Destiny, Randomness, and Decisions oh my...

So what do you guys think, does destiny exist? Are we in control of our own lives, or could one consider time as an existing line, in which nothing changes. Please keep the conversation in-depth unless you're just stating an opinion. I'd like to see some new points.

Personally I am somewhat middle of the road. It may depend on whether you believe in the 4th dimension or not, and time travel and such. I think if you're an einstein fan you may already be sold. Has our present already happened to someone in the future?

As far as destiny I'm not saying you can't make the decision between choice A and choice B, but rather from a timeline & 4th dimension perspective, that decision has already been made, and consequences already happened. Even if you think you are making the decision by contemplating destiny from this thread, what you may not realize is that this thread has a destiny to happen in the 4th dimension, and your decision is already known to the future, based on this thread of contemplation. I may sit here and contemplate whether or not to post this, and when I decide that yes I will, what I dont' know is that to some future that decision has already been processed.

Randomness - Randomness could affect an already stable timeline (And this is pure opinion mixed with some past evidence). However randomness does not exist whatsoever. Period. I open this as a challenge to anyone to explain something that is purely random (and explain it well, don't simply state something such as the human mind or quantum physics - things mankind hasn't yet perceived or understood well enough to be supportive evidence). The integrity of randomness is actually almost a moot point, but is somewhat relavant. Let's assume, that when one roles a 6 sided die, that it is purely random and that the outcome is not based very solidly in physics. Every outcome would have already happened in the 4th dimension, and it doesn't matter if you think you rolled a random number, it's actually just what is bound to or has already happened (in some future).

I think this topic can have a great deal of discussion. While I don't mind reading your opinions, if you could I would much greatly appreciate different approaches to the idea, and possibly new ideas. I think it's very depressing that you really have no say of destiny in a 4th dimension, it means you have no control. Please don't confuse destiny here with the 'destiny' in fantasy novels and such where it is one's destiny to become "the one" or what not. Although parallels could be drawn, and the latter is derived from the former, It's irrelevant to the conversation.

I know the thready introduction isn't very well explained(as it is hard to do), and I will have some drawings I will post soon. I just wanted to start people thinking. And no I'm not high.

And no I'm not high.

I chuckled aloud at that... such an odd thing to add to such a heavily thought out topic.

The way I see it, every choice you come across has already been made. There is already a timeline to coincide with the choice, but you don't get to examine it. You only get to experience the timeline with the choice that you made.

Kind of like a multisegmented movie. Each scene is recorded and waiting to be played, but instead of the original actor, it is replaced with you.

Let's get a little complicated. You are drinking at a bar with some friends. You meet this chick and decide to go back to her place, half because you are drunk, and half because you think you are getting some play tonight. The next morning, you realize, "Oh shit! My girlfriend is gonna be pissed!" So you hurry home, safe and sober, but with a pissed off girlfriend. Had you chosen to not follow this girl home, you would have got on the road drunk and killed an innocent man who was driving home from a late night at work. Both scenarios have already happened, no matter your choice. But you chose to follow the timeline where you had a good time, remained safe, but upset your girlfriend by cheating.

It is hard to explain, but I hope you get the idea, and if you need me to elaborate, just ask.

So you're saying that infinitely many time-lines exist coinciding with your infinitely many choices to any situation. When you arrive at a life decision that we actually do make the decision at that point in time and choose in which direction the time-line will go(that we have control), or that the time-line has all those infinite branches to represent infinite decisions, but that the ones we will make basically are hard-coded into he time-line to give one reality that concrete and unchanging (in the 4th dimension).

Please note that this is oversimplifying things to say that decisions are arrived at, because decisions are actually made infinitely across the time-line by you at any given time

Simplified Version


Realistic Verison


I know I'm posting in a forum with many artistic people so please excuse how rough these are. I'm not an artists and these were made in onenote just as a simple diagram. It's important to keep in mind that the realistic one is actually still simplified, because if infinitely many time-lines were filling the image, it would be nothing but solid black, but you get the idea.

Broken links dude, I'll post a decent response by Friday

Oh, what a dilema.