Do you believe in fate/kismet?

CpT_x_Killsteal

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Jun 21, 2012
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Pretty sure fate would've gotten bored of all this crap by now and would either make us advance 100 years in the space of 20 or just make us nuke ourselves in favour of a more interesting species.

Fate is what you make of it. Fate is inevitability. Fate is all things coming to pass.
 

rosac

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Sep 13, 2008
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I believe in Luck. I also believe you can make your own luck. Thats about it really.
 

LarenzoAOG

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Apr 28, 2010
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You can look back on any series of events and say they were preordained or destined to occur, but I won't believe in fate until someone can look forward and with exact clarity predict something that is going to happen.

As for karma, I believe in social karma, if you're a bastard someone is going to cut you down to size eventually, and in a lesser sense I guess I believe in universal karma
 

Palademon

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Mar 20, 2010
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First time I've heard of kismet...apart from is benig the script used in the Unreal Editor...
Chemical Alia said:
No, I don't believe in fate, luck, destiny, or any of that stuff. But I do believe in Unreal scripting, only because I've seen people do it before.


I think luck was merely a word for describing fortunate situations that people badly interperet form the context to take onto thinking of it as a force, rtaher than simply a name for a fortunate event.
 

Ranorak

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Feb 17, 2010
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Those dice rolled the way they did because of the force of the throw, initial position and other physical factors.
I end up where I end up because of the choices I make and those around me.

A lot of good things happen to bad people and a lot of bad thing happen to good people.
Not everyone gets what they deserve and some times people don't deserve what they get.

If there was fate, why is it so unfair?
Why do I get to live a reasonably easy life while somewhere else someone is taking their last breath from a hereditary disease.
 

Ieyke

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Jul 24, 2008
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Do you have a predetermined fate? Yes. You do.
I don't just believe it, it's really the only logical option.

Basically, yes, you have free will to do whatever you want, but you will always want the same things.
All things in the universe are mathematically predetermined based on physics, and geometry. Anything in the universe that is seemingly random or based on a probability becomes a complete certainty if you have enough information about the universe to see all of the factors.

It is COMPLETELY beyond the scope of human understanding to be able to access, absorb, and/or comprehend the degree of information requiered.
But, IF there was a being who could calculate the trajectories of every subatomic particle, work out the subsequent chemical and atomic interactions between them all, etc etc etc, that being would be able to calculate the growth and outcomes of every subsequent firing of every synapse in every brain, and the resulting thoughts, impulses and decisions that every being in the universe will make.
That being would be able to calculate every event from now to eternity.

Since that level of awareness and thought is utterly beyond the scope of any creature that exists, for human understanding we instead boil all that information down to probabilities, broad generalizations, and the fundamental physical laws that govern all of those calculations we don't have the information and scope to work out.

It's like an ant trying to comprehend how the city it lives in is run. The information is there. Humans understand the systems and can tell you what the outcomes of things will be in accordance with city ordinances and such...but to the ant it's something utterly beyond it that it will simply never be able to fathom.
The ant will react in certain ways to whatever happens to it, never knowing that there's a system governing what happens around it.

People can't possibly understand the ultimate complexity of the mechanations of the universe, so we all have to just do whatever it is that we're going to do, not ever really consciously aware that the system we live in utterly governs the infinite web of chain reactions that result in anything that ever happens and everything that ever is.
 

Ryotknife

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Oct 15, 2011
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I suppose I believe in fate on some level. Not the "every single action ive ever taken is predetermined" kind of fate though. I also believe in luck. It is why I hate heavy RNG in video games because it horrendously screws me everytime. It is why I dont gamble because i lose every time.

One of my mottos is "dont tempt fate" and "it is better to be lucky than good"

eh, i guess ill throw this quote down from Shakespeare:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,"

I do view life as one grand play.
 

Twilight_guy

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Nov 24, 2008
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Chemical Alia said:
No, I don't believe in fate, luck, destiny, or any of that stuff. But I do believe in Unreal scripting, only because I've seen people do it before.
Bah, real men get a license and fuck with the C++ base code, (then screw everything up and regret that decision). LIKE A PROGRAMMING BOSS!

I beleve in the lessons taught byt he cartoon I used to watch. They told me that a man makes his own luck. (also karma is more about if you're a bad person people will hate you and it will bite you in the butt).
 

Mossberg Shotty

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Jan 12, 2013
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I'de like to believe that people get what they deserve in the end, whether good or bad. Not sure what to think about luck though. But if it does exist, I could use a bit.
 

Chemical Alia

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Feb 1, 2011
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Twilight_guy said:
Chemical Alia said:
No, I don't believe in fate, luck, destiny, or any of that stuff. But I do believe in Unreal scripting, only because I've seen people do it before.
Bah, real men get a license and fuck with the C++ base code, (then screw everything up and regret that decision). LIKE A PROGRAMMING BOSS!

I beleve in the lessons taught byt he cartoon I used to watch. They told me that a man makes his own luck. (also karma is more about if you're a bad person people will hate you and it will bite you in the butt).
Eek the Cat taught me that it never hurts to help. But he's always hurting.
 

Mycroft Holmes

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Sep 26, 2011
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Fate or destiny, the idea that we are moving a long a set path of history throughout our lives, is an almost metaphysical certainty. So yes I believe in it. It's likely not by the hand of some deity though. But given a perfectly complete knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology coupled with the ability to watch every single little interaction, you would be able to perfectly predict absolutely everything.

Follow the trajectory of a meteor across the cosmos calculating every single little pull of gravity effecting it. Calculate every little interaction of a person, and every effect that has on the rewiring of their brain. Predict each chemical release across the synapses, and translate those into each muscle contraction moving the body at its exact set pace. The idea to go to the exact location the meteor will touch down. The psychological inclination to move at the exact right(or wrong speed.) And to then get perfectly predictably hit by that meteor.

As such there can also no luck. Only predictable actions and reactions.
 

Xathos

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Jun 7, 2010
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Ieyke said:
Kapol said:
I think the same way as these two, or mostly anyway.

I think we are all able to make our own choices. But if some divine person or creature of superior intellect was able to see all the paths a person could take (and pretty much all of humanity), then a fate or destiny would be formed as a result. Maybe some destinies are unavoidable, but I think we can choose what we want. Humans just don't have the ability to see these results, and so we just chalk up things to being fate or destiny, or happening for a reason.

Basically, its a system of free choice with certain outcomes and layouts being set in stone (or having a higher probability of happening) because of that free choice...if that makes any sense.

As for Luck, yeah I believe it. Some people are just really gifted with it, and others aren't. And Karma? Sure, I can get behind it. Do good and you get rewarded, do bad and you get equally rewarded. Some people believe that Karma also extends into past lives, which I guess I can agree on.
 

zombiejoe

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Sep 2, 2009
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I don't like the idea of fate.

If fate existed, that would mean that drug addicts were meant to be drug addicts, rapists were meant to be rapists, and free will is pointless.

Without fate, we can be our own masters. Our choices will be our own, and there will always be a way to find redemption. I don't want to live in a world where we are trapped in our own lives.
 

Ieyke

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Jul 24, 2008
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"If fate existed, that would mean that drug addicts were meant to be drug addicts, rapists were meant to be rapists, and free will is pointless."

Interestingly, that is the case.
Murderers are meant to be murderers, in THAT sense they can't be blamed because they technically had no choice, even if they think they did. But this also means that blame is technically irrelevent to how we handle things. We lock them up, execute them or whatever because we have the impression that they deserve it.
Insofar as that's simply the process that reality follows, that's what they get, regardless of technically being blameless.

Society was fated to respond to murder with punishment.
Murderers were fated to fated to murder.

And you can't escape what you were fated to do by realizing what you were fated to do and pointedly doing something else, because even THAT realization, and the conscious decision to do something else, are fated too.

The only solution is to simply ignore fate and play its game however you naturally would, without attempting to subvert fate's grand design.
There's literally no fighting it, and trying is an utter waste of time.


Existential Catch-22

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,"

^Very true.
We're really just playing out prewritten roles on the grand stage of reality.
One set of circumstances setting up a person to carry out the only series of responses they could possibly make, which sets up circumstances provoking someone else into carrying out the only possible reactions they could make,etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc ad infinitum.
 

Yopaz

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Jun 3, 2009
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No, I don't believe in any kind of force that leads us along the lines we're supposed to take. As soon as we go down that road it gets a little too religious for me. I believe we have free will, we have our intelligence, we have our environment working in unison to push us along the lines we take. Now there are some amazing coincidences out there, but that's because the universe is random to some degree. Oh, you just happened to run into that guy who were able to help you along the way, that must be fate! No, it's a matter of chance. Some unlikely things happen. The variety of mutations and recombinations over millions of years that have made birds so different from reptiles. It's incredibly unlikely that all those mutations are to happen, do the maths and you'll need a better calculator than mine just to display the number. These things did happen and they are far less likely than running into the love of your life at a Starbucks.
 
Apr 5, 2008
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I really like the idea some posters have expressed, that karma is in fact a societal force, rather than a cosmic, divine or metaphysical one. And there is a certain truth to it; being an arse will eventually result in less people hanging around a person. Being a decent person will result in more people wanting to hang around them. Being a criminal will eventually lead to prison, and being selfless in a quest to help others will result in recognition by others of a person's good deeds.
 

SuperSuperSuperGuy

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Jun 19, 2010
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I'd say karma exists, but it's nothing like a divine force. It's merely the idea that if you do something wrong, you're going to piss someone off and they might try to get back at you.

Luck... well, sometimes things are just beyond your control or foresight, and the only thing that you can do is deal with it. Luck is just a weird way of saying that. Take, for example, a Fire Emblem game. Your character misses a crucial attack with a 90% hit rate, which leads to the death of another of your characters. What the RNG did was beyond your control, so it was the result of poor luck. It's not a cosmic force, but it still exists, in a loose sense.

As for fate and such... meh. Things will work out the way they work out, but there's no driving, cosmic force facilitating a specific outcome. Things can only work out one way, but the way they work out depends on your actions and inactions.
 

Headdrivehardscrew

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Aug 22, 2011
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It does not exist as a large number of people are inclined to understand it.

I'd say it does not exist at all. But believing in it, God, common sense, a better future or 'true love', we can implement to payload of teachings and let them have the impact on our existence they were originally laid out to have, no strings, churches, cults or fine print attached.

These things, and many more like them, do not exist. Humans made them up to make life less ook ook, less primitive, maybe safer and a wee bit more refined. I like to have them around.
 

Woodsey

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Aug 9, 2009
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Luck is a perfectly acceptable concept if you take it to mean that someone is, for instance, gambling and doing better than you would expect judging by the odds they face. The concept of luck being some sort of external force is, however, perfectly retarded.

Similar thing for karma. If you're massive prick all your life then chances are someone's going to want to get you back for it at some point, but it's not the cosmic overlords of the universe that are guiding them to do so.
 

BiscuitTrouser

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May 19, 2008
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Being aware that some of the slave traders died rich and surrounded by wealth and women pretty much tells me Karma has to be a societal pressure. There is no way a force is righting all the wrongs. And if it was its a shitty force. Vengeance making everything ok? Not really. Karma is meant to sound nice but all i hear is "HEY A SHIT THING HAPPENED SO ANOTHER SHIT THING WILL HAPPEN :D" which seems like a shoddy deal. If karma was a force to make people repent or right their wrongs id be more into it as a concept. As it is its a massive "YEAH PEOPLE I HATE SUFFER!" ego wank and i dont really care for it. I dont care if bad things happen to bad people. I care if they stop being bad people.

Dont believe in luck but pretend to for the fun of it. I have lucky numbers. Lifes too short to abstain from anything amusing. I know its all a crock but eh why not. Im deterministic but convinced that acting as if i have free will is probably the only way to enjoy life.