[lit-ideas] Re: The Final Finger of Fate
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 19:15:14 -0400
--- Original Message -----
From: Mike Geary
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 9/15/2006 2:32:00 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Final Finger of Fate
A.A.
> What laws?
The laws of physics, of course.
Good parenting cannot alter the laws of physics no matter how much you wish it
could.
***A.A. I don't know what physics has to do with this. Fate has a
supernatural quality to it; it can do what it wants. Luck conforms to all the
laws of physics.
M.G. I see no difference between your 'luck' and my 'fate', both speak of
events beyond our control.
***A.A. Fate has a sense of consciousness to it. There's a sense that things
are *meant* to be. Even in the title of this thread there's an
anthropomorphizing of fate. Fate is almost synonymous with God. Luck is
random. It's sheer coincidence, things happening. There's no consciousness
guiding luck.
M.G. A super-determinist would say (I think) that not only is everything beyond
our control, but that there's no such thing as 'control', not as such, that
there's only what is and what is is 'in ipso, per ipso, ex ipso control' -- or
something like that, or another way of not explaining it: that there are no
laws of physics, there's only physis which is what is because it is as it is.
There's no separable governing principle, there's just physis. I love this
kind of talk. Sounds profound but who knows what it means? I think know why
they say that, but I'm not sure I agree. You say in your post you're a
determinist, but everything you argue argues against that.
***A.A. I say I'm a determinist? I never wrote that, you did. I don't use
words like determinist. Not everything is beyond our control. In fact, if you
think globally but act locally, most things are in our control. We had control
over whether we invaded Iraq (just as an example). There's plenty we can and
do control, probably most of what we do. The problem is most of our control is
unconscious. That goes back to what kind of childhood we had, which we had no
control over. The better the childhood, the more control we were given, the
less control we need in adulthood, and the more conscious, less unconscious
control we exert. What we can't control is other people, and that's what most
people try to control.
A.A. (responding to: "I have no idea to what degree determinism 'determines'
our lives.")
>Luck, how well we're nurtured and how well our genes hold up.
I don't know what this means.
***A.A. Luck is who we got for parents, see above. Likewise luck if you're
born healthy or disabled. Sheer luck. Unless you think it's fate, which would
imply some malevolent deity.
A.A. (responding to: "But maybe we're not determined. Perhaps we are agents
acting variously freely in the world. Are we?")
>If we're free agents, then we're evil. Thrown out of Grace, etc.
I don't know what this means either.
***A.A. What can it mean? That if human actions have in fact been voluntary
throughout history, then humans are downright evil because their actions have
been evil. If, on the other hand, we say people are damaged (Stalin, Hitler,
Saddam, even Bush), then we have some control over what happens to humanity.
People like to use words like 'evil'. Nice and simple. Call someone evil,
kill em, you're done. How we raise humans beings is too complicated for most
people to want to be bothered with.
A.A.(responding to: "We don't have any choice but to live our lives as though
we are creatures of free will.")
>Then we're evil. Or lying to ourselves.
M.G. I don't know what this means either.
***A.A. Free will is an illusion. We do what we're programmed to do, or not
do. And, yes, we're programmed in childhood.
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