What do you think?....
 

Do you think the future is preordained? Or is it a fluid thing that changes all the time and whose outcome cannot be determined? I think you can spot trends, but that the future changes with the wind as all the varibles swirl around and react to each other.

I think time is fluid, I think many planes of possiblilities exist at once. However, I do think there is "probable futures". Honestly, I think that some of it is preordained, not because of some cosmic rules, but because of how people have acted, what they have done, in moments. ie, what has come before, will most likely lead to what comes. Therefore I think, in that way, the future can be predictable. However, I think the probability definitely exist for there to be "other" futures. It's a very good question. I, and some of my friends, have predicted things, or seen them. they have come to happen. But - does that mean there were not other possibilities? I don't think so. But then again, in the way that the past makes the future, it may be, to a certain extent, that the future is preordained, because of what has come before - that which was, makes that which is. I dunno, I'm still exploring it all, and on the fence about some things. I think about it a lot, but don't really have the answers, yet. :D

Ooh good points Amber. I think you are right that the future is based on past events. I think it gets harder to predict the farther you go out. it is easier to predict the outcome of my doing laundry in the next 10 minutes as opposed to who (if anyone) will be president in 500 years. I think there is a percentage of an outcome happening, but nothing definate. (Kinda like Quantum Phyics in knowing the eact location of particles - you can only guess with a percentage chance of really knowing).

This beats cleaning the bathroom, which I am puting off ATM. :D I don't think everything is entirely random. There are just higher and lower percentage chances of things happening. (If I don't buy cleaner for the bathroom, the chance of me cleaning it in the future is much less).

I think I disagree, only because i hold the belief that all particles are connected, scientifically. Not that that discounts randomness, because I think there is an element which we consider random, however, I'm not sure if it actually is random. I suspect that it is not. After all, everything on this earth shares something with something else. Particles interract constantly, in ways that we are only beginning to understand... :shrug:

right - it does get harder to predict further out, but only because most people do not have that information. If we did, I'm sure we could trace some sort of particle line... :laugh: I absolutely think that what is done now, in every second, effects every other second, for millenia. "Deep thoughts, by Amber G." :laugh:

Ah HA! :laugh: (at what, i'm not sure...). oh, the past determining the future thing. yeah. that's it.
speaking of dishes.... :rolleyes: lux, can you come do mine? :laugh:

In the grand scheme of things, nothing matters. We're not going to leave big marks behind because of anything we've done in our lifetime, we're all going to die, and life is going to go on as if we never existed. Everything is essentially random and nothing is as connected as we'd like to believe.

Not if Courtney Love is any indication.

well, I'm sure I can do both! :laugh: seriously, I think that everything's molecules are connected, and those science shows from PBS that I watch really strengthen those views... :D To me it's absurd to think nothing is connected, and that the past doesn't influence the future, but hey, I've been thinking about this/studying it for a long time, perhaps I am too "in the mix" :wavey:

Part true, part not. everything we do, really, will affect future generations. Our pollution? they'll live with it. Our inventions? they'll live with them. Our art? Same thing. I can't believe you think what we do doesn't lead to what other people do, or percieve. Aren't we products of an enormous history that came before us? Do you think we would have any of the things we do, if someone before us hadn't led the way to inventing them? Sesly.

totally. completely. without question. etc. :nod: How could every past moment not have led up to the moment we are having right now? To take a simple example, what if we weren't born? etc.

Have you taken philosophy classes? :shrug: Such things are taught in them as existentialist beliefs and they aren't regarded or defined as "cynicism". I'm not speaking about physical inventions.