romansh

I agree with the second part and and I am 99% convinced of the first.
The original poster also asked about fate.
I think implying if we have no freewill, then fate must exist, is ridiculous?
thoughts?

the universe is a cosmic pinball machine...... is there anybody pressing the flippers? And yes MAYBE somebody built the machine.

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

marmalade

I think that whether fate exists is secondary to whether freewill exists. The non-existence of freewill wouldn't necessitate the existence of fate.

My thoughts about fate in terms of God are the same as all of my thoughts about God. God can mean many things to many people, and likewise with fate. I decline to state belief nor disbelief about fate in terms of the traditional theistic God. As for fate in terms of the infinite other versions of God, I decline to state belief nor disbelief because it would be an endless endeavour.

However, there are beliefs about fate that don't require divine control of the universe. For instance, karma can be interpreted as simply non-physical causation.

I don't know if I believe in fate, but I would like to believe that the world is ordered somehow. And hopefully there is some meaning within that order. This is where my interest in archetypes comes in.

Skepticologist

Right. NOTHING to do with fate at all. From my agnostic viewpoint, the universe has been set in motion by a force I have no way of substantively understanding, but I can still observe it.


What is deemed as fate by those among us who demand meaning from anything and everything that happens as the result of the chaotic motion of the universe is simply happenstance to those of us who don't demand such meaning.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

marmalade

I'm curious about what the above statement means to you personally.

Why do you think there is a force that set in motion the universe?

Why do you think the universe was set in motion?

What was the beginning point?

What was before the beginning point?

You say you can observe this force...

What observations are these?

Why do you interpret these observations as you do?

I don't demand meaning from anything, but I do have a sense of meaning in the world and I have a hope for meaning. Even your perspective is meaningful, and your definition of meaning in the universe seems very important to you. Its probably safe to assume that nobody here is a complete nihilist which is to say that all of us are probably believers in some kind of meaning.

Why do you assume that anything and everything in the universe is the result of chaotic motion that, as you said above, was set in motion by a force at the beginning of time that can't be understood despite being observeable?

What do you mean by chaotic motion? By chaotic, do you mean lacking in consciousness, intelligence, and purpose? Do you mean lacking in an intrinisic ordering principle? Or are you referring to chaos theory?

AB517

I agree with you to a point. God is not hiding. We can not only observe him and can understand him, what ever that is. He wants us to learn everything about this universe and him that we can possibly know, if it is 100% of him, that would bring him such great joy, you have no idea. Where I disagree with you is that once we know and understand what that “force” is god no longer exist.

It is a fundamental mistake that I see people making. They assume that once we can describe the laws of this universe that removes god. They call it “God of Gaps”. Because I know 2+4=4 doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist, it only proves him more logical than we can understand.

Most of us do not demand a meaning, we only question if there is meaning. Chaotic motion of particles only seems chaotic when we do not understand the paths and or processes that the particles follow. The sheer number of co incidents in human existence points to something else. We can try to explain every one away, but that in itself seems to complex. Generally the more simple solution to a problem is the true answer.

Skepticologist

You've posed a bunch of questions, but I'll take a shot at answering all of them.

It simply means that I subscribe to the now trite and over-used dictum "**** happens". With so much motion in the universe, lots of things are bound to happen. A microcosmic example would be a freeway. With so many cars in motion, accidents are bound to happen. But whether in a macrocosmic or microcosmic sense, things just happen, not because there's some script written by some supreme being, and not because they're meant to happen.

I guess that belief comes purely from my experiential base. I'm a firm believer in cause and effect. Things may not happen for a reason, but they happen because something else happened that caused them. The closest to a logical proof for the existence of a supreme being I've encountered is Thomas Aquinas's concept of an umoved mover. It appeals to me because of my affinity for the principle of cause and effect. Based on that principle, at some beginning point of the universe, there had to be a cause for the effect of the first motion that millenia later has resulted in all the motion currently going on in the universe. However, to claim that that cause was some supreme being that set the universe in motion begs the question, what was the cause of the effect of the supreme being?

I have no idea.

Again, I have no idea. Bound by my temporal belief in cause and effect, I feel strongly that there was one, but I can't get my head around what it was or why it existed.

Simply the motion. Three years ago I sailed from Gibraltar to the Canary Island on a 42-foot sloop. When we got out into the open Atlantic, we were constantly going up and down on 20-foot swells (fortunately at comfortable intervals). The captain explained that such large but gentle swells originated thousands of miles away in the North Atlantic. Conversely, shorter, choppier waves were the result of more local weather conditions. But whether the cause of the water conditions was more or less observable, something had to set both the swells and the waves in motion.

I'm not sure what you mean by interpret. I specifically said that I don't think there's any meaning behind what I observe; only that I observe it.

I, too, "have a sense of meaning in the world", but it doesn't extend to a meaning for everything that happens. Instead, I make my own meaning. For the 31 years of my career, the meaning was providing for my family and achieving some modicum of success. Since I retired three years ago, the meaning has taken on more of an altrustic focus out of concern for what my legacy will be; what difference my existence will make. As such, my focus is pretty much confined to my relatively small sphere of influence.

The fact that I don't believe things happen for a reason, or as the result of some divine master plan, lends itself to a conception that they happen in a random, unpredictable, i.e. chaotic, way. And, as an agnostic, I have no proof, nor reason to believe, that there's any "consciousness, intelligence, and purpose" behind them.

With regard to "an intrinisic ordering principle", I do have evidence, through the discoveries of science, that the universe in a macrocosmic sense operates according to certain regular and predictable principles. It's when observed in a microcosmic sense that chaos becomes apparent.

I suppose that, in a way, I am referring to chaos theory. It's just that points of perturbation seem to occur with much greater frequency the more microcosmic the systems are.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

marmalade

Skepticologist - Thanks for answering the questions. I always appreciate someone who takes the time to appease my curiosity.

I find it interesting that causation apeals to you so much. Science most often emphasizes a cause-effect relationship amongst things. I'd say these are the most obvious relationships. Its easier to explain things this way in a satisfying way. Also, if something has a cause, then it means we might be able to effect it.

I'm also attracted to acausal relationships or else where the causality is unclear and complex. This is one very old explanation of astrology. The stars don't cause human personality and behavior, but rather various other ordering principles influence both... in the way gravity influences both stars and Earhtly life. I also like the Buddhist principle of Dependent Co-arising where everything is causing everything else. I think this may be a truer portrayal of reality, but I don't know if it could be proved or disproved. Some theories seem to be getting closer to an acausal view... such as Chaos theory.

Skepticologist

I have to admit to not having dabbled in chaos theory since my introduction to it more years ago than I'd like to remember, so I may be seriously out of date.

But if it hasn't morphed into something completely different over the years, it seems to me that it's very much subject to the principle of cause and effect; just in a much more complex way.

My understanding of chaos theory is that there are so many, or so many unidentified, causes (inputs) that the effect becomes erratic and unpredictable. That doesn't mean that the effect is undiscoverable; it just means that at the point of perturbation, we can either embrace a completely new possibility of reality, or we can retreat into those perceptions of reality that we've already become comfortable with.

I may be oversimplifying it, but I still see chaos theory and subject to the principle of cause and effect.

__________________
"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

Clarence Darrow

marmalade

As far as I understand chaos theory(which is very little), it doesn't refer to linear causation... which is what I was meaning by acausal... or, as you say, in a much more complex way. However, maybe there are many ways acausal or multi-causal influence might occur... chaos theory being one explanation.

romansh

I think very simple systems can result in very complex and unpredictable patterns. It is not so much that they are without cause, we just can't measure accurately enough to get a reference point.

carry on don't let me interrupt ...

__________________
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams