rise tomorrow morning. Why would you think we do not know those facts about the future, I wonder. Of course, I cannot be absolutely certain of the future. But then, neither can I be of the past.

Well it's more about hope than about knowledge. Knowing that the sun will rise is not like knowing 2+2=4. This will always be true no matter what the circumstance but the rising of the sun, well at least on the earth, depends on if there will not be a soar eclipse or some abnormal action in space that affects the sun. We predict that the sun will rise because it has always happen before but this not the same as knowledge that always true not based on circumstances. Truthfully the only things we really know are those that are always true.

@JPhil,

JPhil;159177 wrote:

Well it's more about hope than about knowledge. Knowing that the sun will rise is not like knowing 2+2=4. This will always be true no matter what the circumstance but the rising of the sun, well at least on the earth, depends on if there will not be a soar eclipse or some abnormal action in space that affects the sun.

As I wrote, I did not say that we could be certain without the possibility of error that the Sun will rise tomorrow. I said that we could know it was true. Just as we cannot be certain beyond the possibility of error, that George W. Bush was the president before Obama was president. And, I don't think that we can be certain, beyond the possibility of error, that 2+2 =4. Someone might have played with our minds (as Descartes suggests). If the very possibility of error is enough to show we do not know what we think we know, then, in that case, we are in the same epistemic position with regard to arithmetic, or the past, as we are with regard to the future. If, that is, we make absolute certainty a necessary condition of knowing. Which is why I think we should not.

In any case, it does not follow from the fact that a proposition is true (or even always true) that we know it is true. Although it does follow from the fact that we know a proposition is true that it is true. Knowledge implies truth; but truth does not imply knowledge.

@HexHammer,

HexHammer;159157 wrote:

Have there EVER ..just once been proven that someone could change their destiny?

Sure we change our minds, maybe it's because our spatial navigation are disfunct.

The concept of destiny is pointless, because if you avoid your destiny, one would say it was your destiny to avoid that other, fake destiny. The concept is such that no matter what you do, its always your destiny, so its useless.

JPhil;159172 wrote:

I've read most of these post and what seems to missing is that WE DO NOT KNOW THE FUTURE. No matter how much we know. Think of this will the world stop by our actions, will life stop because of us, even greater will time stop because of us. We and all things live through time and time goes on without our actions and we must deal with it. Think about it: if we are getting older because of time do we really have free will? We can cannot control how long our life will go because time is not in our grasp, therefore how can we say we have free will. Time is literally forced on us and we can't do anything about it. If our lives is based on time and time pushes us along without our permission then our lives are heading towards our destiny what ever it may be, but we don't know. So all our actions that seem like free will were going to happen in some way but it is no reason to reject good and evil because then we are trying predict the future then but what do we know?

We may not be free in ever way but there are some ways on wich we are, and I dont think we can trash the whole idea of free will based only on the fact of that we are not unlimitely free.

kennethamy;159180 wrote:

And, I don't think that we can be certain, beyond the possibility of error, that 2+2 =4.

You mean that there is always a change, even if almost infinitely low, of that our logic is wrong, and we are failing to see the true result in the same way that it frequently happens to us with bigger sums?

I mean, 45678 + 46821 = 92499 is a result we are nowhere as certain about then we look at it, yet we may calculate it twice and get the same wrong result twice.

@hue-man,

Well fatalism is pretty much the notion of a fixed unalterable future
and
Free will is pretty much the notion of the ability to do otherwise and affect/change/alter the future
so
I would say they are incompatible using those notions of meaning or defintions.

@prothero,

prothero;159381 wrote:

Well fatalism is pretty much the notion of a fixed unalterable future
and
Free will is pretty much the notion of the ability to do otherwise and affect/change/alter the future
so
I would say they are incompatible using those notions of meaning or defintions.

What other definitions are there?

What is expressed as true always depends on what the expression means, although what is true never depends on what the expression means. What is true never depends on what anyone says is true.

---------- Post added 05-02-2010 at 05:42 PM ----------

manored;159366 wrote:

The concept of destiny is pointless, because if you avoid your destiny, one would say it was your destiny to avoid that other, fake destiny. The concept is such that no matter what you do, its always your destiny, so its useless.

We may not be free in ever way but there are some ways on wich we are, and I dont think we can trash the whole idea of free will based only on the fact of that we are not unlimitely free.

You mean that there is always a change, even if almost infinitely low, of that our logic is wrong, and we are failing to see the true result in the same way that it frequently happens to us with bigger sums?

I mean, 45678 + 46821 = 92499 is a result we are nowhere as certain about then we look at it, yet we may calculate it twice and get the same wrong result twice.

To err is human. So we always might be wrong. But that, of course, does not mean that we are not right, and that we cannot know that we are right. The following argument is invalid:

1. I might be wrong about P.

Therefore, 2. I am wrong about P, and I don't know that P is true.

The following argument is valid:

1. I might be wrong about P.

Therefore, 2. It is possible that I am wrong about P, and I am not certain that P is true.

Where P is, 2+2=4, or that the Sun will rise tomorrow.

On the other hand, of course, 2+2 =4 is a necessary truth, and so, it is impossible for it to be false. But, that the Sun will rise tomorrow is a contingent truth, and it is possible for it to be false.

Since it must be true that what is fated will happen , it is logically impossible to avoid your fate, for if you avoid it, it cannot have been your fate in the first place. Therefore, either you did not avoid your fate, or it was not your fate. That is what the term "fate", means.

@manored,

manored;159366 wrote:

The concept of destiny is pointless, because if you avoid your destiny, one would say it was your destiny to avoid that other, fake destiny. The concept is such that no matter what you do, its always your destiny, so its useless.

If a poor child was born in the ghetto, the child's destiny may lie in provety, crime and misery, wouldn't one want to avoid such destiny?

Now I don't think avoiding a destiny is the only approach to the matter, it's also prosuit.

If a child is a prodegy savant, wouldn't it be prone to think it's destiny would lie in the childs gift? I saw a child being only 4 years and was educated doctor, should he suddenly avoid his destiny by giving up his path?

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