Avoiding the unavoidable...

What does avoiding a future accident, or encounter, or a mishap mean? Is there a destiny? Do the stars hold the secret to our future? And if they do can we change our future? Is everything set in stone for us? Are every accident and experience a necessary part of our essence and thus without it we do not exist (Leibniz)?

The question is very well-known, tedious and without an answer. My purpose is not to get into an extensive conversation on wether free will exists, or wether everything is already determined for us by a higher being (God). There is a multitude of theories on destiny, God, the shape and nature of time and so forth. I want to illustrate with one example the limitations of thinking about preventing future events and altering our fate, if such thing exists. My questions is the following: how can we avoid what has not happened?

It is a question asked again and again by the likes of Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza and Daniel Dennett. Is there any point is worrying about the future and trying to avoid certain disasters? This depends on weather we believe that time is one line that has been carved on stone from beginning to end and all events (at least to a higher intelligence) appear at once and in their entirety. If we don't believe this it follows we may be able to change the future as long as we know what is in store for us given we take no further action to change it. But how can we get a glimpse of what hasn't happened. I am not sure if this logical paradox is addressed by physics and unfortunately my poor grasp of that science does not allow me to continue the conversation.

If, however, we believe in a sub quadam specie aeternitatis where all has been already planed and is interconnected and cannot be otherwise, the concept of avoiding collapses. We cannot avoid what was never meant to happen. We, in our limited mental capacity perhaps feared it may happen but it would have never happened.



Example: I walk on the street and I decide to take a left turn instead of a right, and on the right turn a lampost collapses.
I have two choices as of how to percieve this event. I could say that I avoided a major head injury, or that there is no way I would have been hit by that lampost. We are not interested here in which way of thinking is more practical, or spiritualy favorable. The fact is that since I took a left turn the lampost never hit me. So I did not avoid it hiting me. The best we can say to the efect of avoidace is this : I had a 50-50 chance of going either way. So there was a 50% chance of getting hit by the lampost (although at the time of the decision I did not know for sure the lampost would fall). In reality someone would say that there is no predetermined fate and so we should follow the law of probability. According to that I had a 50% chance of getting hit by the lampost and I avoided it. If we chose to follow this line of reasoning then every time we step out of our house, or take a step to every direction we have to calculate the chances of any bad thing happening to us, which are infinite. In fact there are so many that if the law of probability holds true we should have something happening to us all the time. However my theory does not distinguish between small anomalies (stepping with shoes on a sharp stone) and big ones (getting hit by a car). Taking into account the most minute ones the law of probability looks better.



So although the "avoidance" seems more reasonable than thinking "it wasn't meant to be", in reality it is as least as impractical (should we chose to make a habbit of it).

-JimB