• Andrew
    12
    A baby falls from a high rise building, bounds on the grass below, other than the crying and shock of it all the child survives. A young fella riding his bike hits the curb, runs into the neighbour's tree hitting his head, and drops down dead. A group of teenagers driving the highway, collide with another vehicle killing everyone, except for one.

    Are the scenarios just coincidence and luck is an art? or possibly some form of Divine Intervention, was the outcome always meant to be?. I've seen vehicle accidents that have disintegrated the vehicle structure completely, unrecognisable, and killing everyone, debris stretching for hundreds of metres and yet quietly waiting on the side one of the persons, without a scratch.

    Have our lives been predetermined in order to maintain balance? does the earth work with the universe to maintain a harmonic balance between all the exists and dies.

    Was Michelangelo, regardless of any other factors influencing his life always going to be as we know him today? and where are all the others? yes there are many others before, during, and some after, but no has ever slotted into the position. And why does he have such a gift, why only one man?

    Beethoven composing masterpieces at an age where others struggle to follow the lines in a colouring in book. Not just a couple of delightful notes here and there, compositions that still to this day stand alone and unquestioned as masterpieces. Was this always meant to be?

    Are we a living example of a product designed by the universe over billions of years, are we the end result of universal design, with predetermined life spans.
  • BC
    13.5k
    The view that everything is determined is not assailable, because one can say that whatever happens was determined. You think you have free will? No. You just intend to do what you are compelled by physics and chemistry to do.

    I don't agree with that view; I take a "some things are freely chosen, some things are determined" approach. This solution has problems too, because I can't aways distinguish between what I chose freely and what I didn't.

    Chance plays a role in life. The baby fell out of the 10th floor window when there happened to be a very strong up-draft on that side of the building, he bounced off an awning, and then landed on very thick grass planted on very soft dirt. Otherwise, S P L A T. Maybe the fellow who survived the crash was cushioned by the other victims -- who the hell knows. In any case, chance can't be counted on. Drive carefully.

    The context into which we are born makes a great deal of difference. I was born in a working class family in a small town in rural Minnesota. Had I been born in New York City (everything else being equal) my life would likely have taken a different course.

    Michelangelo was a genius coupled with great creativity coupled with a culture interested in his work of creative genius and also happens to be willing to support the guy. Had Michelangelo been born in Patterson, New Jersey in 1975, the same result would not have happened.

    Beethoven was not born in a musical vacuum. He studied briefly with Haydn and other composers. He was deeply immersed in a culturally rich milieu. Were he born in south Chicago -- much different outcome.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Are we a living example of a product designed by the universe over billions of years, are we the end result of universal design, with predetermined life spans.Andrew

    What we are observing it's exactly, precisely what we observe in every day existence: we are creative minds that are exploring, making choices, introducing novelty and learning from our experiments. We are Minds evolving together as duration unfolds.
  • n0 0ne
    43

    Allow me to question your question. What would do you if you somehow knew that all things were determined? I don't throw in the presence or absence of God. All you get in this hypothetic scenario is certain knowledge that the future is fixed.

    Would you change your behavior? What you stop feeling guilty about or proud of certain past actions? How would this affect your projects, ambitions?
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