<p>And the hard part is knowing when to stop trying to solve a problem and redefine it… Is that where wisdom comes in?</p>
<p>Yes and no.</p>
<p>I believe it depends on which perspective, ours or God’s. From OUR perspective, there is no fate. We have free will. However, our higher selves (souls) programmed certain influences. Our response to those influences is based on our free will, and then lead to new opportunities for decisions and on and on. It’s like our higher self enrolled us in a certain curriculum in Earth School, and this entire lifetime is a semester in a school in which we are supposed to learn certain lessons. If we fail to learn a particular lesson, that’s ok because we will learn a different lesson instead. But we WILL learn something. To use an analogy: Our higher self enrolled us in Love, Forgiveness, and Humility. Maybe we flunk at Humility but do well in Forgiveness. Well then next lifetime we’ll just have to retake the class in Humility. It’s like we have a given set of parameters but have a lot of wiggle room within those parameters.</p>
<p>So, because we have free will, there is no fate other than some loosely laid parameters. What seems like fate is us perceiving the carefully laid out parameters set forth by our higher selves. Our higher self might plan for us to meet our future spouse, and that WILL happen because it is part of the curriculum! There is no avoiding it! But we still have free will as to how we respond when it happens.</p>
<p>However, from GOD’s perspective, there IS fate, because God already knows all our possible choices and outcomes.</p>
<p>That’s my opinion for what it’s worth.</p>
<p>I think I understand what latetoschool is saying. I would word it thusly:</p>
<p>We cannot always control our experiences, but we CAN control how we choose to experience our experiences.</p>
<p>You guys need to see The Secret.</p>
<p><a href=“http://thesecret.tv/home.html[/url]”>http://thesecret.tv/home.html</a></p>
<p>I believe that others are ruled by fate, and I am the only one with the potential to escape causality.</p>
<p>fastMEd: at first glance your explanation seems ridiculous. How can you be the only one who is different among the billions of other humans - past, present and future? We know that the brain is the organ responsible for thinking, for analyzing our sensory inputs, and for controlling our muscles and actions. We know that the brain - and resultant human behavior - is extremely complex, but we are making progress in understanding the function of the brain. The progress we make is based on the perspective that the brain is organic and is not exempt from physical laws. With this perspective, we see that the brain and human behavior are determined by the genetically controlled, physical construction of the brain and by the inputs it receives. If we try to examine the brain and human behavior without this entirely deterministic perspective, we are stuck. We can try to postulate that there is some underlying randomness in how the brain works, but randomness is not something that is controlled. When we look at ourselves, we have an overwhelming feeling of having at least some control of our thoughts and actions and the ability to make decisions. We also know that the decisions we make can have important consequences and can determine our fate. So even though it seems improbable, I must embrace your theory/model. Everyone else is part of a deterministic model and is ruled by this model; i.e., “ruled by fate.” I am the only one who is not entirely a part of this causality. Cognito, ergo sum.</p>