Fate and Destiny: a philosophy thread

[€uroMeinke]

Oddly enough, I think it's Alex's "unknowable" which makes me abandon any absolute metaphysics and fall back on phenomenology, my experience of the world - stating with the Cartesian premise, "I think therefore I am."

Alex's view may well be reality, but does nothing to inform me of how I might change my actions. See, illusory or not - I experience the world as if I have free will and even if I come to the conclusion that science reduces all my actions into chemical or sub-atomic reactions - I'm still left with a notions of "well, what am I going to do about it then?" and the illusion of free will emerges again, so in my phenomenological world, I have to accept that.

Steve's notion of the nonexistence - or ultimate compression of time is an interesting one, that there is no duration or sequence, rather just being - if I understand correctly. It makes questions of fate or destiny rather different, in a sense it becomes all the stuff that you are missing in that sigularity of compressed time. For me though, since I experience the passge of time, I have to also reject that notion even if it is true, as I have a creative sense of guiding my future.