J-Soft Blog

Thursday, June 05, 2003

The concept of fate has been around for an incredibly long time. And its really no wonder. Of course, its not caused by the musings of three beings playing with strings. It is a consequence of the nature of our perception of the universe. We live moment to moment, and can only be aware of what has passed and what is happening now. We are completely blind to the future. At any given moment it is conceivable that an infinite number of possible futures branch from that point in time. Depending on our actions in the present we will move on to one of those paths. Perhaps every possible reality exists in parallel, but it seems more likely that all the other possibilities cease to exist once we enter the next moment along one of the many possibilities. And since we didn't know any better, despite the fact that it was our choice that lead to that reality, it really never was a choice so much as it was a gamble. But despite the multitudes of possibilities, only one becomes reality.

Whatever will be will be. This is all too true, because we are blind to the future. Perhaps we can make an educated guess at the likely possibilities that branch off at a given moment, but ultimately we don't know a thing. The only way around this would be some special insight into every possible consequence of every possible action at any given moment, but that kind of absolute certainty would make life torturously dull. The matrix explores this way of thinking about fate. Remember the oracle? Her clairvoyance was not the traditional ability to see a single absolute future. Hers was a much deeper insight. For her the future was anything but absolute. It was completely malleable. She was able to see every consequence of every action at any moment. "What's really going to get you later on is: would you still have knocked over the vase if I hadn't said anything?". (No, I haven't seen the Matrix Reloaded yet)
posted by Jesse at 10:46 PM #