What is fate? Are our ultimate destinies pre-determined, the natural consequence of cause and effect while we are merely carried along for the ride, and if so what does it mean to talk of ‘free will’? And whether or not our destiny is already fixed, who or what can be understood as the author of our fate?
There has been a sharp decline in the use of the word ‘fate’ (or ‘destiny’, or ‘kismet’) in recent years, reflecting the popularisation of materialistic worldviews and the marginalisation of mysticism. It does not seem that we have discarded our mystic notions so much as it appears we want to limit their discussion in public, perhaps because it supervenes the prevailing scientific dogma, perhaps as a matter of simple politeness. Yet there are clearly ways in which ‘fate’ can be applied, even within an intentionally limited viewpoint such as materialism.
Fate and destiny have a mystic element only when projected into the future, a process requiring some accurate means of prognostication or divination, now widely considered doubtful, impossible or, at the very least, rare and imperfect. If we constrain our focus to the past, fate and destiny become descriptions of what has already occurred – and obtain their connotation of immutability naturally.
For example, it was Ghandi’s fate to be
instrumental in earning
One may argue against claiming these past histories are fate – we can make claims that the individuals could have chosen differently, that there were other paths that could be taken, that what happened was not fate, but merely what happened to occur. But we cannot alter the past. These events have happened. They do not change. An argument that states things could have transpired differently is inherently metaphysical – how could we prove a hypothesis that depends upon the alteration of the past for its premise? Multiversists may assert their belief in branching time lines, but we only get to see one such history.
Within this perspective, many notions we
would often discard can become meaningful. For example, modern materialism
generally rejects the idea that a person can be ‘lucky’ – but if random factors
consistently favour an individual, such that at the end of their life one can
look back at the effects of chance on them and perceive a net balance of
benefit, is this not wholly consistent with the notion of the term ‘lucky’?
One may make theoretical assertions, such as the idea that all random factors balance themselves out in the statistical average, and so the claim of an individual being ‘lucky’ is meaningless – but still, if we examine that one individual whose life is charmed in respect to chance, we cannot deny their claim to the term ‘lucky’ as a descriptor once their life is over – there is no more evidence to collect, and their life history is the whole of the facts of the matter. To make a contrary assertion on the basis of theory is assume the primacy of theory over fact – an available choice, for sure, but one with neither inherent superiority, nor relevance to the matter at hand.
One of the key metaphysical arguments
surrounding the concept of fate, is the notion of determinism. If the
universe is deterministic, then each state follows necessarily from its
previous state, with no possibility of change. A common view in the past was
that determinism invalidated free will, and therefore had to be resisted or it
would destroy any notion of morality. Baruch Spinoza and David Hume both argued
that determinism was inherently required – Hume argues that if there was no
determinism then our actions would be random, and that this would be
incompatible with morality. His position is one of compatibilism – that
there is no contradiction between determinism and free will.
Modern studies of quantum mechanics
re-opened this debate, but insubstantially. It transpires that the mathematical
models inherent to quantum mechanics can be interpreted in myriad different
ways – there are deterministic interpretations to quantum mechanics (such as
Bohm theory) as well as indeterministic interpretations (such as the
As it happens, notions of determinism and
indeterminism are always metaphysical in nature. We can see that we deal with
only one past, and in that respect determinism has a slight upper hand in the
evidence, but whether multiple futures are viable (we have many possible fates
- indeterminism) or only one future can occur (we have but one fate -
determinism) are misleading perspectives on the nature of the problem.
We experience time linearly; so engrained is this perspective that we think of ourselves as travelling in time, moving forward one second per second into the future. But from a perspective exterior to time (a God’s-eye-view, if you will) there is just a pattern of states from one corner of the space-time continuum to the other, and connections may go back or forward in time according to how one chooses to view the specific events and elements.
Viewed from the perspective we conventionally
consider forward, smashed glass fragments are the consequence of dropping a
goldfish bowl. But viewed from the other direction, a goldfish bowl is the
consequence of unsmashing the glass fragments. There is a necessary connection
of events, but the interpretation depends upon one’s perspective upon time.
Viewed forward, a choice may instigate the smashing of the goldfish bowl –
viewed backward, that choice is the result. We cannot square our mental image
of this situation with our intuitions because we cannot experience time
backwards. Our personal experience of consciousness depends upon the arrow
of time for its meaning.
From the God’s-eye-view there is only one universe, one history. This seems to support determinism, as indeterminism must invoke further metaphysical elements (other universes, for instance) to maintain its case. But either way, the situation experienced by an individual facing a decision remains the same: they have a decision to make. Determinism and indeterminism are opinions on whether in identical circumstances an individual will render a decision identically. But this proposition is never testable, it is always metaphysical.
Free will seems to vanish from the
God’s-eye-view, but it is still there on careful examination. Take any one
individual, and we will see that they faced decisions throughout their life. At
the instant of each decision, this choice was real and meaningful and could go
in many different ways, constrained only by our imagination and the nature of
the situation. Indeed, the more imaginative we are, the more choices we may
find. Each such decision, after it is made, becomes a static element
contributing to the fixed history that we can imagine being seen from outside
From the God’s-eye-view the outcome is fixed, but from the perspective of the individual the choice is genuine. You could order pizza or you could order salad – even if you doubt that you can make this choice either way for some esoteric reason, or believe (as Hume did) that you would always make the same choice in any particular instant because set factors influence your ultimate choice deterministically, it still remains the case that at each specific moment in time that you are faced with choosing between pizza or salad, you may end up eating one or other of these two foods. That is the essential nature of choice. It selects between possible futures.
From the God’s-eye-view, all choices are
resolved – all the individual states in the universe have been determined. But
only from the God’s-eye-view, which we will likely never share. From the
individual’s view, only the past has been determined. The future remains
contingent upon our choices.
To put it another way, the past is determined,
the future is indeterminate, and choice exists solely in the present.
This is how time must appear to any individual constrained to experience linear
time in but one direction. This is the very definition of free will – God (or
something similar) may get to see our fate “in advance” – from outside of time
– but from outside of time there are no actions to take. All states are
determined; all choices are made. Conversely, from the perspective of our own
experience – which is the relevant viewpoint – our choices are very real, and meaningful.
If we think of fate as describing what is determined – namely the past – then we see that spending time unravelling our past, picking at the loose threads in the tapestry of our personal histories, is time wasted – except in so much that we might, perhaps, learn from our mistakes. Instead of obsessing with the part of our fate which is already “written”, we should focus on making the choices that will give us a future destiny we might favour.
What fate would you like to hold, when all is said and done, and your time on Earth has passed? This is the story you wish to write, the tale you wish to be told, and this is where free will holds its power – in the capacity to make us each the author of our own story, as much as we are able. Our fate, our destiny, our kismet, is the product of what we inherit from the past coupled with the decisions we make in the present. And while we are still alive, while we face our choices, our fate – from our own perspective, at least - is still unwritten.
The opening image is Fate by Koopa (the only tortoise to have its artwork hanging in all fifty states of the US), which I found here. As ever, no copyright infringement is intended and I will take the image down if asked to by Koopa or his agent.