Much of your life is decided the moment you're born

[Darkover]

Your genetics decide how you'll look. Your parent's status and money decide how well off financially you will be. Your country of birth decides how your social life rights and standard of living will be

We don't decide what we think, when we'll be motivated, etc

you're a victim of your circumstance. What are ya gonna do about it?

90% of your life is decided by factors that are out of your control. , random things like who you meet, what random events happen to you and how you react to them, and the decisions you make in the moment are what affect your life.

How much of our lives are predetermined? Do we have any say in how things play out or are we simply living out a story that has already been written?

There have definitely been moments in all of our lives when we have experienced the feeling of a fated event.

Maybe we could chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time, but most of us would have had some encounter with the mystery of fate.

This does not necessarily mean that our entire lives are predetermined, however. As most of us also know, we have free will. We can choose to act or not act and we can choose to make a decision or not.

But are we making these decisions on autopilot?

I personally don't feel that to be true.

I feel that we have free will in this life and that a lot of our decisions and actions will determine our future. For a part, the future is in our own hands.

However, I also believe that there is a certain element of destiny as well.

free will and destiny co-exist

 

[Darkover]

I clearly understand that my thoughts and decisions have some certain cause, they are just the inevitable consequence of the knowledge my brain accumulated during my life and physical properties of the brain. I didn't choose how my brain works, and I didn't choose the environment which gives me the knowledge about the reality. My choice doesn't appear out of nowhere; whenever I try to choose something, I already have to rely on some previously obtained knowledge and hope that my brain will be able to produce a good decision.

 

[Forever Sleep]

I agree that we have limits placed on us- genetic, biological, financial, situational. I suppose you can argue that there are rags to riches stories. People that still make it in life despite terrible odds and others who were given everything and manage to lose it all.

So- yes- it depends on our choices too but maybe more importantly, our aptitude or motivation to try. I wonder where that comes from. Is that inherited? Is it learnt? I was blessed or perhaps cursed with a very strong work ethic. It makes me feel unbearably guilty when I rebel against it- so- I comply. I guess that's also something else that is out of our hands- our upbringing. Can someone be genetically lazy?!!

I'm not entirely convinced by it all though. This whole- no one is responsible for their actions. Don't bother congratulating that scientist for devoting all those hours to find the cure for cancer. They had the brainy and hard working genes to do it. Don't blame that criminal for doing what they did. It was predestined. That can't be true though. Plenty of people decide whether to do good or bad acts every day. Right now, we're making decisions on whether to do something constructive or not.

I think it's just making excuses to blame it solely on factors outside our control. Sadly, we do have to work with what we've been given or, are limited by but I'll openly admit that the two main things that hold me back from doing what I know I ought to be doing. (And I think most of us do know what we should be doing or addressing in life) are lazyness and fear. Maybe I'm more genetically prone to both but- both can be overcome. People who rape or murder likely do it for sexual/sadistic/financial desire. Those things can be overcome too because they know that rape and murder are wrong.

 

[tbroken]

I used my free-will at the best that i could, but still ended up in the same place.

I clearly understand that my thoughts and decisions have some certain cause, they are just the inevitable consequence of the knowledge my brain accumulated during my life and physical properties of the brain. I didn't choose how my brain works, and I didn't choose the environment which gives me the knowledge about the reality. My choice doesn't appear out of nowhere; whenever I try to choose something, I already have to rely on some previously obtained knowledge and hope that my brain will be able to produce a good decision.

Totally agree. That's why i want to disappear from earth.
I have a decent brain and body, but the place i was born in and my life in general are HELL. Whichever decision I'll make, it will always be a sh*t.

 

[davidtorez]

Your life actually starts becoming determined in a way while you're still a fetus . Your mothers stress levels, diet , ancestors will all influence alot of what will happen in the person's life . Look into robert sapolskys work for more information

 

[ijustwishtodie]

I don't fully believe in predestination but I definitely think that a lot of your life is determined from since you are born. Life isn't what you make of it to a very high extent since there really are a lot of factors out of our control

 

[weatherforecast]

I relate to this part:

and hope that my brain will be able to produce a good decision.

very much. It feels that my cognition is just getting duller. I can work through some things, but only because of cumulative experience that has become autonomous. Like talking in my native language / english. I have difficulty even recognizing what objects are sometimes. I suspect it is because of a concussion. I focus on details instead of the big picture, even though that is what I was good at before, and likewise terrible at detailing. And I hate that there is a limit to what can become autonomous.
For example: if you play fps videogames, you may have to process
1. Aiming on to the enemy
2. Where your teammates are
3. Audio cues, while teammates scream the location of the enemy in your ear
4. Relevant information to the current situation i.e. you spotted the enemy, should you go behind that rock, or the fence? Should you fight or hide?
Not all of these things can even become autonomous, and the ones that can are limited by your accuracy and processing speed…
(Tldr; mental limit to be good at things, reliance on your brain to even do basic stuff like recognizing what an object is)

People also claim that these things do not matter, but it is heavily dependent on perspective, which is heavily dependent on environment. If you are bullied as a kid for being short, ugly, stupid, there is no silver lining. You have to live with it for the rest of your life. You have to live with the (possible) trauma you experienced from said bullying. You have to live with constant triggers, because people are simply biased in favor of good genetics.

And it isn't just a victim complex or anything. I am fine with my circumstances as I can at least have a future if my depression and various mental illnesses can be treated, but I don't understand how people can deny it for those who have physical disabilities, cognitive disabilities, people who were subject to severe abuse, etc.

Edit / new post:

I wonder where that comes from. Is that inherited? Is it learnt?

Being on this site, I might have a more cynical view but:
From my experience (which may be completely wrong), a large part of it is education. Not intellectual education, but developing coping mechanisms and the like. I haven't read studies or anything, but I have come across a few articles, such as this, which some states used to teach students about emotions. I think there were positive results, like higher grades, positive thinking. It corresponds with therapy; therapy teaches better coping mechanisms (or tries to…) which is effective for a lot of people when looking at studies. Early intervention would probably help, too.

I guess you can take this one of two ways:
1. Your environment also determines your access to help (Which is how I feel kind of)

2. You can change your 'personality' by relacing maladaptive strategies.
(Sorry if this i hijacking the thread)

 

[sserafim]

I don't believe in free will

 

[davidtorez]

I don't believe in free will

Me neither . However most contemporary philosophers are compatibilists though and believe free will is compatible with determinism. But what I have found is that they just sort of use the term free will in a different way that hard determinists do, in that to them free will just means the ability to make choices without being influenced by external factors , which is quite self evident that is something humans do possess.

 

[iloverachel]

Me neither . However most contemporary philosophers are compatibilists though and believe free will is compatible with determinism. But what I have found is that they just sort of use the term free will in a different way that hard determinists do, in that to them free will just means the ability to make choices without being influenced by external factors , which is quite self evident that is something humans do possess.

Life is terrible

 

[sserafim]

Life is terrible

Life is terrible because life is suffering and work is modern day slavery. I hate how life is all about survival. Everything we do is to ensure our survival. We're all forced to take part in an inherently exploitative system and become slaves to capitalism for the rest of our lives. If you don't participate, then, where will your next meal come from? We're forced to participate in society not out of choice, but out of necessity. We have to work to make money in order to survive and pay for our existence, which we never even consented to. I just hate how life is like this. I hate the systems and structures of money, capitalism, society, etc, literally everything. I wish that society could collapse and that there could be anarchy instead

 

[iloverachel]

Life is terrible because life is suffering and work is modern day slavery. I hate how life is all about survival. Everything we do is to ensure our survival. We're all forced to take part in an inherently exploitative system and become slaves to capitalism for the rest of our lives. If you don't participate, then, where will your next meal come from? We're forced to participate in society not out of choice, but out of necessity. We have to work to make money in order to survive and pay for our existence, which we never even consented to. I just hate how life is like this. I hate the systems and structures of society, capitalism, etc, literally everything. I wish that society could collapse and that there could be anarchy instead

I agree
Not only that, life just feels boring and pointless
Even if i was a billionaire and didn't have to work, life would still be meaningless. I would still dislike society for never fitting in. I would still have nothing to do or look forward to except lay down and rot and browse these forums.

 

[SnackNinja]

Your genetics decide how you'll look. Your parent's status and money decide how well off financially you will be. Your country of birth decides how your social life rights and standard of living will be

We don't decide what we think, when we'll be motivated, etc

you're a victim of your circumstance. What are ya gonna do about it?

90% of your life is decided by factors that are out of your control. , random things like who you meet, what random events happen to you and how you react to them, and the decisions you make in the moment are what affect your life.

How much of our lives are predetermined? Do we have any say in how things play out or are we simply living out a story that has already been written?

There have definitely been moments in all of our lives when we have experienced the feeling of a fated event.

Maybe we could chalk it up to being in the right place at the right time, but most of us would have had some encounter with the mystery of fate.

This does not necessarily mean that our entire lives are predetermined, however. As most of us also know, we have free will. We can choose to act or not act and we can choose to make a decision or not.

But are we making these decisions on autopilot?

I personally don't feel that to be true.

I feel that we have free will in this life and that a lot of our decisions and actions will determine our future. For a part, the future is in our own hands.

However, I also believe that there is a certain element of destiny as well.

free will and destiny co-exist

I would argue that there's zero free will and don't control your genetics your parents your childhood or any of your past experiences which are responsible for 100% of your behavior or results.

 

[DogSandwich]

I would argue that there's zero free will and don't control your genetics your parents your childhood or any of your past experiences which are responsible for 100% of your behavior or results.

Agreed. I believe strictly in a deterministic universe. Any idea of free will is an illusion. We are capable only of witnessing events, not influencing them. Our corpus being a part of the happenings is what gets people confused about their place in things.

 

[RedPanda]

Crazy gamble isn't it? It sucks...