Is the universe simply going through the motions?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Philosophy
matt_shade — 6 years ago(June 05, 2019 09:48 AM)
Say you are out walking in winter and you see someone fall through thin ice. You can try to help or you can simply stand there. Either way your actions are based on what came before just as the person being on the ice is based on what came cefore and the ice cracking is based on what came before.
Just like your birth is based on your parents meeting and their births are based on their parents meeting all the way back through the ages to prehistoric organisms meeting which is based on the planet forming just so which is based on the galaxy forming just so which is based on the universe forming just so.
So let's say the universe was formed just slightly differently so, instead of our exact history, the U.S. and Russia launched nukes in the 1950s resulting in global nuclear winter, would that just be another universe "going through the motions" just like ours? Or is that an impossibility, meaning that the only possible universe is the one where you are reading this message written by me since the universe formed with the exact temperatures, pressures etc. that it did i.e. that there was a zero chance that I not be born and write this message and you not be born and you read it?
'(sigh) We humans are stupid egotistical self-deluded beings' -
matt_shade — 6 years ago(June 05, 2019 05:10 PM)
"Are you saying it's all random"
No, I'm saying one moment is based on the preceding moment. If you drop a handful of dice they land the way they land as that is the way they land under those exact conditions.
"or that the conditions were right at the moment it happened?"
I guess I'm asking if there could be different conditions because if not then everything we do is what we always were to do since there's only those exact conditions.
'(sigh) We humans are stupid egotistical self-deluded beings' -
matt_shade — 6 years ago(July 15, 2019 06:15 PM)
So if tomorrow I slip on something and break my neck and die, that's Luck and Fate shaking hands on a job well done afterwards? Because Fate has a detailed plan of how the universe ends and Luck is flipping a coin on every detail in that plan?
'(sigh) We humans are stupid egotistical self-deluded beings' -
matt_shade — 6 years ago(July 15, 2019 11:34 PM)
I reckon that the idea is that in fatalism the person who gets the promotion could never not get the promotion and the coin toss couldn't alter the outcome (like Romeo and Juliet couldn't not have the balcony scene and couldn't have their death scenes, the book's written) while luck is that the coin toss is "random" therefore can positively alter the outcome (if the two are just a little luckier then Juliet wakes up just before Romeo downs the poison, happy ending!)
In other words: Saying fate favored someone is saying that fate puppeteers everything, not just the coin toss, fate puppeteered Romeo to drink the poison at the exact moment he does and puppeteered Juliet to wake up at the exact moment she does just like it puppeteered which side of the coin it lands on while saying Romeo and Juliet were unlucky is saying that the coin toss is a tipping point.
'(sigh) We humans are stupid egotistical self-deluded beings' -
MovieManCin2 — 6 years ago(July 15, 2019 10:41 PM)
Actually whether you save that person or not, has absolutely
nothing
to do with the universe or anything which came before, or any such cosmic bullshit.
It depends SOLELY on whether you're an arsehole or not. If you're an arsehole,
you watch him/her drown. If you're not, you try to save him/her.
MAGA! FAFO!
Schrodinger's Cat walks into a bar, and doesn't. Dumbocraps: evil people who celebrate murder. 
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NobodyFamiliar — 6 years ago(July 16, 2019 01:02 AM)
Yeah, it's ****ing chaos.
A butterfly flaps it's wings in China and it America it causes a bear to maul Erica's face while her non existent husband boyfriend ****s an underrage girl on her baseball team. -
matt_shade — 6 years ago(July 16, 2019 01:10 PM)
As far as I can tell there's no such thing as "chaos". That you can't predict what the dice will show doesn't mean it can hit the table and split every atom in a ten foot radius or make the table pregnant because random.
'(sigh) We humans are stupid egotistical self-deluded beings' -
️ Christina 1986-05-20 
— 6 years ago(July 16, 2019 01:33 PM)No, reality is much more complicated. It just has to happen!
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