Free will. There is nothing in life that you or anyone else can be completely bound to. There are only 2 certianties in life: Death and taxes.

No fate.

Fate implies a supernatural deity/creator/overseer, I've no reason to believe this is the case. Everything is a coincedence, sometimes a happy one, sometimes an unhappy one.

Logic is so unromantic.

If I were to choose one, only one, word, I would without doubt say `Balance`.

All the time.

Everywhere.

Well things are pre-determined in a sense. Only one things going to happen and you are going to die a certain way. Nobody knows what's going to happen, but you can't change the course of the future (even though that sounds corny). But you can't say it's technically fate because if you say that, it's assumed that somebody knows your fate which nobody does unless there is some kind of deity or god or whatever you want to call it. Rene Descartes ontological statement claims that because we can fabricate god in our heads, that god indeed exists. However, we can certainly envision the perfect human being, but is that perfect human being walking around right now? Apparently Jesus was perfect. I'm not here to advocate Christianity though....

FREE WILL? According to some psychologist I read about (forget the name), every action has only ONE reaction...therefore no free will. That takes into consideration all the pondering and rumination a human does, genetics, your unconscious (id) and all that great stuff.

I definitely believe Karma exists but I don't think it should. Die-hard christians don't practice karma hence "turn the other cheek" Everyone's primal instinct is to "one-up" the other guy that wronged him, and depending on how much of a "conscience" that person that was wronged has, he may be more inclined to one-up that other person or not. IMO, violence begets violence. Should the U.S. be in a war because Al-Qadea "one upped" them? However, I think Karma for "good" things is a good thing. Ever see those cheesy commercials where one good deed leads to another good deed which leads to another etc? But "sin" started somewhere. Government is a necessary evil to keep karma in balance. kind of contradicted my self with these cynical tangents....

There are only 2 certianties in life: Death and taxes.

and tube amp repairs!

It's both.

for sure.

You have the free will to choose your own fate if you want to.

Everything you do, Everything you think, everything you say effects the world around you INDEFINATLY.

Some more than others, only really to those who are aware.

You may change your fate by thinking negative or good thoughts and doing negative or good things. But be ware. Negativity is a strong force. It is much easier to change the world around you with anger, hate, and negativity than it is to make the world a better place with caring, love and positive actions.

So, what I'm trying to say is, If you choose to make your own destiny you may, or you can kick back and enjoy whatever pre-made boring life the gods planned out for you!

I believe Karma, in it's popularly imagined form is a little too 'easy'. Too many people seem to view it only as a justice system rather than the concept as a whole. It's not as simple as good people getting good, bad people getting bad. And I don't really think it can exist as a sole belief, it has to go along with another one, because clearly if it were that easy, it doesn't work. The rich and powerful do some awful things, yet many of them die peacefully without any real negativity in their life.

I personally believe in Karma, but along with the idea of rebirth too. Here it is shown that even if the bad in this world come to no bad, it can creep up on them in the next life, it explains how those good souls who seem to be unfortunate can get a better life, and maybe paying penance for a past life.

I also don't like the idea of Karma being a conscious factor in peoples decisions, doing something good for the sole benefit of gaining Karma, as I know some who do, misses the point of good for the sake of being good, rather than trying to reap a reward. Similarly, I know a few people who try to equalise Karma themselves, they see someone do 'bad' in their eyes and they punish. It's a higher power. Humans should not interact with it.

Having said all that though, Karma is beautiful, I love it, but it's oversimplification peeves me sometimes.

I also believe in potential destinies, but many of them, that some parts of out lives may indeed have been guided to, but as Morpheus says, there is a difference from knowing the path and walking it. I look for signs for the future a lot, but in the end it is up to me to choose to follow them or not. The paths in life, they are set out, like a forked road, you can follow the forks, and make decisions to go to left or right, some landmarks may be on the road, but ultimately you choose if you walk it, what route you take and even if you want to go offroad for a bit. Understand? This is a hard one for me to vocalise, it seems a bit too convenient and language cannot fully describe it the way I wish. Ah well.

Also, I was watching a bit of Babylon 5, and Delenn said something that seemed to fit another jigsaw puzzle piece in my mind for me.

We [Minbari, a race in the program] do not believe in any individual god or gods. But rather, we believe that the soul is a non-localized phenomenon.

Well, if I project a beam of light at the wall, you see the light on the wall, but the wall is not the source of the light. It comes in from somewhere else. The soul is also a projection. It does not exist inside us any more than the light exists inside the wall. But this .. shell is the only way we can perceive it.

We believe that the universe itself is conscious in a way we can never truly understand. It is engaged in a search for meaning. So it .. breaks itself apart, investing its own consciousness in every form of life.

We are the universe, trying to understand itself.

At the core, free will due to quantum effects between matter. But consider this...

I have a Theory of Everything. It is very difficult for me to communicate because I haven't fully explored it yet, so bear with me. If you see things differently, please chime in. Perhaps it is redundant with another prevailing theory? I somehow don't think so.

"Matter" and "energy" are the result of an intersection of nth dimensional manifolds. As humans, we have the ability to perceive a certain set of phenomena with our senses. So for example, we perceive "objects", but what constitutes the "object"? The object is composed of molecules, which are collections of atoms, which are collections of neutrons, etc etc etc. It never ends. These divisions are based upon distinguishable behavior / organization as we perceive them.

An individual photon is thought of both as matter and energy. How is this possible? What is occurring is the photon as observed in 3 dimensions occurs as a "point", or matter. The "energy" that we measure is a second phenomenon of the particle interacting with other matter and producing a scattering wave, which due to quantum effects constitutes "random" behavior. The essential point here is that the wave is only a reflection of what is occurring at lower levels of dimensional organization. Vision is the result of our ability to perceive streams of wavelets which we interpret as spectra and our brains coordinate into images. We cannot see the "matter" of the photon itself, only its reflection.

So what about this nth dimensional manifold business?

At the subatomic level, each instance of matter is the result of particular interacting manifolds. For example, a "photon" may be a combination of an intersection of w,x,y,z manifolds. The manifold does not "move", it interacts with interconnected / related manifolds, and each dimension is warped and twisted as a result. The wave propagates in this manner. As an event occurs on a single manifold, it interacts at the intersections and causes a "visible" phenomenon, the reflection, which we perceive as "matter". The wave / energy / motion is propagating across the manifolds involved and thereby affecting surrounding "particles", which as I've explained are manifold combinations. A "particle" will thereby appear to wink out of existence because we no longer perceive it, but it is in fact propagating into other imperceptible dimensions. The energy is not lost, it is still propagating and affecting other "particles", and so on, and so forth.

So bring that up a level to the atomic level and we have what looks like stable "matter", but even "stable" matter can "decay". Decay is explainable as at the subatomic level, the "particles" / "wavelets" are interacting and sometimes they just get bumped enough which forces a change at higher levels of order; this is radioactive decay, which is a wave. This wave affects everything around it because its interacting at other dimensions. We are only able to perceive a part of it, but the waves repeated enough cause our own molecules to break down and our genetic machinery tries to repair it, but may not be able to keep up and causes deleterious rapid mutation. Aka cancer.

We can explore this ad nauseum.

So bottom line, nothing is predictable. Ergo free will.

P.S. Time is a construction of the mind, not a separate dimension.

[EphelDuath666]

free will...I'm fully responsible for everything I do and take full responsibility for my actions. I decide what my life looks like and I shape it and I reject the idea that my life is preset and that everything is decided already. 'Fate' is just an excuse to me, although the idea of it may make things easier for some people and I can accept that.

i can never decide, its just so hard to decide, some times i think fate, other times i think free will, i think karma is kinda true, it just happens naturally though

I say neither.

Fate, as in "higher power", God, etc. Plain ol' BS to me...

Freewill, as in "I am truly free. I choose my path in this life". Wrong, I fear.
Long Story: http://books.google.cl/books?id=uIsEajEwVQsC (short review here: http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc. ... book&cn=21 )
Short Story: We think, we believe we are free just because we ignore the causes of our own behavior. Just because we are kind of unpredictable, doesn't mean that we are actually that. We are machines. Meat machines, but machines nevertheless. Let's not mistake our ignorance of the causal schemes that rule our mental life with "freedom". Causality, bitches.

Freedom, the term as used in politics, is OK for me. But in a deeper sense... duh. It's just plain old fate. But without the higher power, without the all seeing eye. Just physical phenomena. All the way down (and up).

It is sad at first, but when you get used to the idea, it's still sad but you don't care that much anymore. You just focus on being happy. Karma is as real as you want it to be...

I don't know. I'm still seeking.

Most of the time existence seems random, and any meaning is put there by our own conciousness.

But sometimes I feel things aligning. Like I'm intersecting with other threads all coming together at the the right time. Even then, I feel that free will exists; I can choose to go along with it or to turn away.

I've never felt a higher power or guiding presence.

I believe karma works as a social construct. You're kind to someone, and that person may return the favor someday. Nothing mystical about that. I had a cop let me off a speeding ticket once because I was very helpful to him at the computer store where I worked at the time. What goes around comes around, you reap what you sow, etc. etc. Works for negativity too.

Whatever, all I know is that the only time I truly feel alive is when I'm playing music...

I say Fate, but only because I don't believe Free Will is something anyone can control on their own without someone or something eventually coming along to fuck it all up, at multiple times.

But then again, Fate? Hmm. Controlled by a higher power? I'm agnostic, so while I'm open to the idea, I'm also not convinced an almighty of sorts truly exists.

As for Karma, I HOPE it exists. I'm more open to a collective theory - energy collection of spirits, and the good will eventually ostracize and eliminate the bad. A pipe dream.

I'm also prone (often) to shrugging my shoulders and saying "What the fuck do I know?", so...

Ahah.

At an individual level, free will exists.

But in a group setting, there is fate.

Our interactions with others, our actions, determine our fate.

But what good is fate if you can't perceive it a priori?