The human, in my perception, has two paradigm orientations: deterministic and indetermininistic.
Now the deterministic mind frame is fatalistic: believing in fate, and accepting occurences as part of a grand plan, which can not be altered. And hence deterministic humans tend to be passive in their reactions to their environs: things happen to them, and they rarely happen to things. And when things happen to them, they say that it is fate - that it was predetermined. Deterministic humans tend to be deeply religious - religion being the epitome of fatalism.
Indeterministic humans, on the other hand, percieve themselves to be in complete control of everything happening to themselves. They don't believe that external forces control their destinies: they don't accept predeterminsm. Hence they tend to be more aggressive and proactive in their bearing, believing that their present condition is a culmination of their past decisions and actions up to then. They believe that the future is totally within their control, and hence set about configuring it - so to say.
What kind of a person are you - deterministic or indeterministic?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
You have raised several issues here, some of which I'll tackle in the next several posts. But for now, seems to me that your past experiences have led you to believe that really, believes are this amorphous thing that changes with time, cultures and context. This has made you keep an open mind, not really restraining yourself to any one mindset.
Yet in it all, I feel that you didn't quite answer the deterministic question satisfactorily. Let me put it another way: Do you believe in fate? Or do you percieve yourself to be in total control of your destiny?
Indirectly i did answer the question; I wanted you to figure it out. But directly I can see that I didn't. So I will make it clear. It is both. I believe in fate that external forces have some sort of control of my path. And at the same time it is my own being making the control to my journey. A co-existence that interrelates with one another depending on how the mind,body, and soul's level of consciousness state is. I am in control and not in control simultaneously.
Come on, Christine: cast off the philosophical replies. You are simultaenoulsly in control and not in control? What the heck is that? See, the biggest problem with philosophy is that it gives the scope to sound profound and abstract by convoluting elementary knowledge.
Of course, blurred margins do occur, especially if you have a thing for stupors. Then, you can gainfully say thus: "When I'm high, I'm indeterministic. But when treating the hangover the next day, I become deterministic."
No, why should I conform to your way of thinking in black and white? You are only viewing this to a certain extent by which is purely academic. You can be both at the same time. You take control of a situation and think you are in control but external forces come into hand and you are not in control.
Im glad that I pressed a button. Your reaction to my response is quite interesting to note. Why does it bother you that I can view it simultaneously?
I guess I'm bothered by my own prejudices: like the believe that two entirely opposite paradigms can not reside within one human.
But hey, people are complex. My mental state isn't exactly a blue print for nomalcy. And, come to think of it, people have been known to have multiple personalities.
Have you ever had a spate of split personalities, Christine?
I think everyone at some point goes through a situation which brings out an emotion to feel two things at once....love and hate of a person, sadness and happiness at an event, being angry and calm. It would be safe to say that no person I know has ever NOT gone through a mixed emotion occurrence during one's lifetime.
Guess i join the debate abit late as most has been said. However i do think that most people have in them both paradigms.
Whilst one can at most times control their present i believe it is very hard to control your future. there are always times when the future is simply NOT yours to control. One might argue, to have a healthy life eat well, exercise etc but does this gurantee the quality of that life,can you indeed by this have a healthy life,suppose that you have a birth defact unknown to you say a gene that predisposses you to a chronic illness that is simply not for anyone to choose.. All you can do i believe is control your present and immediate future a day or two and even then you have no gurantees as to your own existance the next day...I think Ultimately we live by faith(i shall wake up in the morning mentality) but you cannot just live it all to fate, sometimes you must control your present so that if say you want to a job promotion you work hard to earn it and say if all factors are held constant(am alive,healthy,able etc) my hard work can aid me get the promotion it is almost sill to think if it mine i shall get hard work or not coz really what we do today affects our tommorrow.
Hi there, Christine:
Now I have tried to look at your profile but found that yours is either not in the public domain, or you have not created one. So please, introduce yourself to us: as you can see, there already is another Christine on board this forum.
That aside, from your comments, it is clear exactly where you come from. You belong to the train of thoughts that envision the future as being mostly uncontrolable. All your comments about having faith and all clearly put you in the indeterministic category.
Now as earlier implied, no paradigm is more superior than the other. However, in particular scenarios, one paradigm might serve better than the other. Where the future is vivid, the deterministic frame suffices. Where it is more vague (e.g. due to too many variables), then the indeterministic mindsets survive best, because they can then rest their hopes on fate.
To Christine Angel:
From your comments, I can see that the exact meaning of determinism is a bit ambigious. Hence I'm sending you an article that defines it to your email. You can email me back any further queries.
Thank you but i do understand its meaning, i just apply concepts from a various points of angles just to get a new perspective from the usual fate, destiny, take it by the bull's horn examples so to speak. Makes things more interesting. Stretches the usual 'norm' definitions of words, ideas, thoughts. But will read it later. You know Sun Tzu and the Art of War...there are only two methods of attack. the direct and indirect method. Using both in combinations gives rise to infinite possibilities. (im paraphrasing the quote)
The half-in, half-out state of your answers makes me think that you like operating on the basis of fuzzy logic, Christine. You can find more information about fuzzy logic here:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-fuzzy-logic.htm
i can see much has been going on but to just chip in i think both can work at the same time though we may think we control all our actions.
For example, the moment you were born you started to age through oxidation of you body cells.The only thing you can do is manipulate the rate.
Molecular scientists will talk of longevitry genes but the genes do not work alone but an interplay of several.A example is that of the cloned sheep.
Post a Comment