Ok, given that my life seems to be totally ruled by freak random events, with little rhyme or reason, what do you believe in? Fate? God? Nature? Humanity?

Any or all of the above?

Seriously, can anything explain life?

A wise friend of mine suggested to me that although there are things we have no control over, we can shape the events around us, to some degree, that we are all magicians, and can all work our own magic..

So, do you have magic?

no one can lead my life, except me!

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ok...if you say so
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for informational purposes only
http://spudszilla.cjb.net

beer is what causes most of the random events in my life

I believe that the future is half written, but can be changed at any time. Like, if you're destined to be a movie star, but you move to Siberia to herd sheep in the mountains... you probably wont get discovered up there.

So, yes, I believe in fate. But, I believe that we are still in control of what happens in our lives.

Cheers,
Lost

Well doesn't it seem plausible that, if alien supertechnology seems like magic to us, wouldn't REALLY GOOD alien supertechnology just seem like chance?

I believe that ordinary coincidences ARE NO COINCIDENCE. It's ALWAYS a message. The thing is, first of all its not personalized, and second of all there's so much double talk and reverse psychology, that you really can't tell what any of it means, unless there are literally dozens of coincidences blowing up in your face about the same thing, over and over.

It's no coincidence. It's a message from the alien brotherhood.

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[This message has been edited by Captain Obvious (edited 5-15-01).]

Everything happens by chance.
But everythings already happened really.
We have no control over our lives but total control.
Everything we WANT to happen is possible. By chance.
Everything we HOPE will happen is almost impossible. By chance.

Just make it as self fulfilling as possible. Dont ever think your life as being the worst possible... theres always people worse of than you. People can trap themselves thinking your sort of thing into thinking that life isnt worth living and spend all their time locked up doing nothing in particular. Dreading all confrontations with others of the human race.

quote:

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Originally posted by dingo76:
beer is what causes most of the random events in my life

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weed is what causes most of the random events in my life

I grow increasinly bitter. No thought.

Six different answers in six replies.. hot damn.. seems like the only good answer you'll get is the one you find yourself.

Suze, Hi watch me do a succinct post!

Evil Mastermind, well , well, well, we agree

Fate is a matter of perception, an accident can be ones tradgedy of a lifetime , to another ,part of the mornings traffic report.

To perceive something as fate, one needs an insiders understanding of it, one based on a personal experience, then perceiving it.

Hearing about other peoples experiences,would beunderstanding the concept, I'm talking about experiencing that "old hand of fate" and it having an effect on you.

The closer you are in reality, as opposed to undisputed-as-yet-to-be-proven concept, to everything and everyone in your life, the less likely you are to perceive something as tragic fate.

I don't think your post is about tragic fate though, so I'll leave it at that.

The things that are possible, but for one reason or another incredibly difficult for us
to achieve unaided,of our own volution, these are the things which we might be able to ascribe to magic.

Were we somehow able to rise above our present self-assigned limitations. Finding that , call it whatever, willpower, courage, gumption...is the magic, imho.

Fate? call it whatever you want, there are no coincidences once it has occured to you that there have been alot of them in your life.

God? define God, totally inappropriate for anyone but you to do for you, I'd say the magic would fall under this one though.

Nature?Celebrate nature! These are the things
that cannot be done by mortal man, but are rarely ascribed to maliscious higher powers.

I used to want to believe in God, but couldn't so when I prayed I did it to God and Mother Nature, to me, similar powers, one proven, one so seemingly all-elusive.

Humanity? what do you mean Humanity?

So there, that's it. TA! DA!

By the way, I'm glad to see your post, perhaps things are getting interesting in a "now you're talking crazy sort of way"!!

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=/\___/\=
>~@ @~<
>>(xYx)<<

All decisions all possibilities will occur. For every decision you make you have also made every other possible decision and action. you're conciesness, if you belive in such a thing, is like a quarter falling down one of those plastic jars with bars in water with the bubbles.

read the celestine phorpercy.

It's got a whole chapter that says that chance events are'nt actually chance and that everything happerns for a reason (syrconicty)

I too have had way to many freak coincidences for them to be just random events

Alan - I WON that game! Got me a FREE piece o' chicken down at KFC!

Winki - I love you.

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[This message has been edited by Captain Obvious (edited 5-15-01).]

Weird things happen to weird people. I think maybe it's something to do with aura's or whatnot, you affect your environment by simply existing in it, and if yer existence and philosophy is fairly mundane, then fairly mundane things occur. Course there's always the bad shit happens to good people syndrome, but I figure that's just god having a bitchy day.


either that, or it's all in yer head, muwha.

there's no such thing as fate, as far as i am concerned. i react to my environment, and the circumstances provide a choice, however often, albeit tough.

quote:

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Originally posted by Suziegirl:
Ok, given that my life seems to be totally ruled by freak random events, with little rhyme or reason, what do you believe in? Fate? God? Nature? Humanity?

Any or all of the above?

Seriously, can anything explain life?

A wise friend of mine suggested to me that although there are things we have no control over, we can shape the events around us, to some degree, that we are all magicians, and can all work our own magic..

So, do you have magic?

---

Although you have recently just re-appeared Suziegirl, I really like your posts. I agree with your friend, he and I do believe that there is a power/value system that is greater than ourselves that directs life's course of events. I happen to believe in God/Nature/Fate, heh. BUT my favorite part is how we all can add a twist of lime in the martini of life. We can decide how we want the liquor to go down.


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You're in a laundry room, you're in a laundry room, the clue just came to you? oh.

i think that "42" sums up the total fucked upness of life dont you?

that joke is so overused.

jo66- it doesnt count as the same joke unless you add a towel.....

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He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."-Albert Einstein

"People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion."
--Albert Einstein

"The details of making the wormhole into a time tunnel have now been worked out. All you need to do is move one end of the wormhole at high speed (close to the speed of light) or place it in a strong gravitational field. Either will do the trick. Once this is done, you could go in one end and come out the other at an earlier time. Or you could go in the other end, go through it in the opposite direction, and come out in the future."

But then what happens when you kill yourself in the past, Lostmind?

Jaded: weird people don't CAUSE things to happen, either intentionally or through some mystikal "aura."

Pshaw.

It's just that theyre so interesting that "God" wants to see how they'll react.

Duh.

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[This message has been edited by Captain Obvious (edited 5-15-01).]

red rover.

i hope you were trying to be funny.

if you killed yourself in the past; you would not live to travel back in time to kill yourself.

the fact that you're alive now means that at no time in the future did you travel back in time and kill yourself prior to this point in your life.

(notice i said point; not time)

it's called the grandfather paradox.

we can't be certain of what we are going to do in the future(whatever that means); but we are certain of one thing you didn't do.

either way it shows theoretically that the decisions you make in life have already been made.

Unless you throw sex change operations into the mix. That changes EVERYTHING!!!

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[This message has been edited by Captain Obvious (edited 5-15-01).]

quote:

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Originally posted by lostmind:
red rover.

i hope you were trying to be funny.

if you killed yourself in the past; you would not live to travel back in time to kill yourself.

the fact that you're alive now means that at no time in the future did you travel back in time and kill yourself prior to this point in your life.

(notice i said point; not time)

it's called the grandfather paradox.

we can't be certain of what we are going to do in the future(whatever that means); but we are certain of one thing you didn't do.

either way it shows theoretically that the decisions you make in life have already been made.

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If you went back in time and killed yourself the reality in which you kill yourself no longer becomes your reality however you can never return to your reality because your exixtance in that reality alters it. All things happen at all times. Quantum physics hurts to think about.

smithee you know the name of that theory.

i can't remember it; something like indeterminate probabilities.

but it still doesn't disprove what i said.

because even in this reality; the fact i am still alive means no me in the future has come back.

and if you deduce at least one action; or lack of in the future of one reality; it is still possible to do so in all;

which still says your decisions have already been made by you.

but you are right.

it does give a person a headache when he spends any amount of time contemplating it.

, emptyness,

hahaarr.

repudiate all therioes and the hiding places are soon to be gone

the pains of our contension have invoked the offenders and now their is only our greivence and our curse,

i have visioned

a myriad of paths and the great power to choose is now mine, void of emotion and compassion, those that do and did decive me, i embrace the void, and indentify with the random ness of the nothing nes of which i came, and await to be fed back in eturnally, knowing that my pressence here was unequalled and was with harmony and sustainability for the self.

i abjure
apostatise

i fucking tergiversate your existance

i forswear your fucking perceptions, rules, and minds,

emytyness,

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totally nihilistic

nihil? you're still here? i thought you left a while ago?

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[This message has been edited by Captain Obvious (edited 5-15-01).]

I like lostcause's explanation, it's kinda neat.
HOWEVER
Take a different view. We generally look a our lives a us moving along a time line, a little spot of light crawling along the ruler of time, that's the present, but its relative, time can only be seen by each observer and each observer must measure their own time. SO you have two options you can move the ruler for each person (a bit like moving the goal posts and intensive in the use of the universe's hard drive space, and that's not as bad an analogy aqs it seems at first glance) OR you can move the pointers. It sounds more probable that there is one histroy and people carry different pointers to their personal path through it. This can explain how we have different views of the past because we were at different places in it when it happened, ie. your pointers not only for space but also for time were in different places.

Did anyone understand this, or see what I'm getting at?

Now this is related to the thread because if people are at different points in time then parts of you future have already been written from someone else's point of view.
This is not necessarily very far into the future and since it is from someone elses POV it is not set in stone from your own.

I think me and lost got to the same answer just using different approches to the problem.

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~Kameron
Carpe Aptenodytes! (Seize the Penguins!)

Dang, interesting answers from everyone, and winki, yes impressed at the succinctness..

Can't exactly remember what I was getting at when I started this topic, but it out-did my expectations..

I'm not really sure what I believe.. Maybe there is some kind of guiding logic to life that I just can't see.. I don't really believe in a higher power, not in a sentient way anyway, as you said winki, I can better believe in mother nature than I can in god..
And I do believe I have the power to influence events around me in some way, just don't know if it's *enough* of a way.

As for time, well, time travel, it's just for buggers and hollywood ain't it? Not for you and me.. Even if you could go back in time and kill yourself, why would you want to? Other than as a kind of subjective experiment to see what happened.

I like your theory though Kam, that we all experience time from a slightly different perspective, definitely interesting..

I find that those who have the most influence around them are the ones who do things their way.

Ironic.

Maybe not.

...I believe in myself... (Need I say more than that...?)

...time is relative...

chaos theory goes against any idea of fate

emphatic is kaos theory, these lambs wont know or understand it, they think their senses define their existance, hahaar

empty ness.


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totally nihilistic

Oh please then oh mighty nihilistic, explain to us poor lambs, the essence of chaos theory?

if i could figure out chaos theory,(no one can yet?) i would have mapped the genomey thingy.

emptyness

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totally nihilistic