Can we see our lives, and their meaning, not as a causal chain of events ? is everything meant to be ? how much control do we have ? are we different than non-humans because we have a ‘will’ ?
Western science and materialism generally treat us as parts of causal chains. Certain physical systems can also exhibit quantum entanglement, though that phenomenon doesn’t straightforwardly map onto everyday macroscopic causation.
There were some people who challenged that approach such as Carl Gustav Jung, with his definition of Synchronicity. Synchronicity is Jung’s name for a meaningful coincidence that is not connected by ordinary cause–effect but feels significantly related.
The events in such case are not linked by identifiable physical causation, yet they appear meaningfully connected. What makes it special is its psychological and symbolic meaning, for the one experiencing it.
We discussed the idea that language can portray the illusion of a static reality, or reality which can be divided into parts, although we experience reality as a flow, not as sequences (scientific time vs Begson’s Duration). The typology of events and their connections would be non-linear, non causal.
Its exactly because we can think in A teleological way that we feel that our lives have greater meaning than what we feel in the current moment. In the context of our imagenary future, which has a goal, our lives hold a bigger sense of meaning. Since our concept of our future is ever changing, we give different interpretation to the meaning of event that we experience in the present.My claim is the following : if we experience something that shifts our teleological view, meaning that our telos ‘shifts’, the goal or higher meaning in our conceptual future changes, then we can experience a non-causal, meaningful, yet ‘mystical’ relation between processes and events.
What is actually happening in such event ? lets say we have two teleological futures, one aims for glorious, brave, honorable but short-lived future and the second, risk-averse, uninspired endurance. In case an event happens that will make us see our future changing from one to the other, we will continue living our lives with one of two sets of different types choices : glorious future can provide for gain but hight risk choices, and risk-averse would lead to safe but boring choices. In both timelines our imagination, our concept of the future, will play a role in changing the choices we make, and for us the experience of breaking of one chain of causality into another one would come from a psychological, symbolic, maybe emotional place, but not linear/rational in any case.
In the past several concepts of time in the context of meaning exist. In every conceptual framework, the degree of freedom and meaning was different. In every conceptual framework a person would be motivated to act in different ways, from the point of view of the actor, the reality is different, meaning a world of wyrd was a very different world than the world of Moira (μοῖρα).
Wyrd
Wyrd, comes from Norse-Germanic, means “that which has turned”, ” to become”. Time is non-linear, organic unfolding, entangled. Wyrd is shaped by action, even if it is part of a larger web. Life is a tapestry woven from choices, environment, ancestry, and cosmic forces. Your actions affect the weave, even if you can’t fully control it.
Destiny
Destiny, destinare. A life path or outcome that you are meant to fulfill. Often teleological (moving toward an end goal. You can align with your destiny or resist it, but it’s seen as “your purpose.”
Fatum
Fate, Fatum. A fixed, often unavoidable outcome. “that which has been spoken” (by the gods). Deterministic, linear. Fate is imposed, often tragic. Unchangeable, mechanical, often external to the self.
Moira
Moira (Greek μοῖρα) literally means a share or allotment—in classical thought it names the power or portion that determines each life’s lot (often personified as the Moirai, the three Fates who spin, measure, and cut the life-thread).
The way we think about past and future, can actually alter reality, since its not a causal relation. Large scale concept systems such as the mythic-pagan, animist cosmos is relatively open and organic compared to the religious-spiritual or mechanical-causal universe.
Fate could be the realization our life course takes part in a higher scheme, that higher scheme takes part in the context of knowledge, in the way that our present can change and extend our past, make contact with the origin – in this way we are can understand our life as part of a wider spectrum than cradle-to-grave, wider than our life cycle, wider than our human existence, with that opening to the past and origin we open up new possibilities in our future.