Predetermined Everything

MindGate

So, would you agree that "now" is determined from the previous events and the future is determined by current events? If this is the cause, everything is interconnected and a chain reaction, right?

Well, if this is the case, is everything predetermined?

Singular beginning causes -> This, which causes -> This, which causes -> This, which causes -> and so forth.

Wouldn't this mean everything is already predetermined from the past and the future was already determined long ago? It is hard to explain...

Mountains

Nothing is predetermined. Past events (choices) determine outcomes, but it's not as if it's all set in stone. You have an infinite number of choices in the present moment, any of which could have infinite possible consequences.

If everything were predetermined, "who" (or what) would do the determination? God? Buddha? Ain't gonna happen

Cloud

I understand where you're coming from @MindGate, but I think it's crucial that we don't get stuck in "pre-determined" because that implies both a beginning and a purpose... well at least a beginning (though people usually attach a purpose or design as well). We'd have to say that a certain event or moment is the "pre" from which everything comes, and we really don't have the information to do that. If there was a beginning moment that represents the "pre", what would be before that? How would that moment have ever happened? We're in beginningless and endless time-space.

There's no logical way to say there's a beginning to anything, and so the Buddha was really spot-on when he said there is no beginning or end. How can there be?

That reality is "determined" moment-to-moment is clearly evident though.

MindGate

@Cloud

It doesn't imply a purpose, but it does imply a beginning (the infinite universe theory has very little evidence to support it and mounds of evidence against it). It also implies that we don't have true free will and that everything is predictable, though.

Maybe I'm using the word predetermined wrong. Let me explain better:

If the Big Bang occurred, everything then was just a chain reaction from this. Stars form, break down, planets form, life forms, life occurs all predictably and on a set course determined from a beginning, as a chain reaction. Its like lighting a wick on fire and watching the rest unfold from this one event. Though, this is assuming everything is predictable, which Quantum Physics seems to be saying could be wrong.

Cloud

Everything is completely predictable if we were able to know all of the conditions, yes. And free will is an illusion because what "has" free will? There's no agent, it's all causal dependency and conditioning. That's entirely true, though we have to see both the conventional truth and this ultimate truth together (since people just aren't that free lol).

While free will is illusory, conditionality is in play regardless of whether we see it or not. Decisions are made by the mind, if not by a self, and those decisions are made due to the conditions. In any case everything works together as a process and stuff gets done. Karma is still in play and there's no escaping consequences by saying if we don't have free will then we don't have responsibilities yada yada, since those consequences will still bear out.

Yeah it's messy but it's perfectly understandable. We complicate things a lot by creating paradoxes that don't exist, by over-thinking and what-not. I do understand what you mean, totally.

MindGate

My brain hurts.

Cloud

Does it? Why?

MindGate

Thinking on abstract terms and about incomprehensible things.

Cloud

This stuff doesn't make my head hurt at all anymore, I got it out of my system long ago when I came to the same conclusion about determined (flowing) reality without separate entities; all thanks to learning about Buddhism in the first place. Things are going to go the way they're going to go, and even knowing it won't change things because coming to know it is part of it happening. What we do and decide to do is still going to be part of the long causal chain of our lives and experiences, we're not going to drop the ball because we can't drop it; we're chained to it, we are it.

We're still going to go in the direction that our lives have been leading us, and if we think it's all been our independent choices and decisions... ahaha, it's still funny. It all makes sense when your perspective is that there's no one home, no ghost in the machine. Until then you're trying to make your decisions and choices somehow be independent of conditionality... which is impossible. The delusion of "self" is our stumbling block, without which reality isn't hard at all to understand.

So that's our first obstacle to overcome.

Theswingisyellow

The future is determined by what you do right now, for good, bad or indifferent. To say the future is pre-determined would also imply that all your actions are pre-determined as well. I don't see that as possible. Right now I can choose to smoke rock cocaine or read to my children, no one chooses that but me. I inherit the future result/consequences of whatever action I choose.

Jeffrey

@Mindgate, here is something my buddhist teacher said here

swaydam

A seed freely blossoms, and yet its full potential is already inherent in the seed.

zidangus

@Cloud

It doesn't imply a purpose, but it does imply a beginning (the infinite universe theory has very little evidence to support it and mounds of evidence against it).

You wouldn't mind elaborating on this evidence against an infinite universe, I mean observational evidence that rules this out.