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Topic: Fate -- Fact or Fiction? (Read 14105 times) |
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John_Gaughan
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Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« on: Nov 16th, 2004, 11:26am » |
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I am curious what y'all think about fate. Are we able to choose our own destinies? Why or why not, and is this provable? I am not interested in opinions, I am more interested in approaching this question from an objective, scientific viewpoint.
For example: computer science involves the concept of a finite state machine. Even when there are a lot of states, the output largely depends on the input. Can the computer really choose its actions? Well, given the same input, it must choose the same path of execution, so the computer cannot really choose. The programmer already chose for it. The only real way to introduce chance into such a machine is through outside entropy, be it a clock tick or voltage fluctuations used to generate (pseudo) random numbers. Is the machine fated to perform the same action every time?
Some criminals claim that they cannot control their behavior. No matter how much they resist, they must commit crimes. This implies that fate forces them into a path and no amount of free will allows them to deviate from this path. Some movies toy with this idea. The first example that pops in my head is The Time Machine. The main character's fiancee is murdered in the park, and each time he goes back in time to change what happened, something else bad happens. According to that story, fate preordained that she would die that evening no matter what he did.
Another idea is about entropy. Stephen Hawking touches on this when he talks about the Big Bang. Everything in the universe is there, all the matter, all the energy, and the question is whether the fate of the universe is determined at that point. Can the universe change from its path? Is there any true randomness to how the universe takes shape, or is its path preset?
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towr
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #1 on: Nov 16th, 2004, 2:12pm » |
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on Nov 16th, 2004, 11:26am, John_Gaughan wrote:| I am curious what y'all think about fate. Are we able to choose our own destinies? Why or why not, and is this provable? I am not interested in opinions, I am more interested in approaching this question from an objective, scientific viewpoint. |
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I don't think emperical sciences will have much to say on the matter. Either way, let's start with the necessary philosophical question, how do you define 'fate' and 'destiny'; what are we talking about?
Quote:| For example: computer science involves the concept of a finite state machine. Even when there are a lot of states, the output largely depends on the input. |
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I disagree, once set up, a computer can continue almost indefinitely without input, yet keep giving distinct output (you can f.i. start with a simple chaotic function)
Quote:| Can the computer really choose its actions? |
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Define choose.
It can make choose an execution branch based on a conditional statement, if that's what you mean.
Quote:| Well, given the same input, it must choose the same path of execution, so the computer cannot really choose. |
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IT can also 'choose' depending on internal states, not necessarily input.
Quote:| The programmer already chose for it. |
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Explicitly, or implicitly? Even in normal programming computers often behave different from how the programmer(s) had invisioned, let alone when it uses a learning algorithm (f.i. neural network or genetic algorithm)
Quote:| The only real way to introduce chance into such a machine is through outside entropy, |
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Is outside entropy truely random? Is deterministic chaos not random enough?
Quote:| Some criminals claim that they cannot control their behavior. No matter how much they resist, they must commit crimes. This implies that fate forces them into a path and no amount of free will allows them to deviate from this path. |
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I disagree that fate (necessarily) does so. IT is not an outside force that makes them act thusly, it's (if anything) an inner, mental disorder. It may deprive them of free will, but it needen't be fate (however defined) that does so.
Quote:| Some movies toy with this idea. The first example that pops in my head is The Time Machine. The main character's fiancee is murdered in the park, and each time he goes back in time to change what happened, something else bad happens. According to that story, fate preordained that she would die that evening no matter what he did. |
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Then fate probably also preordained he'd try and change it, and fail repeatedly.
Fate doesn't seem to mean much, just that everything is and will be how it must be, regardless of how it will be. Going left, or right, might equally well be fate. There is neither a way to tell afterwards, nor beforehand.
Quote:| Another idea is about entropy. Stephen Hawking touches on this when he talks about the Big Bang. Everything in the universe is there, all the matter, all the energy, and the question is whether the fate of the universe is determined at that point. Can the universe change from its path? Is there any true randomness to how the universe takes shape, or is its path preset? |
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Define 'the path of the universe' and 'true randomness'.
Quantum mechanics seems to suggest that things are not deterministic. But even stochastic processes may at the end give 100% probability of the same event.
Fate could work on a level of 'paths', or 'destinations' (like that fiancee dying each time), or possibly other things.
This is not an easy topic to speak about, least of all if you want more than mere opinions. Like I said at the start, we should begin with clarifying/defining what we're talking about. Sure, we all have some intuition about what the words mean, but the meanings are anything but clear.
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Icarus
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #2 on: Nov 16th, 2004, 3:32pm » |
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The closest I see science as having approached this problem is the related question of determinism. According to Newtonian physics, the behavior of an isolated physical system is completely determined by its initial state. Before Quantum mechanics was discovered, the only source for randomness was in thermodynamic behavior, and there it was understood as simply the result of "hidden variables". I.e., if you knew everything there was to know about a thermodynamic system (including the positions and momenta of all the particles in it), you could completely predict its behavior, but in fact most of the information is not easily measurable, and the apparent variant behavior is just the result of the unknown initial values of these unmeasurable quantities.
When QM was discovered, with its intrinsically probabilistic nature, the question arose: Is this actual randomness, or is it once again just caused by hidden quantities whose values we are not able to measure. Einstein was a major proponent of the hidden variables concept (thus his remark that "God does not play dice with the universe"). Considerable thought went into this question, and some very clever tests were developed to discover the answer. The experiments finally became performable (do to improving technology) in the 70s, and the results were decisively against "hidden variables". The probabilities in QM are real, and truly unpredictable.
So it would appear that if we are Fated to follow some path, that Fate works outside the laws of physics (a possibility that is not ruled out, or even limited, by the outcomes of these experiments).
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #3 on: Nov 17th, 2004, 4:49am » |
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I personally have some mixed views on fate, based partly on some limited grasp of science, but mostly on thinking about the consequences of certain things. However, these are basically beliefs, and probably aren't actual fact...
Firstly, I make the assumption that humans have free will, and so are not bound by determinism when choosing their actions, except by the limitations of what they can and cannot do. Other, non-living, things (and yes, I am leavin a blurred boundary over where things with free will end, and where things which are determined begin) must, by contrast, follow deterministic laws, as shown by physics, etc. However, they can be acted upon by agents with free will, and so are, essentially, fated to follow a given path UNLESS some free agent changes the path it follows, however insignificantly. This, therefore, means that I accept that the Earth is subject to the fate of rotating on its axis at a given speed while orbitting the Sun, etc. - all dependent on physical laws - unless some free agent can alter this in any way. Free agents, on the other hand, are not subject to fate except by things they cannot change, such as the deterioration of their body/suffering the effects of illnesses they inherit, etc. hence we are fated to die unless we can change this.
However, when it comes to time travel, I teake the view that, once an event has happened, or is known for certain to happen, then it must happen by necessity within that universe. Any changes to time, therefore, must either be superficial changes which affect only details which no-one knew about, or changes to a different universe, where the change occurs in its history as at least one factor which makes it different from this one. Hence, it is not solely time travel in those instances, but also travelling to a different universe.
I'll admit that quite a lot of this is open to attack, but then, as I said, this is only what I currently think is most likely as an explanation of whether fate exists or not.
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #4 on: Nov 17th, 2004, 7:44am » |
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If you have a computer program, and you give it the same inputs, it will produce the same outputs. This includes hidden inputs such as pseudorandom numbers, hardware inputs (e.g. a power plant monitoring system that reads temperatures and fuel status), etc., not just user input (what buttons you push).
When I talk about choice, I do not mean an "if" statement. I mean AI. As AI learns, it stores information in a database so it knows it when it needs to make another decision. However, that database is also input (it is external to the program code).
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rmsgrey
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #5 on: Nov 17th, 2004, 9:23am » |
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on Nov 17th, 2004, 7:44am, John_Gaughan wrote:| If you have a computer program, and you give it the same inputs, it will produce the same outputs. This includes hidden inputs such as pseudorandom numbers, hardware inputs (e.g. a power plant monitoring system that reads temperatures and fuel status), etc., not just user input (what buttons you push). |
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Not necessarily... I recently ran off a simple progam that processes a number of data files in parallel and produces a condensed output. Running on a given set of data, it produced an anomalous result on one machine, which I have not been able to duplicate...
In general, real computers are subject to a cetain (very low) error rate, which will cause anomalies to occur from time to time...
As for fate/free-will/determinism, I have no facts beyond the apparent randomness of quantum effects, and believe strongly that, short of time travel, there is no way to know what would have happened had things gone differently, so no way to test for fate...
I do have a number of tentative opinions, but since that's not what's wanted, I'll keep them to myself, apart from observing that it can never be the wrong decision to assume one has free will.
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Icarus
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #6 on: Nov 17th, 2004, 6:43pm » |
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For the most part, even that anomalous behavior of your program can be attributed to "input", except that this input is most likely radiation interacting with your computer. Modern chip design is so compact that even small amounts of radiation can cause signals to jump between circuits or flip bits in memory. To combat this, a certain amount of error checking is performed to catch and correct these problems. But occasionally some flip through. Errors caused by radiation, or other input from the computer's environment does not really gainsay what John is saying. It is just that the concept of input into the system needs to be broadened to cover this.
On the other hand, occasionally quantum fluctuation also causes these errors. (The expected end of the current continual improvement in traditional chip design is when this quantum noise overwhelms the real data - a situation which we are already approaching.) In this case, we end up with what is, as far as we have been able to determine, real randomness, and the possibility of "free will".
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Some pure speculation: Most religions believe that there is something more to humans that just the physical - that everyone is possessed of a "soul" or "spirit" that is the core of our being, and guides/controls our bodies. Quantum mechanical randomness opens the door for such a non-physical influence on the physical world without violating natural laws. By controlling which of a selection of possible events occurs, spirits could influence the action of neurons in the brain, and hence control the body. By this idea, the brain is not the seat of our consciousness, but rather the interface between our spirits and bodies.
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #7 on: Nov 18th, 2004, 12:24am » |
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on Nov 17th, 2004, 6:43pm, Icarus wrote:| It is just that the concept of input into the system needs to be broadened to cover this. |
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You could say the same thing about humans. Just call every internal process input as well. And so people would also behave exactly the same given the same input. There never will be the same input of course, as the brain is changing in bigger and smaller ways constantly, but the same can be true in computers, just a matter of complexity.
Quote:| real randomness, and the possibility of "free will". |
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Stochastic behaviour doesn't make us any freeer of course. Not unless you can influence which 'random' choice you make, but then it's not random anymore. (And thus there would be hidden variables underpinning QM)
I'm still wondering what we're talking about in the first place. The mind body problem is interesting enough, but what does it have to do with fate? Doesn't fate presuppose free will to begin with? I'm not sure it's an interesting question otherwise.
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rmsgrey
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #8 on: Nov 18th, 2004, 4:25am » |
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There are "strong" and "weak" versions of fate - the "strong" version says that every detail is set in advance (which makes free will unlikely), while the "weak" version only sets "important" or "significant" details, and in such a way that a number of scenarios count. For instance, George W Bush may have been fated to win the 2000 elections, which could have happened through the original vote, or by the proposed recount process, or, as it happened, by a mildly controversial court decision...
And some philosophers have neatly sidestepped the whole question of determinism when discussing free will by defining it as the normal outcome of our decision making proccesses, when fed accurate data, which doesn't really help discussions about fate...
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h7
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #9 on: Nov 19th, 2004, 7:05pm » |
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You can also look at fate like this.
First defining free will.
What is free will?
Free will is being able to make choices. [my opinion]
But then, what makes us choose one choice over another? Why do we do things the way we do? Why are we who we are?
A very basic answer for this, is all our choices, why we're who we are is this, what makes us do the things we do. Everything depended on our childhood. Everything depends on what happened to us while we grow up. Perhap in 20 years, we'll be MUCH different from who we are now.
Everything depends on what has happened to us, if some random thing that happened when we were 5, never happened, who's to say we'll be the same now?
Looking at this, we have to look back, where did we grow up, who were our friends, what school did we go to?
We did not decide this, but our parents (guardian) decided this for us.
Why did they do that? Basicly, the same thing that makes us do what we do. (and so on and so on, untill you get to the beginning of the universe).
EX. (Probably extremely unlikely) Every week you pass by a hotdog stand on your way to work. Usually you buy a hotdog before you cross the street to enter your workplace. Last week however you had bought a hotdog, abut nd sadly, you received diarhea from the hotdog  . The next time you see the hotdog stand, you say to yourself "I think I'm going to skip it today". As you cross the street you get hit by a car.
As it turns out, the brakes malfunctioned/snapped/broked at that particular time. Both end up dead.
We'll always try to do what will give us the best result, during any given circumstance.
Then we hear the story, and it turns out something like this
" 2 people have died in a car accident, due to negligents of car company"
But, as we might guess, this might never have happened if the hotdog seller didn't give the man a bad hotdog. We'll never know the cause of that bad hotdog. (Maybe the hotdog sellers had a malfunction and it wasn't keeping the hotdogs drozen) who knows?
This ends up as a web of connecting events that lead to one event. This event would probably lead to multiple other events to. (Perhaps a family watched this on the news and then decides to double check the gears on their car. Which just so happens that the brakes weren't working properly).
Now we have to think, was this fate? Can we possibly have a free will if all are decisions are already pre-decided by people who's decisions are also pre-decided.
This is a very interesting topic to talk about, but first you have to notice how deep it can really go.
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Icarus
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #10 on: Nov 20th, 2004, 8:19am » |
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on Nov 18th, 2004, 12:24am, towr wrote:| You could say the same thing about humans. Just call every internal process input as well. And so people would also behave exactly the same given the same input. There never will be the same input of course, as the brain is changing in bigger and smaller ways constantly, but the same can be true in computers, just a matter of complexity. |
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Yes and no. By input, I mean all interactions of the system (human, computer, whatever) with its environment. In the case or rmsgrey's computer, if the change in the one run was a result of external radiation causing a bit to flip, for instance, then I would call that "input" - this is the broadening of the concept that I was refering to: widening it from just the data you enter, to all interaction with the environment. Before the discovery of quantum mechanics, it was believed that if you had two identical systems, starting in the same state and interacting with the same interactions with the environment, the systems would always behave exactly the same, regardless of any "internal processes". Internal processes are not "input".
With quantum mechanics, this is no longer believed. The two identical systems may still produce different results because quantum mechanical laws only predict probabilities for outcomes - and testing has indicated that this probabilistic nature is inherent, rather than just an artifact of our limited knowledge.
Quote:| Stochastic behaviour doesn't make us any freeer of course. Not unless you can influence which 'random' choice you make, but then it's not random anymore. (And thus there would be hidden variables underpinning QM) |
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This is why I have not called the scientific side of my comments "fate" or "free will". This only addresses the more limited concept of "determinism": whether or not all of history is an inevitable result of the state of the universe at its initial creation. This only addresses the concept of "free will" - the possibility of changing the outcome of your life by making choices - in that in a deterministic universe, free will is impossible. You were unable to make any other choices than you have made, so your outcome was inevitable from the moment of creation.
In order to have free will, you must have a non-deterministic universe. QM provides us with exactly that. But this does not guarantee that free will is to be found in QM, just that the possibility arises with it. QM is not the only solution to the deterministic universe problem, either. An older solution is the one used by many religions: The physical laws we see only apply to our cosmos, but our cosmos interacts with other "planes of existance" which operate under different principles, and this interaction allows for non-determistic elements to slip in. (Don't dismiss this as "religion", not "science" - because these other planes do interact with this one, this idea is potentially testable, which brings it handily within the realm of scientific investigation.)
Quote:| I'm still wondering what we're talking about in the first place. The mind body problem is interesting enough, but what does it have to do with fate? Doesn't fate presuppose free will to begin with? I'm not sure it's an interesting question otherwise. |
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John was interested in scientific approaches to the question of fate. Determinism is the closest science comes to it that I am aware of.
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #11 on: Nov 21st, 2004, 7:21am » |
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on Nov 20th, 2004, 8:19am, Icarus wrote:| This only addresses the concept of "free will" - the possibility of changing the outcome of your life by making choices |
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There are other interpretations of free will, though. It doesn't have to depend on the outcome for one; but perhaps the way to arrive at a decision.
'Free' is ambiguous enough in itself.
Quote:| John was interested in scientific approaches to the question of fate. Determinism is the closest science comes to it that I am aware of. |
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I'm still wondering what the question is. What is fate? Is it simply inevitability?
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #12 on: Nov 21st, 2004, 11:13am » |
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on Nov 21st, 2004, 7:21am, towr wrote:| I'm still wondering what the question is. What is fate? Is it simply inevitability? |
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This is why determinism is the closest science has approached the question of fate; it is a well-defined (and therefore testable) concept. Fate is not.
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #13 on: Nov 21st, 2004, 1:47pm » |
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Determinism may be well-defined, but I dispute that it is testible. Even how quantumeffects turn out may be 'set in stone', so to speak. Similar to how random numbers your computer gives are predetermined (whether by pseudo random number generator, or from tables of numbers from a casino). There is no way to tell the difference. At most you can note that there isn't a pattern (or doesn't appear to be one).
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #14 on: Nov 21st, 2004, 3:08pm » |
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No - that is a separate question from determinism. "Determinism" is the idea that physical law completely determines the course of the history of the universe. That the universe is essentially one gigantic Rube Goldberg device that once set in motion will unswervingly follow a path without any chance for deviation.
As I have said above, some rather ingenious experiments indicate that the probabilistic nature of QM is intrinsic, rather than arising simply because of the limitations of our knowledge. That is, physical law does not guarantee any particular outcome.
Now, it may be that in fact all the outcomes are fixed, but if so, they are fixed in an unpredictable fashion - not by repeatable principle. This is what I would call "fate".
Think of the universe as being a real number, and we are moving along the digits with time. "Determinism" is the claim that the number is rational: its digits following a simple pattern. "Fate", or what you described, is the claim that the number was picked beforehand. This may be true, but we have no way of knowing, because all we can know about is what the digits are as they pass.
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #15 on: Nov 22nd, 2004, 12:57am » |
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on Nov 21st, 2004, 3:08pm, Icarus wrote:| No - that is a separate question from determinism. "Determinism" is the idea that physical law completely determines the course of the history of the universe. That the universe is essentially one gigantic Rube Goldberg device that once set in motion will unswervingly follow a path without any chance for deviation. |
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To bad we can't start it over and see if it does exactly the same thing 
Though of course even that would only proof it can do the exact same thing twice, not that it must do the same thing twice.
Quote:| Think of the universe as being a real number, and we are moving along the digits with time. "Determinism" is the claim that the number is rational: its digits following a simple pattern. "Fate", or what you described, is the claim that the number was picked beforehand. This may be true, but we have no way of knowing, because all we can know about is what the digits are as they pass. |
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Interesting analogy, since the first n numbers of a real number always comprise a rational number (some number divided by some power of ten) 
There is however another approach to handling this question by first exploring the concepts itself. After all, if the concepts are logically inconsistent they can't be true.
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #16 on: Nov 22nd, 2004, 5:11am » |
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If running universe 2.0 came up with exactly the same results, then a) it strongly argues in favour of fate since the probability of getting the same results twice without some sort of controlling factor is pretty minimal. Of course, if you do, then the chances are that we're inside a recursive copy ourselves... (every copy will make an identical copy, but there will only be one original)
Going right back to the original post: criminals claiming they have no choice but to commit their crimes (aside from the Minority Report issues) deserve to run into a judge who claims he has no choie but to give them a sentence of maximum severity...
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John_Gaughan
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #17 on: Nov 22nd, 2004, 4:42pm » |
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Some of you wonder what the question is or what I intended. I just wanted to hear what you guys think about that topic. I read what y'all write and I find it interesting.
Determinism was what I was getting at with my question, but I did not use that specific word. I like Icarus' definition. Rube Goldberg... that reminds me of some old DOS games where you had to set up various puzzles, click a button, and see if the machine works. Yeah, that was it -- The Incredible Machine. I "invested" many hours into that game 
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #18 on: Nov 23rd, 2004, 4:44am » |
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Speaking of incredible machines, one of the best UK TV advertisements in recent years consisted of some (most? all?) of the parts of a car carefully laid out in a row (in advance) and the first component given a gentle push, then each component in turn nudging the next along the whole row in such a way that it repeatedly appeared to be in danger of stopping entirely.
As for fate (in the hopes of appearing to be on topic), for philosophical reasons, I prefer to believe in the concept of meaningful choice - that is that when we consciously make a decision, having taken ino account as much of the information available to us as is appropriate, firstly we do genuinely make a choice - we aren't just puppets - and secondly the consequences are related in a loosely predictable way to our decisions and intentions. So, for example, the population of the USA collectively decided to re-elect Bush (either because they decided after due consideration that he was the better choice for president, or because they decided not to invest the time and energy in making an informed decision and just voted for him anyway), and now the whole world has to live with the consequences...
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John_Gaughan
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Behold, the power of cheese!
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #19 on: Nov 23rd, 2004, 8:10pm » |
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I feel that nothing but the cruelty of the Universe could have elected that monster for another four years.
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rmsgrey
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #20 on: Nov 24th, 2004, 5:37am » |
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I'm refusing to gloat until after our next elections,when we discover whether Toady Blair will still be backing GWB up...
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honeyearnest
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #21 on: Dec 8th, 2004, 6:07pm » |
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 k about criminals not being able to control what they do-i think that is sometimes true.becuz i believe in reincarnation and i think that some lifes you are the victim in others you are the doer.i believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason.
and if say the person has a mental problem i feel they cannot fully control there actions.i think that everyone is in the percise place at the right moment.o
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Icarus
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #22 on: Dec 8th, 2004, 8:18pm » |
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Ahh, but John states right at the start:
Quote:| I am not interested in opinions, I am more interested in approaching this question from an objective, scientific viewpoint. |
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"Pi goes on and on and on ...
And e is just as cursed.
I wonder: Which is larger
When their digits are reversed? " - Anonymous
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rmsgrey
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #23 on: Dec 9th, 2004, 8:04am » |
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on Dec 8th, 2004, 6:07pm, honeyearnest wrote: k about criminals not being able to control what they do-i think that is sometimes true.becuz i believe in reincarnation and i think that some lifes you are the victim in others you are the doer.i believe in fate and that everything happens for a reason.
and if say the person has a mental problem i feel they cannot fully control there actions.i think that everyone is in the percise place at the right moment.o |
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Hi Honey.
As Icarus said, we're trying to restrict ourselves to a fairly hard-headed scientific approach rather than matters of opinion in this thread.
So to try and bridge the gap: what testable consequences could reincarnation with Karma have?
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towr
wu::riddles Moderator
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Re: Fate -- Fact or Fiction?
« Reply #24 on: Dec 9th, 2004, 8:43am » |
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on Dec 9th, 2004, 8:04am, rmsgrey wrote:| So to try and bridge the gap: what testable consequences could reincarnation with Karma have? |
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Accurate recall of events/objects in a previous life which you could not have gained knowledge of in this life. And as far as Karma is concerned whether your kind of behaviour then correlates with your conditions now.
It is quite testible when you find someone who claims to have memories of a past life, invariable it turns out bogus. I mean, how many people could have been Napoleon or Cleopatra in a previous life?
(In all fairness, it depends on you view of reincarnation, there needn't be a one-on-one mapping)
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Wikipedia, Google, Mathworld, Integer sequence DB
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