Position:Home>Philosophy> Is your life a choice or was it planned?

Without getting into the religious side of things, regarding whether God exists and if he has plans for you (which I suppose is a moot question anyway because most religions believe in free will regardless of whether or not your creator has plans for you), I strongly feel that there is no unavoidable fate or destiny that controls the eventual outcome of your life!. I believe that people believe in the existence of such concepts primarily for two reasons, the first being an easy way to absolve themselves of responsibility for their actions (eg, "Let fate decide" or "It was my destiny to lose")!. The other reason is in a way on the other end of the spectrum; instead of being an excuse why you're not responsible if something bad happens, it is a dream that no matter what you do, something good will happen (eg "We're destined to be together" or "fate is on our side" and the like)!. Both reasons for believing in fate are irrational!. These are often the same people who believe that the stars can predict, or even determine your fate, or that psychics and card readers can tell you your future, without ever considering the fact that her merely telling you the future has wildly altered that future (this brings to mind an analogy with a law in quantum physics: that it is impossible to observe a quantum particle without changing it - and thus, by the time the observation is made, it is no longer where you observed it to be, or travelling in the same direction) -- but perhaps you explain this away by saying that her telling you your future was part of your destiny and helped set it into motion!. However, anyone who reflects on this thought process for long enough will arrive at the inevitable conclusion that such a possibility, were it real, would result in a future-oriented spacetime paradox (as opposed to the past-oriented spacetime paradox associated with travelling to your past and somehow affecting your life in a way to cause you to not travel back into the past, the kind which so often caused Doc to say "Great Scott!")!.

I realized that I've answered your philosophical question with one based in science, but that is because I believe that in most case, science can trump philosophy, and I believe I've provided adequate evidence to reinforce that belief!.

I also believe that not only is belief in fate/destiny irrational, but that it's a copout!. If fate exists, then it doesn't matter what you do because all paths will arrive at the same destination!. Which is ridiculous!.

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I would like to add that, taken from the perspective of science, there are generally two schools of thought regarding this!. The one that I believe is the more popular is in basic agreement with me - that nothing can be predicted with total accuracy (and the accuracy of predictions dropping off exponentially as time increases), due to the chaotic nature of quantum mechanics!. The other school of thought believes that the state of the universe at any given time is a function of the state of the universe at all times before it, and that if one could know the entire history of the universe with total certainty, that one could make a completely accurate prediction of the entire future of the universe!. This second school is more in tune with the philosophical belief in fate!. However the problems I see with this belief are A) it would be impossible for anyone to know all this information, so it is nothing more than a thought experiment, and B) quantum particles behave erradically and at times completely unpredictably (in fact, to know exactly where a quantum particle is at any given time is impossible - you can only know the probability that it will be in a certain place)!. While humans are mostly predictable, one could assume that a person's life is determined by their initial circumstances, ie genes and environment, but given the knowledge that a person is nothing more than a collection of quantum particles behaving erradically and only statistically predictable on large scales, there is no way to say with 100% certainty that a person would always make the same decision given the same circumstances!. Other (mostly minority) theories give a countless multitude of universes, one for each possible state of the universe (I'm sure you've heard this one before)!. Even though the latter theory proposes a similar belief as the philisophical belief in fate, it is by a different form of thinking that it arrives at that conclusion, but nevertheless, I consider them both to be equally incorrect!.

(I hope I was able to sufficiently explain what I feel is an important link between theory and philosophy - one that shows that while superficially they seem quite similar, indeed almost analogous, fundamentally they are completely different!.)Www@QuestionHome@Com

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I don't think it's possible to map out a life from birth to death!. Having said that, that's probably the basis of the plan: you're born !.!.!. you die!.

What happens in between - and how long you live for - is determined by the choices you make every day!. Choice A leads down one path; choice B down another!. Bit hard to plan that when there are a myriad of choices in front of us each day!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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I believe you have free will and are able to do what you are capable of!. We don't always get to do exactly what we want to!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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