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Life .. Random or Determined?

Saslou

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Feb 1, 2009
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If posted in the wrong place, then apologies)

What are your thoughts?
 

Haight

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I expect it to be the former. But if I'm wrong, that will be perfect because I'm a Jew.

And moved to Philo.
 

Cenomite

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I think that we're all following equations, and there's no such thing as true randomness.

If there is a God, then I believe that we have free will.
 

Haight

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Your statements are contradictory.

Not that I really care. But I thought I should point it out.
 

Cenomite

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To be honest that's probably the best argument for the existence of a God that I've seen. I don't really have an answer to it. I don't think anyone can answer that though, although it's definitely interesting to think about. Something had to start from nothing.

It's sort of linked to another good argument I've heard that tries to prove God's existence. Basically it states that since everything in the world is caused by something else, something had to come first that was able to break that law. The only being or thing that could have possibly done this would be a God.

Bit of a derail there.

EDIT: An interesting concept would be if we all really did run off equations, but they were actually created by a God (as you suggested). Bit of a twist...in that case I would still say that we do not have free will.
 

Nillerz

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Nov 3, 2008
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I have a hard time grasping the concept of random therefore I say everything has been determined since the origin of this universe. All is but a game of dominoes.
 

Snow Turtle

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May 28, 2007
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Randomness in a determined sort of sense. Actually screw it, I believe in free will so determined but by me!!
 

King sns

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Seems pretty random. (Falls off my chair.)
 

TSDesigner

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Jul 20, 2009
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INTJ
I mean there's things that are random and things that are determined. Your personality determines a lot of what is going to happen throughout your life, but your personality was randomly created when you were conceived. Then there are nonrandom inherent rules of existance, such as 2+2=4, the law of gravity, and survival of the fittest. Twins separated as babies can have the same career, the same habits, and kids with the same names, but one of them can be randomly killed by a car.

029-bsod_Windows_9X.jpg
 
P

Phantonym

Guest
Hehe. *Wannabe-philosopher enters the thread* Hmmm. I might agree with that "Both" answer. I tend to think that life is determined in a way that you're supposed to make choices but the outcome is both random and also dependent on the choices. Life is not a straight line from A to B. It's in a way that whenever you make a choice, you change the course which leads you to another choice which also changes the course and keeps doing that until... you don't anymore.
 

erm

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Define the terms.

They are vague, and by their usual meanings, not mutually exclusive.

I'd assume you mean predictable vs unpredictable, but people's definitions vary a lot on these terms.

Again, if my assumption is true, I'd assume you mean from a human point of view. I can't imagine unpredictability as an actual property of an object, merely a property of the would be "predictor".

The Universe is unpredictable, to a certain degree, and from a human POV, for the following reasons:-

Classical Physics: Where all particles inact a force on all other particles. Humans are part of the entire universe at any given moment. In order to predict the universe, they need to predict themselves, as they are part of the universe. They in turn would be affected by the prediction they make, so in order to predict themselves, in order to predict the universe, they would need to predict the prediction. Ad Infinitum. Perfect predictions are the product of guesswork.

Quantum Mechanics: The behaviour of Sub-Atomic "entities", appears unpredictable in nature. Bell's Theorem is a decent mathematical proof that some of this behaviour will always remain unpredictable to us.

But, with unpredictability comes predictability. As multiple objects behaving randomly start to become more predictable the more objects there are. Same as how one dice roll (if a dice roll were actually random) is unpredictable, but one million dice rolls has a much larger degree of certainty to it. (1d6 is 1 in 6 odds for each number, for 2d6, 7 becomes more likely than the other numbers, because more roll combinations produce it)

The behaviour of googel's of particles, becomes as predictable as the universe around us is.

There's a lot of complexity revolving around Epistemology, if I guessed your meanings correctly. Even Philosphy of Mind steps into the ring (it always does, to be fair).
 

AOA

♣️♦️♠️♥️
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Our consciences 'may' be random, but the action/outcome/consequence is determined, I would think.

... God knows Best.
 
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