un: agonyuncle | text

[fatedfinality]

[ Today is a... complicated one for Ardyn, to say the least. No one but him knows why though and he'll likely keep it that way.

He has, however, gotten extremely drunk about it and that lends itself to him asking a query on the Etrayan network: ]


What does fate mean to you?

[ He appreciates now more than ever the auto-correct feature. He should probably invest in some reading glasses eventually, but that'll be a problem for Ardyn-with-a-headache-from-squinting-in-the-dark-at-a-small-screen and not the Ardyn of now. ]

Comments

text | un: dailyplanet

[thisisontherecord]

Choice.

( which on a surface level, would sound counterintuitive to the word 'fate' or many of its concepts. )

What does it mean to you?

[fatedfinality]

The antithesis of choice, actually.

Fate is supposedly preordained. How do your decisions factor into that, exactly?

[thisisontherecord]

We're getting right into philosophy with that, huh. Might be worth investigating determinism as a contrast to fatalism or predeterminism.

Clarifying question first: do you consider something like death fated because for most carbon based lifeforms, it comes inevitably due to genetic material decay over time if nothing else?

[fatedfinality]

Fatalism is what I've been told is the truth, but many of my world would believe in predetermination. Either way, the gods seem to have the final say and all us mortals are beneath them.

I do think death is inevitable except for certain exceptions.

[ Him. He's one of the exceptions. And it sucks. ]

[thisisontherecord]

Belief systems versus philosophical schools of thought won't always agree. Different kinds of faith operating for either one.

Functional immortality is an issue, granted.

Fate to me is the active collection of choices we make in the moments we experience in our lives. Could there be overwhelming probabilities? Sure. There's just as much proof that there is as there isn't. So I make the choice to believe in choice and searching for truths in the process.

Counting this whole situation at present as a pretty heavy lift toward creating alternate 'fates' to whatever extent. Lest we make ourselves believe it means much that we're here or not, with a metric we don't know from an entity that doesn't deal with us directly.

[fatedfinality]

It certainly is.

I applaud your belief that what you do matters even if I disagree. I mean, even Echo and others in power here can't seem to answer our questions. Why would I trust that what we're doing here and our choices do mean anything like they claim?

[thisisontherecord]

For the same reason you can choose not to trust. They're all decisions. Either you're here for nothing and no purpose and there are no stakes, you're here for nothing and no purpose and there are stakes, or you're here for some purpose however messy and there are no stakes, or you're here for some purpose however messy and there are stakes. Sure, there's spins on any of those, but what you decide for yourself is all that's going to inform how you act going forward.

So choices. They matter, even if we don't see how they can.

[fatedfinality]

I suppose, in my case, whether there are actually stakes or not wouldn't really change my course. I don't believe there are, but even if I did- I'm convinced my world is better off dead regardless.