Research Topic 1: Fate
The first topic I researched was 'fate', which interested me because of the different interpretations of what it really is and how much control it has over our lives. Exploring these different perspectives is an idea that excited me.
Whilst the exact nature of fate is disagreed on by many people, and presented in a variety of ways by media, the broad definition for the context I will be researching, can be seen below:
Fortune Telling & Divination
First I looked at fortune telling on wikipedia, the practice of predicting the future by methods that do not seem directly related. I chose wikipedia despite it's questionable reliability because I wanted a simple peak into what methods exist without getting too in-depth, knowing there would be a wide variety. Some examples included:
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Astrology
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Spirit Boards
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Tasseography (Reading the patterns in tea leaves)
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Cartomancy (Reading a fortune through cards, tarot cards being a common variant)
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Crystallomancy (Receiving visions whilst gazing at a crystal)
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Palmistry/Palm Reading
There is quite logically, criticisms of fortune telling: finding it to give very general readings that make it easy to be correct, as well as there being the technique of 'cold reading' that allows to get more specific with time by carefully extracting information from the subject.
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I was particularly interested in tarot cards, so I looking at what wikipedia had to say about them and combined it with the knowledge I gained through personal experience. Tarot card decks are split into major and minor arcana cards. What cards are part of the deck, and how they are interpreted, has varied throughout the years. In addition to fortune telling, tarot cards can be used to aid people in introspection and personal growth.
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I also learnt that divination is not quite the same as fortune telling, as divination is more formal, often with ritualistic and religious aspects to it. An example of divination would be Ancient Greek oracles, who were believed to receive prophecies directly from the gods. Meanwhile seers had no contact with the gods, and instead attempted to interpret signs, otherwise known as 'omens', only able to give yes or no answers to questions based on those omens. Of course, Ancient Greek mythology is not the only religious tradition with divination as part of its beliefs.
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Determinism
Determinism is a philosophy that posits the view that the state of the universe at any time is determined. No event that happened could go any other way based on the state of the universe before that event, including the actions of humans. 'Hard determinists' believe this seems that there is no free will. Additionally, if everything is determined: you could say that your fate is sealed. 'Soft determinists" by contrast do not believe that determinism is incompatible with free will, normally having a different definition of what free will is, and some even go on to say that free will is necessary for determinism.
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Depending on your interpretation of 'fate', there can be some difference between it and determinism, but by any definition they are similar. Some definitions of fate involve mystical forces, whereas determinism is based on the existence of natural laws (what they are is still up for debate). One could argue that due to the events of the past and how they shape things, future events are in a way 'destined'. Due to the motive of my research, I adopted this viewpoint in further reading on the subject.
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An intelligent being that knows the current state of all things in the universe would know what the future is perfectly, but humans cannot dream to achieve this. Prediction and determinism are not intertwined in any way, as something could be predictable without any clear indication of being determined, and many things that fit under determinism are beyond prediction.
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The argument for the existence of the natural laws required for determinism can be made with a mix of metaphysical arguments, and our understanding of the physical universe (such as the laws of physics). An argument against determinism is that the commonly accepted theory of quantum mechanics (which could be considered a natural law) involves randomness, and therefore is innately indeterministic.
Other source: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Casual Determinism
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Fatalism
I discovered this philosophy when I was looking for information on Determinism. It is the belief that anything that happens is decided by fate and therefore outside of human control; we are powerless to do anything other than that which we do. It can be argued in terms of metaphysics and logical laws, but also is argued from a theological standpoint; in terms of the existence of God or gods that decide what has happened, and what will happen. Besides the consideration of a mystical force, another key difference from determinism is that fatalism is slightly looser as a term, as the presence of true randomness/chance is still compatible with fatalism.
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If something happened, it was always going to have gone that way, and it was beyond our control. In other words, something that is true must be true and cannot ever end up being false. Fatalism works on a bivalence' rule: something is either true or false. From my understanding, Aristotle rejected this rule and argued that whilst something must be true or false, it must not be true, and must not be false. For example, where there's the circumstance that 'an event that is stated to happen' is P, and 'the stated event not happening' is Q, it could be said that "Truth = P or Q", but not that "Truth = P" or that "Truth = Q".
As already mentioned, if something does happen, it was always going to go that way. The logic behind this is that the state of the world makes it true, and is unavoidable because you cannot change the state of the world. If you shaved your face in the morning, you did not have the power to do otherwise due to the truths of the world that led up to that event.
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Another philosopher –Diodorus Cronus– had what he called a 'Master Argument", which concluded that the possible is what is or will be, something that technically 'could' be, but isn't, is considered impossible under this argument.
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There are many arguments from a theological perspective. If in 1900, an all-knowing God believed that a man named John was going to mow his lawn on the 1/01/2000, then it will go no other way. Otherwise it would mean that:
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John somehow has the power to make an omniscient being wrong.
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God did not actually believe that event would occur in 1900
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Or that in 1900 there was no God to have such belief.
These are the only ways that the statement "John will mow his lawn on the 1/01/2000" could be false. Although Aristotle would argue that statements about future events are not true, and therefore God would not hold such a belief in the first place. Some would say that God simply 'knows', humans have knowledge that leads to belief, whilst God has knowledge yet holds no beliefs.
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