[an0n]

........Seen as everyone is babbling about religion and morales and whatnot, I thought I'd start something along the same lines but with a decidedly more philosophical basis.

Think how many things in your life have been determined by a single, tiny, little spark in someone's head.

For example, there's this guy I know. I've known him since I was like 5 (my first day of school) and he was my best friend for like 9 of the past 14 years. But the only reason for this is because on the very first day of school, I got there late, after everyone else had already been shown around and the teacher goes "Oh, you need to know where the toilets are" and she asks the guy to show me.

Because of that, I spent the next 9 years spending practically every day with him.  All because, as the teacher was scanning the crowd of tiny little faces infront of her, his just happened to be the one she was most drawn to. All because one tiny little spark in her brain stopped her scanning and shouted "Him! Pick him!".

Because of that tiny little spark, my formative years took a massive shift. It just so happened that that guy turned out to be one of those people everyone likes, that knows every, that everyone wants to hang with. And because of that, I got dragged along for the ride.

If she'd just went on scanning another half a second and picked some loser, I could be dead now. Or I could be surrounded by hot girls. Or I could BE a hot 'girl'.

The entire course of my life upto now and far into the future, the future of all my children and grand-children and all who follow me and meet them and know them, it all hinged on that one single millisecond. That one tiny spark that wasn't even powerful enough to kill a flea.

Because it went off when it did, my life went from "dying at 13 from a heroin overdose" or "becoming king of the earth at 17" to whatever it may be now and in the future.

Am I the only one who finds that somewhat terrifying?

[Nico]

What's terrifying is that this essay comes from you

[an0n]

Pff. You're just scared because you imagined me with boobs.

[TheCelestialOne]

Originally posted by an0n
Pff. You're just scared because you imagined me with boobs.

Nah, flabs...

[karajorma]

Originally posted by an0n
Pff. You're just scared because you imagined me with boobs.

And that possibility doesn't scare you?

[Carl]

so anon, how do you know that's what made you best friends?

[mikhael]

Originally posted by an0n
"Oh, you need to know where the toilets are" and she asks the guy to show me.

Because of that, I spent the next 9 years spending practically every day with him.

Did you really intend to come out as a cottaging homosexual?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Those two lines just... *heh*

On topic, no, that's not terrifying. Life's just a series of improbable events. Consider it mathematically: the odds of you reaching where you are now, having made the exact decisions you made and experiencing the exact things you experienced is overwhelmingly against.

At least in classical theory. If you think in terms of quantum theory, the odds approach 1.

[an0n]

Yes, but that one little spark (every little spark) closed a million possible futures to me.

THAT is scary.

[HotSnoJ]

hmm....meh..


Just think if a friend of mine didn't say, "Hey, I'm gonna buy this cheap game just 'cuz" (Hardwar is the game) I wouldn't be here today. Heck I probably wouldn't even give a **** about computers!


Now that is a scary thought.

[Stryke 9]

The amount of impact that sort of thing has is in inverse proportion to the amount of control you choose to exercise over your life. Yeah, when you're drifting everything's up to luck and other people, but people who're genuinely determined to get somewhere usually wind up in fairly predictable places. Barring particular cases of bad luck or others' significant choices like, I dunno, a drunk driver ploughing into you one day as you step outside your house.

[Stunaep]

of course, having complete control of your life may not be a good thing. You might, for instance say, I will never go parachuting. But perhaps you are a top grade parachuter, who could work in the military parachuting for extreme loads of money. Or maybe you'll fall in love with a big-boobed female parachuter. If you don't try it, you'll never know.

I say, try out new things, let life carry you, but never loose sight of some general objectives.

[Sandwich]

What is it that you find terrifying exactly? Lack of control? The profound affect little things can have? The unlikelyhood of you actually being who you are now, where you are now?

[an0n]

The fact that a spark so small it was not even powerful enough to start an ants motorbike determined the course of the last 14 years of my life.

[Sandwich]

Ahh, yes. The Butterfly Effect. What people don't realize is that, by and large, it may not hold true for physics, but it certainly does for human behavior.

[Carl]

...and physics.

*goes back in time 5000 years, moves a grain of sand in the middle of the sahara desert by a milimeter, comes back to 2004*

woah! Gates McFadden is president and the USA is the size of wyoming, except it isn't called the USA, it's called Candy Land!

[Setekh]

Originally posted by Sandwich
Ahh, yes. The Butterfly Effect. What people don't realize is that, by and large, it may not hold true for physics, but it certainly does for human behavior.

Agreed. That's one of the reasons I'm becoming a school teacher.

[an0n]

Originally posted by Carl
...and physics.

*goes back in time 5000 years, moves a grain of sand in the middle of the sahara desert by a milimeter, comes back to 2004*

woah! Gates McFadden is president and the USA is the size of wyoming, except it isn't called the USA, it's called Candy Land!

Right, I need a camera, 200 condoms, 40 needs full of insulin and 3 ninjas.

[Knight Templar]

Another night of wild horse-humping I see...

[Singh]

Originally posted by an0n
Yes, but that one little spark (every little spark) closed a million possible futures to me.

THAT is scary.

Actually, its more equal to ~infinite number. But if you believe in parallel universes, this is somewhat nullated. It becomes more like a one in a million chance that you would be the an0n that met the guy rather than something else.

Ahh, yes. The Butterfly Effect. What people don't realize is that, by and large, it may not hold true for physics, but it certainly does for human behavior.

Do you believe in fate and destinies? Throw it out the window - cause it doesnt exist. What happens, has happened and will happen is mostly a large result of ~infinite cascade reactions reacting with each other, reacting with each other's effects, and affecting yet others on different scales.

If you see the issue of scale alone - you realize that God cannot possibly exist here, simply out of the fear that an ant missing a step can cause events to goup the scale all the way to his/her/its level and create adverse affections. But imagine if you could master such a thing? Then you have a power that is greater than God's, but which can hit you just as hard.

[an0n]

As I've said before, fate and destiny ARE fixed because free will is an illusion.

Physics dictates, even under chaos-theory, that 'somewhere' there's a reason for everything. And there's a reason for that 'somewhere' too, and a reason for......well, you get the idea.