Does "Everything Happen For a Reason?"

Cyclo...you say that "one dimensional life doesn't exist too well". I would say it does not exist at all. Another fundamental difference between other animals and us (besides a sense of time) is that they can't make the concepts, first dimension (point in space) and two dimension (line in space)--forget third dimension. There is no thing in the empirical world as first and second dimensions; they exist only as mental constructs. Imagine a point, as, say, a dot on a paper made by a lead pencil. That dot under a microscope is seen to be really a three dimensional pile of lead. A second dimensional line drawn on the same paper is also really three dimensional in physical fact.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

For many years, I have held a radically different view on causality and the nature of time than, well, most everyone I know.

Let me see if I can sum it up in a short post.

To begin, the concept of time itself is clearly flawed. Our perceptions (which we know are limited) tell us flows in one direction only, which leads to the concept of causality; A -> B, and there's no going back.

I don't think it works that way. Rather, to me, there's only one moment of time, and everything that has ever happened or will happen is happening at the exact same time. The progress of our lives is a jump from one moment, to the next, to the next, et cetera.

The soul is the perception of this change of dimensional states. The concept of time is a measurement of lag between the changing from one state to another. We can see this lag, measure it, but not manipulate or capture it; our understanding of time is based upon a whole lot of assumptions.

Our conciousness comes from the fact that we have evolved enough to notice the lag, and to understand the past (former energy states) and predict the future (likely energy states based upon our current path.)

As limited beings, we have little ability to change our position in this moment other than by affecting those things in the three dimensions which we can easily percieve. True jumps, from one state to a completely (or even slightly, yet not three-dimensionally related) different state are rare but can account for the vast amount of unexplainable occurances in our history.

The next level of human evolution will be to control our position within these differening energy states without the neccessity of acting within three dimensions. It is a logical extension of the progression of life:

one-dimensional life doesn't exist too well.

Two-dimensional is extremely limited.(see a book titled 'flatland')

Three dimensional is where it is at for us and our ancestors.

The differentiation between a human and an animal is in the perception of the fourth dimension, time. We can see its effects but not move through it like we can our three dimensions.

Control of this fourth dimension, or control of ourselves moving through it, represents the next stage of our evolution.

I can't wait.

Cycloptichorn

Although I don't quite agree on the whole I think you are correct in your speculation as to where we could be heading. I don't care if someone is 10 or 100, their life has been relative to what they can grasp. Even with an appreciation of history it is difficult for many to picture life 1,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago and the passage of time and generations upon generations that have evolved let alone 100,000 or 1 million years ago.

Add to that the way our world seems to be heading and many would have a hard time seeing our species overcoming the obstacles in front of us to be here in 10,000 years. Now lets say that by nothing short of a miracle we somehow manage to provide our species with an uninterrupted path of evolution for another 10 million years. (or hopefully much longer) We will continue to evolve to a point where our mind or maybe our soul is able to tap into the energy continuum and quite possibly the time continuum that exist with space and matter as the fabric the universe is woven from.

Like yourself I have seen first hand that which can not be explained outside the powers of the mind being a stage of evolution. It is one of the things that has driven me to search for answers to the mysterious fabric and try to grasp both the needle and the thread.

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nipok wrote:

It is one of the things that has driven me to search for answers to the mysterious fabric and try to grasp both the needle and the thread.

Kind of forgot to throw in my 2 cents related to this thread.

There may be cause and effect and many things have reasons why they occur. In fact many things have very well defined reasons why they occur. Defined enough to even be predicted, by the laws of the many sciences we are still trying to understand. But does "Everything" happen for a reason ie:is there fate or a master plan ? I don't see it. I'd say no, things happen for no reason at all. Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, and life goes on. Boil everything down to the purest of science and our life could almost be described by a very complex biochemicalelectromechanical interaction with everything else around us if it were not for free will. I type this woRd with a capital R of my free will and I find it hard to picture a grand plan or grand design that knew a billion years ago that I was going to do that.

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Interesting posts.

It seems the consensus here seems to say that "Everything does not happen for a reason."

A related question might be: "Does ANYTHING happen for a reason?"

It kind of seems that either EVERYTHING happens for a reason, or NOTHING happens for a reason. It seems like you can't have both at the same time. . . or can you? Can you have a universe where SOME things happen for a reason, and OTHER things happen for no reason?

An asteroid's movement millions of light years away happens for no real reason connected to my life, but a checkout clerk being extra nice to me does happen for a reason? I don't know, seems so arbitrary. Where do you draw the line for reason/no reason happenings and who draws this line?

So then, are we saying NO-THING/NO EVENT happens for any reason?

Lets say I go on a crime spree, rob 8 banks, get caught and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Some would say the reason I was sent to prison was of course that I did bad things. And I have to go to prison to get punished, learn, taken off the streets, etc.

But lets take a more "gray" example. Lets say my wheel falls off my car, I get in a wreck and am paralyzed. Did that happen for a reason? Perhaps to teach me to appreciate the non-physical aspects of living more? To teach me a lesson, to maintain my car better? To help teach others how to take care of helpless people? Or maybe it all happened for no reason, just naked apes running around trying to rationalize everything into some "reason?

What about the tiny pebble asteroid out there a million miles away moving in a certain direction. Is it moving a particular direction for a particular reason that has anything to do with our lives?

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A "reason" is the agent within the economics of Process which enforces an event. To compel an event it must exclude others from happening. A REASON comes to the fore by a chain of command within process that is first born in possibility which, if not aborted , continues as a probability which if not exterminated by some other necessity ends in its own (the reason). Call it "the evolution of process". That's my drivel for today subject to revision.

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This is way of track of the rest of the discussion, but:

I don't believe that there is any inherent meaning in anything which happens, and that any people attribute meaning to the event after it occurs is artificial. Just because it is artificial doesn't necessary mean that it is psychologically meaningless.

At the same time, I don't believe it is possible for anything to occur without something good resulting from it. This includes "bad" things like being raped, having somebody abuse or even torture you or being born in a war zone. There are things you can only learn from going through these experiences. IN time, experiences which are break us also strengthen us and teach us lessons we couldn't learn otherwise. Also everything bad ,even death ( if death is bad) teach us not to take what we have for granted.

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Just wanted to make the additional point, that in my personal experience as well , the situations which have broken the worst are the ones which have taught me the most, given me strength and contributed the most to who I am. Even if that is something which some other people dislike, so be it. I wouldn't want to change it, even with the occasional bit of tender scar tissue.

Extramedium, I think your last question reflects how egocentric our species is ( this isn't a personal criticism or even a criticism of your post). We are the infinitesimally small part of something infinitesimally large. IN the blink of an eye, everything we know will be gone, along with our species. Saying that a meteor would collide with earth because of a human cause is more ill informed than a fly who thinks the dinner table has been set so he can banquet. Smile

In my opinion, anyhow.

What's wrong with being deluded, anyhow? Attributing false reasons to events, in the least, gives us a sense of control that we couldn't otherwise experience.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

But when one says, "Everything happens for a reason," they generally mean that the event will have consequences (usually seen as beneficial) of which we can have no notion at the time of the event. To prove their point, some people will find a way to demonstrate that the scalded hand or the broken leg was actually a good thing, because it -- let's say, for the sake of argument -- kept you from going to your place of employment at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

A bit far-fetched, I think, but you'd be amazed how many people believe this sort of thing.

This was the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's "Candide." "It's the best of all possible worlds."

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I'm firmly with the '**** happens' people. Nothing happens for 'a reason'. You do crap, there are consequences, both positive and negative. If believing that one's experiences happened for a reason, and that helps one on their personal journey to becoming a better person, it's fine with me. I am just not 'on board' with the concept of 'happens for a reason' as that suggests a higher power that influences us. I believe in a universe in constant flux, but the balance there depends on both order and chaos, and we really do not have enough understanding of the universe's continuance to actually answer the question that things might 'happen for a reason'. Pondering it though is welcome discussion.

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coluber2001 wrote:

Merry Andrew wrote:

But when one says, "Everything happens for a reason," they generally mean that the event will have consequences (usually seen as beneficial) of which we can have no notion at the time of the event. To prove their point, some people will find a way to demonstrate that the scalded hand or the broken leg was actually a good thing, because it -- let's say, for the sake of argument -- kept you from going to your place of employment at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

A bit far-fetched, I think, but you'd be amazed how many people believe this sort of thing.

This was the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's "Candide." "It's the best of all possible worlds."

Let's not forget that Voltaire supported an 'enlightened monarchy', a noble but failed philosophy. My take on Voltaire is that he actually believed in the possiblity of "the best of all possible worlds" as long as elucidated, educated world rulers gently controlled the public. Rousseau's utopia revolved aroung the concept of the "noble savage". If both were alive today, my guess is that Voltaire would be on the side of the USA, and Rousseau on the side of Iraq. I digress, though.

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coluber2001 wrote:

Merry Andrew wrote:

But when one says, "Everything happens for a reason," they generally mean that the event will have consequences (usually seen as beneficial) of which we can have no notion at the time of the event. To prove their point, some people will find a way to demonstrate that the scalded hand or the broken leg was actually a good thing, because it -- let's say, for the sake of argument -- kept you from going to your place of employment at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

A bit far-fetched, I think, but you'd be amazed how many people believe this sort of thing.

This was the philosophy of Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire's "Candide." "It's the best of all possible worlds."

Damn, I wish I had said that!

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Do I think that things happen for a reason. I exist in a world where actions, reactions, and inaction etc... take place but I do not arbitrarily suggest that the reasoning that could derive an understanding to these interactions would be a consequent of a specific type of learning as you suggested in your writting " a kid is raped at 10 what is a kid supposed to learn from this". I think that there are items that are indirectly/directly learned from the experience, in that instance that you produced, but not from a causative point that I would say was reason oriented.

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It's all part of nature.

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I agree, Cav. I've re-read Candide several times and each time I'm truck by the fact that Pangloss is really a quite sympathetic chracter, despite that Voltaire makes him the butt of the jokes of Misfortune. I, too, think that deep down Voltaire believed that, in some sense, this is the best of all possible worlds, mucked up only by the incurable idiocy of mankind. In supporting an 'enlightened monarchy' (he had a running correspondence with Frederick the Great of Prussia), he was joining a long line of thinkers, going back to Plato. Plato, in The Republic has Socrates postulate that the 'best of all possible worlds' would be ruled by philosopher kings.

I, too, digress but I couldn't help it. I guess it happened for a reason.

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Merry:
In order to accept that all happens for a reason, you must accept that there is an entity that justifies any event. An entity with a purpose.
Leibniz believed that god created the world, and god was the absolute good. So, he must create the best of the worlds.
If you take god from the equation, all the theory falls.

I don't see any purpose on events because I cannot accept the existence of an entity that created the world with a purpose (or without it). Universe is not a planification of a divine mind. Universe is nothing more that the events that occur because they are possible, related by a causal tendency.

About Voltaire, he was never able to deliver himself from some sort of theism and that is why I prefer Pangloss/Leibniz: their position has more logical coherence than Voltaire.

By the way, I deeply disagree with your interpretation of Plato's Republic. But that is another question.

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val, it isn't necessary to postulate a sentitent entity to come up with the conclusion that everything happens for a reason. Cause and effect operates in the mechanical world as well. Depressing pedal A will activate armature B which causes a lead ball to roll down chute C, etc. But an unsophisticated person does not know that this may be the result of depressing Pedal A. It is possible to postulate that one of the results of the Big Bang was the creation of a universe which operates under these quite rigid principles. No creating entity, just energy.

I myself, btw, don't believe any of this. But it is possible to posit this without violating any laws of logic.

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Does "Everything Happen For a Reason?"

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