Fate and Decision

fate and decision:

how did i get here? when you look back on your life, you remember the major decisions, the school you applied for, the job you took and the relationships you chose. we cannot deny decisions influence what happens to us, the general course of our lives. decisions matter. but how do decisions happen?

we would like to think the important ones are well thought out, that we make the best choices with what information we have, that we can defeat fate as being something that takes control away. let us examine the decision making process whilst walking in a crowded city street. people walk towards you. every few seconds, you decide to swerve to the right or left to avoid colliding with people. the pace is so fast that there is little time for conscious thought as to how to navigate the crowd. you make decisions as to the path you walk instinctively.

posit that life moves fast, even though it may not seem it. do we have enough time to make intelligent life decisions? is life like playing chess with blitz time controls?

speaking for myself, i am interested in things like time and fate. i enjoy writing. blogger exists. so was it inevitable that i would write this blog post. all the ingredients were there. was it my fate?

CLEARCHARGE

On Free Will

on free will:

the problem with the debate on "free will", about whether it exists or not, is it is hard to define what it is, in the first place. "will" is easier to understand, but the word "free" is somewhat nebulous. what does it mean exactly, for "will" to be "free"?

instead let us examine what cannot be denied. in many cases before we do something, some action or other, we make a conscious decision to do it. we think about doing it beforehand. never mind where the thought comes from, really, or whether it came as "free". but if we had to think about it most metaphysically, perhaps our decision engine, if you like, is like an electronic gadget, where electric currents flow, creating options, say four possible choices usually, and then the engine defaults to the option with the largest current, or perhaps it chooses the first option with current that flows, or the second. i think, where this could be construed as not being "free will", is where an outside agency interferes with the process, as in "pushes your buttons".

what influences our decisions? mostly our personality. this is a thing which limits what we do. we are people who would never do certain things because it is not in our personality to do those things. at an extreme, a person who does very little and avoids almost everything, could that person possess what we call "free will"? "free" rather implies the opposite of restrictive. you could say such a person had "restrictive will". and if life is deterministic, it is mostly determined by personality, is it not?

finally, let us look at a common social situation. in a room are several people, some friends perhaps, some strangers. all are on their best behaviour. now, if say one of them were alone in the room, she would act very differently, perhaps it is her house and everyone else is a guest, but the presence of other people, outside agency, is affecting her "will". she can't be "free" unless she is alone. this is a world, and perhaps a reality, full of people, who affect each other, so how much "free will", in a sense, could there be?

i think in the best sense "free will" is independent agency, where you make your own decisions as a person, and make the best decisions, all things considered, out of all the choices there are, given the circumstances.

CLEARCHARGE

A Practical Approach

a practical approach:

earth is a complex world. it didn't always exist, i think that can be agreed upon. it may not always exist in the future. it is a belief, however, that the soul is eternal, that is, ever present in all time. how a soul can be placed upon earth, by forces beyond our control, is another question. in this view, we all come from other worlds to earth. and what happens when we leave? there seem only two possibilities, that we return from where we came, or that we pass on to yet another world, assuming that we are not fated to live again and again on earth, and that we never truly die.

earth can seem an alien place, always a sense present that this is not truly home and that it is only for a while. because life is complicated and we are required to make many decisions, some of which go wrong, it can be a cruel, hard experience. it would seem some people are driven by their ambition, they know what they want, but i am rather more sure of what i don't want, what i want to make sure does not happen to me. you could say i am more driven by fear not by want.

in every poor decision, there is often the failure to consider all the possibilities that could happen. we naturally make optimistic assumptions at first, but we need to be more aware of risk and the likelihood that such assumptions simply do not hold, that what we have thought about for much time does not happen at all. too often, i have assumed the best outcome and subsequently been sorely disappointed. ask yourself, first, what if it's not true and second, have i considered all the possibilities? what do i need to do? what do i need to not do?

unfortunately, regret is something we all suffer. we all make mistakes. to my mind, a life without error is impossible. however, we do become more intelligent about risk as we grow older, and a future of fewer lesser mistakes and without serious accident is something to strive for.

CLEARCHARGE