Destiny

Do you believe in a deterministic universe ? Let me elaborate what I mean. Determinism is a school of thought that believes in the idea that everything is preordained or predestined by a higher power and that human will or action has no role to play in it. It does not matter what your will is and what decisions you take as the end result is already written and it will come to be.  In essence it is determined. There are sub-schools of thought that collectively are under the umbrella term determinism.  

Fatalism is the school of thought under determinism that deals with the idea of fate. Everything is fated to happen and as such humans have no control over current situation that they find themselves in. It was fated to happen as determined by a higher power or being. 

Predeterminism this deals with the idea that there has been an unbroken chain of occurrences that stretch back to the origin of the universe for you to find yourself exactly where you are. For example Everything had to happen exactly in the specific way for you to exist and as you exist nothing could interfere with the outcomes of this pre-established chain. 

The simplest is casual determinism; in fact pre-determinists use casual determinism to explain and express their idea. The difference in casual determinism and in predeterminisim is just this - casual determinism says “that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature”. 

The concept of destiny as understood by most is closely associated with the idea of fate - both words are more often than not used interchangeably which is wrong as fate is an idea that deals with the current or present situation on the other hand destiny deals with the future. Fate in a strict sense deals with the result of actions taken in the past; it is the result that is in the present. Destiny on the other hand is the end result of a path that is yet to be taken; it is the destination of the journey. This brings up an interesting philosophical quandary where if one believes in destiny / fate, one has belief in a deterministic universe and as such free will and or action has no part to play. One will find ones self at completely opposites with tow ideas that one believes in. One can utilise conflict to escape taking decisions and or actions as one can always say “it does not matter as in the long run it is written what is supposed to happen”.  If one does some more digging in the deterministic nature of the universe one would invariably come across some quantum mechanics.  

Quantum mechanics uses probability to predict potential outcomes and as such it gives birth to the idea of infinite possibilities with all the possible infinite outcomes. The universe is not deterministic but rather one out of infinite possibilities. To overcome the problem arising from quantum mechanics the deterministic school of thought accommodates this be proposing a Many worlds idea which accepts the sets of linear events and suggest constant forking at each event creating the infinite universes that account for the multiple outcomes that could arise from a single event. 

Any way you look at it all the bases are covered either by a higher being or then covered by previous events - there is no space for human will and human actions in a deterministic universe. There obviously is another idea that is completely opposite to determinism; conveniently called indeterminism. The crux of this idea is that no event is certain and the entire chain of events leading up to the outcome is probabilistic (thus it is in line with Quantum Mechanics). In essence chance. It is the chance that compels us as individuals to act upon it in order to increase the probability of success. In this process as individuals utilise our free will and become responsible for each action we take. The journey of changing chance to reality could be looked as the goal of the individual.  The individual who is able to convert chance into reality is considered as successful. This process needs effort and I wrote about the effort sometime ago. 

Fate and Destiny I consider are best left for the escapist. Converting chance to reality is what successful individuals do. I am always putting effort to convert chance to reality. What about you?

C