Thread: Fate or Free Will?

I've had a theory for a while regarding Fate vs Free Will, and I wanted to know what you guys think on the subject as well.

Have you ever fallen asleep, only to wake up what seems like a mere moment later, even though hours have in reality passed? Imagine two people, one sleeps in such a manner, the other stays awake the entire time. Wouldn't they experience the time differently? To one it is but an instant, to the other it is many long hours. So humans experience time at different rates, based both on this and the theory of Relativity (faster you move the slower you pass through time.)

So if humans all experience time at different rates, doesn't it stand to reason that some are 'ahead' of others? Some have experienced events already that for others have yet to come to pass?
And if this is true, doesn't it mean for those of us who are 'behind' that the future has already been decided, because it's already happened to someone else?

I really want to believe that I have a choice in the matter, but it seems to me like fate has to be true.

Please try to prove me wrong, I actually kind of want to be on this one.

WRONG! The faster you move the slower you experience time. It's how you "time travel." Get your self moving via light sail to super speed, travel out into the stars, sling shot around a planet or star, and return home. 1000 has go by yet relative to you, it has been only 10 years. But thats if you ignore EXTREAM g forces.

The fuzz in you logic comes with the jump that because we believe we are experiencing time at a different rate. You are unconscious so it doesnt seem like hours but that just means you have been fool, likely by the evil genius!!! DAM YOU DESCARTES's EVIL GENIUS! So how does a "future persons" perception of it being 6:35 have any affect on the "past" guys who perceive it to be 6:15, when the bus get here at 6:25. Sounds like you started down a slippery slope to me.

If your looking to get high, do it on science. http://science.discovery.com/tv/sci-q/kaku/kaku.html This guy has a couple of shows, mostly on the science channel, that are really fucking cool.

Perhaps, if the past person was asleep. Whether the past person thinks its 6:15 when it's 6:25 or not, how is it his fate to be murdered when he sits there watching furture man coming to stab him just because he precieves it to be 6:15?

I think there might be fate, but limited. I believe there was a study that showed that our brains will start reacting to an action we are about to do before we ever think of doing it (albeit, by a few mili-seconds, but still surprising).

Also, moving this to the more appropriate forum.

If you fall asleep, and it seems like a minuete, but it was an hour....




It's still an hour....Time does not exsist....once you understand that, you will understand everything.

Originally Posted by SovietDooM

If your looking to get high, do it on science. http://science.discovery.com/tv/sci-q/kaku/kaku.html This guy has a couple of shows, mostly on the science channel, that are really fucking cool.

Wow, I was dicussing this with a friend and I just realized how you might have taken that statement. I wasn't implying that you are high for thinking what you posted, I was recalling a time while watching the mans show and just haveing my mind blown away. Expanding my thoughts to understand what he was talking about was simply stunning. I even said, Man this is like getting high on science. I appologize if you took any offense to what I stated, poor choice of words on my part, like I said reflecting on my own experience.

What you are refering to in your example sounds a bit like existentialism. There is quite a lot of literature on it, but the super watered down short version is something like this: Your life is two parts, existence and essense. Jean-Paul Sartre said something like "existence precedes essence," which more or less follows Kierkegaard's initial arguments of the same. How do you define a human being's existence? Our lives are defined through the moments and choices that we experience and it is through these discrete moments that our existence is realized. Further simplified, we only really exist during significant moments or choices in our lives.

Existentialism provides an answer for fate also. Your past choices set a path for you that restricts your future choices. Thus, the causality of the illusion of fate is a direct result of our own previous choices and moments that make up our existence.

Hmm, I guess you can say your free will dictates your fate.