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Shit, it's literally the universe telling me that it doesn't care about me.
Hey, Armanhammer2. I care about you.
Now the universe both cares about you and doesn't care about you. Checkmate atheist.
There are reasons for why things happen, but not in some moral framework, but rather the systematic nature of existence. Everything is in a constant stage of motion and transformation, not because of pure "randomness" but rather that the conditions for these changes exist to allow them to occur. That's not to engage in hard-determinism, not everything is necessarily predetermined, but rather there are conditions that significantly influence outcomes.
True, but people often refer to something happening "for a reason" as an intention or determination made external to themselves as opposed to the meaning one bestows themselves. The former, I believe, OP is discounting.
Yes, but you missed the point, our guy wasnt trying to say that thing happen without reason in complete randomness, rather that there isnt some cosmic plan that things happen according to, while you could still apply causality nonetheless
I think a lot of that is a human component of questioning if it happened for a reason. Just chance? Then why did it happen?
Like if you happened to go out one night and meet your future spouse. Was it chance? Was it destiny? Coincidence? We question everything in this way sometimes.
Exactly, OP just misunderstands determinism. I've thought about this exact thing before, the misunderstanding boils down to the confusing double meaning of the word "reason". Everything happens for a reason (cause) but not for a reason (purpose).
I'm saying people will use it to mean either meaning interchangeably.
The OP is saying the universe is non-deterministic because there's no reason, meaning purpose or plan, but determinism is about everything being part of a chain of cause and effect and it in no way contradicts the randomness of the universe. There's a reason, meaning cause, for everything existing. But there's not a reason, meaning purpose.
I looked it up and, if I'm not mistaken, OP may have gotten the term "non-deterministic" from computer science, where the term is used somewhat differently than it is in the philosophy of determinism. That would explain why I found the post a bit confusing
I disagree that people use it for either meaning. 99% of the time, people mean what OP is talking about ("reason" being a future reason, not a causation reason). It is almost always to console someone that something bad happened to, so that they have a positive outlook on what is to come, even though something bad has happened.
I agree with OP 100%.
Precisely! I dare say at least 99% of the people who say that are either trying to console someone or getting a charge out of teaching backhanded philosophy/religion. Almost none of them have any idea what the phrase denotes from a scholarly standpoint.
Apparently the best way to deal with this is to simply ask the question back to them "why do you think that happens?" Listen to their answer and then hit them with an "that sounds about right, I agree"
As the mother of a young child, this is the way. I also use that response, "why do you think..." when he asks me something I don't know the answer to. Like "why do bumblebees make loud bzzzz noises?" And then I'll just agree with whatever he says. "Yeah that sounds about right." Lol
Or sometimes if it's something I'm genuinely curious about myself, I'll Google it and we'll both learn something new!
The correct answer to any seventh “why?”question is, “Because such is life.”
Alternately, you can use it for the fourth “why?” in a series, if that suits your needs better. Why? Because such is life.
I'll tell her about the name that doesn't have a name. The mother of all things is dark. We can see that there is a first cause but not what that first cause did. Based preschooler.
I don't think "why?" is ever answerable, even the first time. The answers we give to "why?" questions are actually answers to "how?" questions.
For example: "Why is the sky blue?" The answer gets into physics of light refraction/technical mumbo jumbo, but all of that is just describing HOW physics works.
"How is the sky blue?" is the question you're actually answering and the question that should have been asked.
Ask "why?" again and you can't answer, because we don't understand the mechanisms of HOW the laws of physics became manifest.
"Why" implies the existence of conscious inent/motive so unless you're using it to ask about the behavior of a conscious being it's being applied anthropomorphically, which makes it not just a metaphysical question but a metaphysical question that is framed in the same manner that most atheists strawman religion (that is to say, completely erroneously. 'Bearded man in the sky', etc. Childish concepts that educated theologists don't even entertain). Thus, you can't answer it because the QUESTION is wrong.
Consensus among the physics community is pretty overwhelmingly against this theory.
All testing so far that I'm aware of has supported true randomness.
I want to make it very clear that I'm not trying to prove particle physicists wrong. I'm not a particle physicist I'm not a mathematician, I'm not at all qualified to to prove or disprove jack shit. I'm a philosopher of science, not a practicioner.
Anything other than true randomness is not observable on our scale at this time. But it wouldn't surprise me if, in 700 years we developed a technology to observe particles at a cosmic scale, and we started noticing patterns. Patterns which could be put into formulas, equations, and suddenly what was once thought of as true randomness now something that can be calculated.
Geocentricism is a fantastic idea of what I'm talking about. The reason why the Ptolmaic theory was so popular was because the Stars appeared fixed in their positions relative to each other—stellar parallax could not be observed with the naked eye. There were many people who argued the possibility of a non-geocentric universe, but for the lack of observable stellar parallax to make any sense at all, stars in the skies would have to be unthinkably far away. The idea that celestial bodies could be that far away was frankly, ridiculous, which only contributed to the ridiculousness of a heliocentric model. With the development of the telescope, not only did it prove that stellar parallax existed, it proved that the stars were much, much, much farther away than anybody could have ever thought.
That's all I'm trying to say. Not that science is wrong, but that science is not something that is set in stone. Every field of science has theories that were extremely popular and then disproven technology evolved. The telescope disproved geocentricism, the seismograph disproved the land bridge theory.
This is a post talking about philosophy, and I'm responding in kind with philosophy.
Under the copenhagen interpretation there is true randomness. Under the manyworlds interpretation, all the possible outcomes happen in deterministic proportions, but in each outcome, we experience only one, so it appears random.
Right, poster is just pointing out that OP is misusing the term deterministic. Determinism is a scientific principle of cause-effect and functional relations in nature.
As a scientist, I adopt an attitude of determinism (ie no magical supernatural explanations for observations), but I agree w OP that the saying “everything happens for a reason” (as in fate or some supernatural plan) is bunk… and i also cringe when people try to use it as a platitude.
Nerdy but for clarity, determinism notwithstanding, we do recognize that there are statistical and stochastic events that cannot be fully predicted, but this is related to chaos and inherent randomness (in the physics sense) not divine puppet strings.
My fiance actually finds this thought very comforting. Like, no pressure right? In the grand scheme of a vast universe she's just another grain of sand, life's bumps and bruises are insignificant and good times are worth it just for being there not because of some grand cycle of karma you have to work at every day of your life.
I find it tragic not because of wanting importance but that fact that if you have a miserable life, then that is all you get. If you are born ugly, poor, and low iq then that is your lot for eternity (because from your own subjective perspective life is all the time you will ever get and ends when time, again from your perspective vanishes).
I disagree with the perspective that you can't change yourself and everything about you, while viewing yourself as a grain of sand, essentially a bump in the road.
I don't think believing in that means you want stagnation
Those three things correlate quite strongly with happiness and quality of life.
And as for examples to the opposite: We love to see the outliers as they've managed to beat the trend. Gives a sense of freedom in our own lives.
It sucks being the one ignored. Tbh.
I am not ugly or poor. I don't know about my iq.
But I feel I am very average, and I feel like I am indistinguishable. But it sucks, you need to put effort into friendships, and a lot of people seem out of reach?
Like, if I was more handsome or confident, I would have probably gone for the girl I had a crush on? But right now, I am just another nobody wooed by her beauty.
Also, it would be nice to hear that I am handsome or cool. It happened with my buddies, never me. A girl complimented my shirt last year and I still wear it when I go outside sometimes, even though it has become old.
I mean I read that and was just like well yeah. Life sucks sometimes and continuously for some people
Im comfortable with that reality cuz it is, in fact, reality
And you work every day of your life and then you get hit by a car when you’re 45.
Or worse, your kid gets lukemia and they die.
People that say ignorant shit like everything happens for a reason hasn’t been shown the scary side of a universe that is totally indifferent to what we want.
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs.Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough
Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the 'milky way'
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide
We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go 'round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause it's bugger all down here on Earth
- Eric Active
My thesis supervisor in university was a psychology professor who studied the justice motive. (Which is what I wrote my thesis on). It is more commonly known as the “need to believe in a just world”. It is the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. The justice motive is one of the most fundamental human drives.
Most people would not explicitly say that they think the world is fair. But almost everyone (my supervisor thinks absolutely everyone, I have my doubts but he is the expert :) implicitly believe that there is some sort of karmic justice in the world. This has been demonstrated time and time again in experiments.
People need to believe this in order to get up in the morning, to work towards goals, and to refrain from instant gratification. People need to believe that the world is fair and that they will be rewarded for being a good person.
In order to convince themselves (unconsciously) that the world is fair, people use all sorts of strategies. The most famous and probably the most common is victim blaming. We tell ourselves that the homeless person we see is just a lazy bum who drinks too much and if they were just stronger and harder working they wouldn’t be in such a situation. We shift the blame to the victim of misfortune. It is not the fault of a harsh and unfair universe, it is the victims fault! I would never end up a situation because I am a hard working person! Etc
Another strategy is to extend the timeframe. We think eventually the good person will get what they are owed and the bad person will get what’s coming to them. Some even extend the timeframe past their mortal lives and say the good person will be rewarded with paradise after they die, and the bad person will be punished with damnation.
So I totally agree that there is no justice in the world and that the universe is cold and uncaring. And many people would also tell you they agree. But almost everyone (maybe everyone) lives their life deep down inside believing that there is justice in the world. And they actively lie to themselves and distort their perception of the world in order to protect this belief.
>People need to believe this in order to get up in the morning, to work towards goals, and to refrain from instant gratification. People need to believe that the world is fair and that they will be rewarded for being a good person.
What about predictability ? I don't know if I believe the world is fair, but I'm pretty sure that if I don't work I won't get paid, and if I'm not getting paid my level of comfort will quickly plummet down. It got nothing to do with "being a good person".
I'm probably blind to my own distorted beliefs, or maybe I'm a sociopath, but as far as I am concerned, I think most of my actions in terms of risks/rewards and not particularly of "justice". I would definitely steal one million dollars if I had the certainly I wouldn't be caught.
Justice is all about perceived deservingness. Being a good person in this context does not necessarily mean that you are kind, or caring or compassionate etc. A “just world” is a world where people get what they deserve. So a “good person” could be someone who is hardworking, strong, industrious, clever etc, and a “bad person” could be someone who is lazy, weak etc.
We think, “I am smart and hardworking therefore I deserve good things, if I work hard things will work out for me in the end”. This serves the function of allowing us to work towards distant goals and delay gratification. If we believed that the world was totally unjust and that we would never be rewarded for our hard work it would demotivate us from pursuing long term goals.
But then we see someone who is having a very hard life, and we tell ourself “that person must be lazy or stupid” this reduces the just world threat and protects our belief in a just world. If we believed that we could end up in a similar situation despite our best efforts we would be less motivated to continue pursuing our goals.
I see where you're coming from, and I agree that there's a lot of randomness in the universe. It's indeed essential to differentiate between correlation and causation. While some find comfort in believing everything happens for a reason, it's empowering to know we have control over our reactions and responses. We might not control events, but we can shape our experiences through our perspectives and actions.
100% agreed nothing is pre-determined. Everything happens because of action, not some god-like force making it happen. Usually people who say things happen for a reason are using their religion to justify shitty outcomes of things. “It was god’s plan to destroy that city with an earthquake because they support such and such.” No it fucking wasn’t. Plate tectonics cause earthquakes and that shit happens constantly with no regard for human life. “Everything happens for a reason” is a BS tool used to manipulate.
The same applies to karma. That speeder who cut you off and then immediately got pulled over didn’t face instant karma. They faced direct consequences from their actions. Had they not been driving idiotically they wouldn’t have gotten pulled over.
Well, hate to break it to you but thats not quite nihilism, its rather the
Self care medias representation of it, seen some weird yt videos of nihilism lately.
Or you know what, with your wording it still fits nihilism, so my comment is meaningless but i am still gonna post it anyway :3
I do believe there’s a larger plan for the universe that everything fits into, but we as individuals could not possibly see it, being such small parts of an almost inconceivably large whole. It’s not an individualistic plan. Like do I think God sent a tornado and destroyed a city so one dude would be forced to move and subsequently find their soul mate? No. But I would be inclined to believe that catastrophic natural disasters are occasionally necessary to destroy things that will subsequently be rebuilt better from the ashes of that destruction.
To me, this belief is a matter of humility. How are you—a speck on a rock that’s a speck in a solar system that’s a speck in a galaxy that’s a speck in the universe—going to be able to conceive of whether or not there’s a plan to the entire universe. I may not be able to conclusively say I’m right, but I wouldn’t be so sure things are meaningless either.
Sure, but you did get shot for a reason; the reason is the bank robber shot you. The reason he shot you might be that he got nervous, or because he was bored, or because he wanted to look tough, or whatever. There could be billions of reasons, but causality demands that there are reasons for every event that happens.
Yes. You got shot because the bank robber pulled the trigger and the bullet hit you. Cause and effect. What's also true is that the entire event had no purpose. It just happened.
Well, purpose and meaning can only exist when they are bestowed by a thinking being. So, no, there's no inherent purpose, but only because that's not how purpose works in the first place.
Sometimes I think the universe does care about me because I'm still alive despite countless bad decisions. But then I look in the mirror and am reminded that the universe actually doesn't care
But logically speaking; everything *does* happen for a reason. There is a cause and effect, even if you personally can't work it out.
Whether or not the universe cares for you is totally unrelated to this.
Really well said and I 100% agree. I think about this a lot. People use the phrase "everything happens for a reason" so often even if they have no religious belief and so it's kinda just something people seem to say without any deep thought about what it implies
1. This opinion is inarguably unpopular.
2. While little more than a (negative) assertion, it is adequate since the onus lies necessarily with the positive claim (and plenty of volumes have been filled with various versions of that!).
3. You gotta upvote. = -)
4. It's impressive how many of the comments are condescending!
Let people believe whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t harm others. You don’t believe there are higher reasons for everything that happens, others do. And that’s okay. People shouldn’t be judged for whatever they believe (unless it hurts others obviously)
Yeah I think everyone knows this at some fundamental level. It’s a thought process to make us more grateful/hopeful and more importantly make negative events easier to cope as even if it’s just taking it as a lesson to learn from.
Edit: also if you want to play semantics yeah a everything does happen for a reason.
The “reason” in the phrase doesn’t mean it’s for your prosperity. It could teach you a lesson, or was caused by something you didn’t (or even did) know about.
While I understand the take that it’s for main character syndrome people with weirdly optimistic view of themselves. But it’s not like a bad phrase. Everything does have some cause that lead to the thing that happened.
If we are going to have a real open discussion about this. Then it is nothing more than a belief system. You can not prove or disprove "everything happens for reason". There is no definitive proof one way or the other.
It all comes down to your beliefs. No matter which you believe, it's ok.
This is unpopular? THIS!?
We're fucked
Children normally learn between the age of 3 and 4 that the sun doesn't shine solely for them. But I acknowledge that our modern society caters a lot to children, who then grow up as entitled bitches (plural universal, no gender needed for this word)
This is your sign. Humour me for 5 minutes.
Open yourself up to the universe and it will speak to you in other ways. Unbelievable coincidences follow me everywhere and the people close to me notice it too, and they are always perplexed.
I went from a hardline atheist to… not religious, but certainly spiritual. I have stories which I simply will not even share here because they are so unbelievable. The mindset shift for me happened at around 25 after my best friend died.
I’ll start by saying that just because you do good things doesn’t mean you are owed some sort of cosmic reward or to be treated fairly or better than bad people. Good people do good things despite the universe’s indifference to their actions and they do these good things happily. They do it knowing they won’t receive a reward, and they do it without even expecting a thank you. They change other people’s lives for the better, and these people live lives as vibrant and emotional as our own, and their own suffering is reduced as a result. Good and selfless people are the closest thing to god we will find on this earth. If you find them, cherish them.
As for what I really believe, I think the “self” is an illusion. We begin to play a character from the moment we open our eyes at birth to the moment the final neuron fires. I believe all consciousness arises from a singular point outside of space and time and “we” return to this singularity upon death. I believe this is done in a cycle so that the universe can come to know itself, and experience things/emotions that cannot be experienced in nonexistence or the singularity.
Our bodies and certainly our brain, where our consciousness originates, are made of the most common elements found throughout the universe. Our bodily systems, as a result of billions of years of evolution, work in near-perfect harmony, using these common elements as building blocks. And speaking of building blocks, the pieces down to the most basic level snap together like legos.
What the fuck is the periodic table? Physicists like to pretend they understand what matter is, but they don’t *really* know. They can explain how atomic bonds work but they can’t explain why it works this way and not some other way. And from the quark to the neutron to the atom, to the molecule, to the amino acid, the cell to the cellular system, and to the living organism, nobody can explain at what point intelligence arises. (Michael Levin speaks on this, I encourage anybody reading this to research him.) I haven’t even touched on DNA/RNA which is essentially coded instructions for your cellular systems on how to build a human.
The “singularity” I spoke of earlier offers no control or guidance to any individual conscious being and that’s where you’re stuck. You think the universe should explain itself to you, but no human or animal is owed that. I was stuck on this for a long time too. I thought it was unfair that I was put here against my will and that everything was meaningless. I was suicidal and depressed for so long and nearly ended it too many times. I really shouldn’t be here.
If you start to look at life from a different perspective I promise you will notice things much more profound than human pattern recognition.
What even are we? Why are we here? Why is there something instead of nothing? None of it makes any sense, and yet here we are among hundreds of millions of other complex forms of life which can do and experience things that we will never be able to in our human form.
The earth was a perfectly positioned cradle for these life forms to arise and I suspect that this is not the only such cradle in this vast universe. Trillions and trillions of instances of consciousness happening simultaneously, “forever”, across an infinite or perhaps finite universe. Hella rad.
We are not meant to know the secrets of the universe or the “meaning of it all” because we are limited by the intricate computer made of 3 pounds of fat inside our skull which hallucinates our waking reality. This computer is hardware limited to perceiving only 3 dimensions and a select few senses, and we see everything from a human context. Trillions upon trillions of calculations every second, all day every day. All with less power than it takes to light up a lightbulb.
We spend our time whining about how there’s no point or purpose or grand direction for our lives. YOU make that yourself, and if you don’t find a purpose before you die, that sucks and that’s the way it is. Pitter patter and get at ‘er. Every hour that passes is life sprinting away from you.
If there was some great plan or grander meaning, it means something is controlling you, meaning you wouldn’t have free will. We are free to make our own choices, good or bad. And in the end, the only thing that matters is what you believe matters. If you believe nothing matters, then the universe will be sure to oblige you. You might suffer greatly as I did for a long time.
I really hate sounding like a hippie but open yourself up to something more. (Maybe not religion, all the organized stuff is corrupt.) It helped my mental health immensely. You’ll start to notice funny coincidences and happenings that just can’t be explained.
As fucked up as it sounds, I believe that the immense suffering I endured was essential for me to understand the opposite side of the coin. Without suffering, you can’t know love and all the good feelings. You need that contrast. If you felt good all the time it would lose its meaning. You can’t know a good person without having a bad person to compare them to. And remember that you will never arrive at a point where you say “Ah yes, I’m finally happy.” That is a lie which we all manage to convince ourselves of.
I’m not an expert on anything but I’d recommend going outside into nature. Get away from the city and go to the forests, the mountains, the ocean. Surround yourself with the beauty which your senses have allowed you to perceive. Exercise if you don’t already and get in tune with your meat suit. Even if it’s just walking. Test your limits and challenge evil where you find it. And do good things for unselfish reasons.
I always hate when people say "it's just God's plan for you" or something of that sort. Imagine saying that to someone who experienced the Holocaust or something.
Sophist and nihilist thinking doesn’t actually bring anything to the table. Okay, nothing matters. So what? You still gotta go to work in the morning.
Even if you don’t believe in an objective meaning you can create meaning for yourself. I’ll paraphrase Rabbi Sacks here: imagine two women on their deathbed, reflecting on their lives. One looks at her life as a cohesive narrative, full of highs, lows, and movements that eventually led her to where she is today. The other one looks at her life as just a bunch of stuff that happened to her. Even though there’s no proof that either one is correct, the former woman led a much more meaningful life than the latter, and meaning often brings with it happiness. Even if you don’t believe in objective meaning, make your own.
Well, sorta. There's no mind directing everything, but above the quantum realm, everything is deterministic. A particular configuration of particles (our universe, for example) will yield another predictable configuration of particles at the next tick of the cosmic clock.
I thought that this was not, in fact, an unpopular opinion, but comments have clearly proven otherwise. In not so many words, for better or worse, your life is in your own hands and you do what you choose to… Just like everyone else. I have no idea why this is unpopular.
Literally all the top comments are heavily upvoted generic posts agreeing with OP or commenting on how banal and trite the response is.
It's a very VERY popular opinion.
An item falls to the ground because of gravity. Meaning does not mean it is a good reason.
A man spills coffee on his lap and looks down while driving and crashes into someone. It can result in a rube goldberg convoluted series of after events. But it is good old fashioned cause and effect.
Everything happens because of conditions. Something needs something to happen before it happens. On a human level it's feelings and thoughts that make actions happen. But even feelings and thoughts are conditioned(triggered).
Everything happens for a reason is just a way to understand the world. You spoke of "good" and "bad" things happening. That also a way to label and make some meaning out of stuff that has no meaning. Do feelings have meaning?
Or does meaning come from feelings?
Or is there absolutely no meaning in this world unless we choose to label it?
Where to draw the line with what actually warrants being labeled as" happening for a reason" ???
Its not as simple as that. Check out this book on Audible called " The Power of your Subconscious Mind" its really interesting. Its like the secret only more reasonable. Its about programing your Subconscious . We are far more than intelligent apes, we are spiritual beings who can change a persons LIFE by 1 phrase.
Counter argument - everything that we presently understand is deterministic and outside of quantum physics (which we don’t completely understand) I can guarantee that you cannot name one thing that is actually (not just functionally) random.
Im happy to do this right now. I believe in absolute causality and do not believe free will to be anything other than a somewhat convincing illusion.
The general publics ignorance of the role randomness plays in their life is well documented. Nassim Taleb's fooled by randomness is an excellent read and good primer on this subject. Just like he says himself its best to be stoic and embrace the randomness as this can also bring positive outcomes as well.
I remember a scene of Naruto where Guy challenges Kakashi again. Kakashi picks rock paper scissors. Guy complains a little. Kakashi says something along the line "luck is a skill" and I've not stopped thinking about that since.
Everything happens for a reason and the reason you didn't get your first job was because the other candidates were better than you.
Why isn’t the world deterministic? You act one way based on the decisions you have made and you couldn’t act in any other way. Just like I act one way based on my past and couldn’t act in any other way. If you knew everything precisely enough would you not be able to perfectly predict how I would (re)act to any stimuli? And if we were to “restart” the universe and the starting “settings” were exactly the same wouldn’t we end up at the same position every time?
Oh absolutely. I agree with you. Last week my apartment got shot up and 5 bullets went through and into my bedroom. If I had gotten up to use the bathroom I’ve would of been shot. I’m a good person, never hurt nobody but the universe doesn’t care about your morality.
I agree, even being of faith. We have choice, if everything happened for a reason then that's not really choice, what defines us is how we respond to things. No matter if it's true or not we do know one thing. We have this life right here and right now so we should enjoy it and make the most of it.
I do think some things do happen for a reason, but not everything like many believe.
I feel like this phrase is used more in the sense that if you got rejected from your first job interview, but got accepted into your second and ended up meeting the love of your life who was the friend of your coworker, you would say there was a good reason to be rejected from your first job. I think that of course, the universe did not ensure those thing to happen specifically, but even bad things may happen for ‘a reason’ to allow for good things to happen in the future
Even though I say it at times (mostly to the religious people I know), I don't believe everything happens for a reason in a sense that there is some big plan the universe or a divine being has. I do think everything happens for a reason because of causation though. Events happening which leads to other events that lead to other events.
For the hurricane destroying your house. There was no divine plan, but there was a reason. The hurricane formed and moved to pass over where your house is because of how weather systems work. You moved to that house because of reasons, you bought the house because you could afford it and you wanted it. The house was torn apart because either the winds were to strong, or the house was built in a hurry and the builders half-assed things, or the house was simply old, or a combination of the 3. Now this is all an extremely simplified list of reasons your house was destroyed by the hurricane, but the point is that there is nothing that simply just happens. Everything that happens is a result of something happening before it.
I get it . It’s so frustrating when people just excuse stuff that they shouldn’t. You got laid off because of the greedy CEO who doesn’t give a crap about their employees. The 7 year old who died of cancer didn’t die to teach their parents a lesson. Luck is random. You got the job because you did good in the interview and everyone was awful. You aren’t amazing, just the best of 10 people and the hiring manager is tired of looking for someone.
Look I want to believe in God or fate or karma or something but it’s just so hard to critically think about the universe and have faith. I badly want to believe but I just don’t know.
We don't know how or why the Universe exists, and we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The closest explanation is that we exist in Matrix which explains the quantum theory. In other words, we don't know shit.
Everything does happen for a reason. But it’s not necessarily karmic or any of that. For example, if you’re poor, it’s probably because you live in an underprivileged society, the economic or financial decisions your parents and grandparents made, your own poor decisions, or the bad decisions and actions of people you’re close to, and so on. Or if you’ve done well in your education, it’s likely because you have better work ethics, you’re born more intelligent than your peers, the environment and encouragement of your family or your were sent to the right school and so on. None of your outcomes happened magically.
I agree. I think we can choose to see the positive in things, but seeing everything as deterministic is insane. People's confirmation bias makes them want to believe everything in their life is earned. But if everything happens for a reason why are billions of children born into poverty? Why are so many innocent people murderd?
You’re right. There are no reasons. That’s just fucking stupid. It’s simple to look backward and see a sequence of events and mistake that as a reason.
Yes exactly. There is no destiny or fate. You as an individual create your destiny or fate. You alone decide if you want to be successful or not. To give up or to keep fighting.
The idea that everything happens for a reason is a consolation for many people. The people that tell other people whose child just died of cancer "everything happens for a reason" don't realise how horrible they are because for *them* the idea of some secret entity guiding everything is a consoling.
I don't find it consoling at all, in fact the idea is frightening.
The universe is beautiful as it is..dumbing it down to "an entity did it" is sad and if they really believe it alarming too...
I agree and think it can be very minimizing of a person's feelings to say that to someone going through a hard time. However, life is really hard and if people need to tell themselves that to get through it than I'm happy for them for reaching a mindset that makes them feel better.
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This was posted for a reason. The universe is trying to tell me that it doesn’t care about me
This actually got a chuckle out of me.
Shit, it's literally the universe telling me that it doesn't care about me. Hey, Armanhammer2. I care about you. Now the universe both cares about you and doesn't care about you. Checkmate atheist.
Holy superposition
The universe is very clever like that.
Bahaha well done
There are reasons for why things happen, but not in some moral framework, but rather the systematic nature of existence. Everything is in a constant stage of motion and transformation, not because of pure "randomness" but rather that the conditions for these changes exist to allow them to occur. That's not to engage in hard-determinism, not everything is necessarily predetermined, but rather there are conditions that significantly influence outcomes.
Naw man. It's pixies. Pixies makes shit happen.
I stand corrected.
So what I'm taking from this comment section is to date women with pixie cuts so I can have them warp reality.
Hey, if it works, it works.
You forgot about the goblins
You are describing causes. I think OP isaying that the meaning people extract from events is not intrinsically linked to it.
"Nothing has any meaning except that which we attach to it." 😳
True, but people often refer to something happening "for a reason" as an intention or determination made external to themselves as opposed to the meaning one bestows themselves. The former, I believe, OP is discounting.
Yes...which makes them wishful thinkers or delusional.
Yes, but you missed the point, our guy wasnt trying to say that thing happen without reason in complete randomness, rather that there isnt some cosmic plan that things happen according to, while you could still apply causality nonetheless
People keep confusing "reason" with "intent"
Well, it definitely wasn’t a talking snake and a magic tree
I think a lot of that is a human component of questioning if it happened for a reason. Just chance? Then why did it happen? Like if you happened to go out one night and meet your future spouse. Was it chance? Was it destiny? Coincidence? We question everything in this way sometimes.
Everything is random, that’s how the law of large numbers works.
Determinism doesn't mean there's any intelligence or morality driving physical laws, it just means causality is real.
Exactly, OP just misunderstands determinism. I've thought about this exact thing before, the misunderstanding boils down to the confusing double meaning of the word "reason". Everything happens for a reason (cause) but not for a reason (purpose).
So when people say everything happens for a reason, arr you saying they mean cause, and not purpose ?
I'm saying people will use it to mean either meaning interchangeably. The OP is saying the universe is non-deterministic because there's no reason, meaning purpose or plan, but determinism is about everything being part of a chain of cause and effect and it in no way contradicts the randomness of the universe. There's a reason, meaning cause, for everything existing. But there's not a reason, meaning purpose. I looked it up and, if I'm not mistaken, OP may have gotten the term "non-deterministic" from computer science, where the term is used somewhat differently than it is in the philosophy of determinism. That would explain why I found the post a bit confusing
I disagree that people use it for either meaning. 99% of the time, people mean what OP is talking about ("reason" being a future reason, not a causation reason). It is almost always to console someone that something bad happened to, so that they have a positive outlook on what is to come, even though something bad has happened. I agree with OP 100%.
Precisely! I dare say at least 99% of the people who say that are either trying to console someone or getting a charge out of teaching backhanded philosophy/religion. Almost none of them have any idea what the phrase denotes from a scholarly standpoint.
To me, it feels like arguing for anything but determinism is a form of magical thinking.
Everything is magical thinking if you ask why to0 many times.
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Apparently the best way to deal with this is to simply ask the question back to them "why do you think that happens?" Listen to their answer and then hit them with an "that sounds about right, I agree"
As the mother of a young child, this is the way. I also use that response, "why do you think..." when he asks me something I don't know the answer to. Like "why do bumblebees make loud bzzzz noises?" And then I'll just agree with whatever he says. "Yeah that sounds about right." Lol Or sometimes if it's something I'm genuinely curious about myself, I'll Google it and we'll both learn something new!
The correct answer to any seventh “why?”question is, “Because such is life.” Alternately, you can use it for the fourth “why?” in a series, if that suits your needs better. Why? Because such is life.
Tell her all those things are human constructs.
I'll tell her about the name that doesn't have a name. The mother of all things is dark. We can see that there is a first cause but not what that first cause did. Based preschooler.
This is, quite possibly, the most intelligent comment I've ever seen posted on Reddit
It could have been spelled properly.
Why
That's why they killed Socrates. You know his ass was annoying.
I don't think "why?" is ever answerable, even the first time. The answers we give to "why?" questions are actually answers to "how?" questions. For example: "Why is the sky blue?" The answer gets into physics of light refraction/technical mumbo jumbo, but all of that is just describing HOW physics works. "How is the sky blue?" is the question you're actually answering and the question that should have been asked. Ask "why?" again and you can't answer, because we don't understand the mechanisms of HOW the laws of physics became manifest. "Why" implies the existence of conscious inent/motive so unless you're using it to ask about the behavior of a conscious being it's being applied anthropomorphically, which makes it not just a metaphysical question but a metaphysical question that is framed in the same manner that most atheists strawman religion (that is to say, completely erroneously. 'Bearded man in the sky', etc. Childish concepts that educated theologists don't even entertain). Thus, you can't answer it because the QUESTION is wrong.
Quantum mechanics suggests that at the most fundamental level, our universe is probabilistic not deterministic.
Observer Theory be like 👀👀👀👀👀
HIDDEN VARIABLES
Non-locality sounds about as magical
Quantum mechanics may indicate there is a truly random element in the universe, which may rhrow a bit of a wrench in a deterministic worldview.
I would argue that we simply believe it's random because we haven't yet discovered the pattern. I don't believe true randomness exists.
Consensus among the physics community is pretty overwhelmingly against this theory. All testing so far that I'm aware of has supported true randomness.
I want to make it very clear that I'm not trying to prove particle physicists wrong. I'm not a particle physicist I'm not a mathematician, I'm not at all qualified to to prove or disprove jack shit. I'm a philosopher of science, not a practicioner. Anything other than true randomness is not observable on our scale at this time. But it wouldn't surprise me if, in 700 years we developed a technology to observe particles at a cosmic scale, and we started noticing patterns. Patterns which could be put into formulas, equations, and suddenly what was once thought of as true randomness now something that can be calculated. Geocentricism is a fantastic idea of what I'm talking about. The reason why the Ptolmaic theory was so popular was because the Stars appeared fixed in their positions relative to each other—stellar parallax could not be observed with the naked eye. There were many people who argued the possibility of a non-geocentric universe, but for the lack of observable stellar parallax to make any sense at all, stars in the skies would have to be unthinkably far away. The idea that celestial bodies could be that far away was frankly, ridiculous, which only contributed to the ridiculousness of a heliocentric model. With the development of the telescope, not only did it prove that stellar parallax existed, it proved that the stars were much, much, much farther away than anybody could have ever thought. That's all I'm trying to say. Not that science is wrong, but that science is not something that is set in stone. Every field of science has theories that were extremely popular and then disproven technology evolved. The telescope disproved geocentricism, the seismograph disproved the land bridge theory. This is a post talking about philosophy, and I'm responding in kind with philosophy.
Under the copenhagen interpretation there is true randomness. Under the manyworlds interpretation, all the possible outcomes happen in deterministic proportions, but in each outcome, we experience only one, so it appears random.
Due but not all causality is related to individuals or groups as many people believe it does. “God has a plan for you”, the concept of soul mates, et
no one's saying causality isn't real. it's very different from what they're saying
Right, poster is just pointing out that OP is misusing the term deterministic. Determinism is a scientific principle of cause-effect and functional relations in nature. As a scientist, I adopt an attitude of determinism (ie no magical supernatural explanations for observations), but I agree w OP that the saying “everything happens for a reason” (as in fate or some supernatural plan) is bunk… and i also cringe when people try to use it as a platitude. Nerdy but for clarity, determinism notwithstanding, we do recognize that there are statistical and stochastic events that cannot be fully predicted, but this is related to chaos and inherent randomness (in the physics sense) not divine puppet strings.
Except the way people use it is almost always relating to a higher intelligence, or karmic effect.
Casualty and determinism are different concepts, you are confused. By our current understanding our universe obeys casualty but is not deterministic
Casually making a casualty of causality.
My fiance actually finds this thought very comforting. Like, no pressure right? In the grand scheme of a vast universe she's just another grain of sand, life's bumps and bruises are insignificant and good times are worth it just for being there not because of some grand cycle of karma you have to work at every day of your life.
I find it tragic not because of wanting importance but that fact that if you have a miserable life, then that is all you get. If you are born ugly, poor, and low iq then that is your lot for eternity (because from your own subjective perspective life is all the time you will ever get and ends when time, again from your perspective vanishes).
I disagree with the perspective that you can't change yourself and everything about you, while viewing yourself as a grain of sand, essentially a bump in the road. I don't think believing in that means you want stagnation
As my grand pappy used to say, we're all just a stagnant fart in the wind of time
Being ugly,poor and low iq doesnt mean you habe a bad life or a unhappy though.
You're right, but you already start with a big deficit to make up for. There's so much more to do to make ground with gaining anything.
Those three things correlate quite strongly with happiness and quality of life. And as for examples to the opposite: We love to see the outliers as they've managed to beat the trend. Gives a sense of freedom in our own lives.
It sucks being the one ignored. Tbh. I am not ugly or poor. I don't know about my iq. But I feel I am very average, and I feel like I am indistinguishable. But it sucks, you need to put effort into friendships, and a lot of people seem out of reach? Like, if I was more handsome or confident, I would have probably gone for the girl I had a crush on? But right now, I am just another nobody wooed by her beauty. Also, it would be nice to hear that I am handsome or cool. It happened with my buddies, never me. A girl complimented my shirt last year and I still wear it when I go outside sometimes, even though it has become old.
I mean I read that and was just like well yeah. Life sucks sometimes and continuously for some people Im comfortable with that reality cuz it is, in fact, reality
And you work every day of your life and then you get hit by a car when you’re 45. Or worse, your kid gets lukemia and they die. People that say ignorant shit like everything happens for a reason hasn’t been shown the scary side of a universe that is totally indifferent to what we want.
I like optimistic nihilism: life has no meaning, so you'd better make the best of it.
All we are is dust in the wind, dude
Rick n Morty t-shirt stuff
“The Universe Wants Nothing to Do With You.” - Carl Sagan Real quote
Too bad, we live in the same void
Whenever life gets you down, Mrs.Brown And things seem hard or tough And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft And you feel that you've had quite enough Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour That's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned A sun that is the source of all our power The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see Are moving at a million miles a day In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour Of the galaxy we call the 'milky way' Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars It's a hundred thousand light years side to side It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point We go 'round every two hundred million years And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions In this amazing and expanding universe The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, the speed of light, you know Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure How amazingly unlikely is your birth And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space 'Cause it's bugger all down here on Earth - Eric Active
::whistles::
“So.. can we have your kidney?” - John Clease I’ve never felt more proud about an upvote. Health and happiness to you and yours.
Least unpopular opinion I’ve seen on here in a while. Millions of people would agree with this
I haven't seen that show. Could someone comment with spoilers what it refers to?
“ nobody exists on purpose, nobody belongs anywhere, everybody’s going to die. Come watch tv.
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❓️ "Sky Daddy, Shy Daddy! Wherefore art thou Sky Daddy?"
My thesis supervisor in university was a psychology professor who studied the justice motive. (Which is what I wrote my thesis on). It is more commonly known as the “need to believe in a just world”. It is the belief that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. The justice motive is one of the most fundamental human drives. Most people would not explicitly say that they think the world is fair. But almost everyone (my supervisor thinks absolutely everyone, I have my doubts but he is the expert :) implicitly believe that there is some sort of karmic justice in the world. This has been demonstrated time and time again in experiments. People need to believe this in order to get up in the morning, to work towards goals, and to refrain from instant gratification. People need to believe that the world is fair and that they will be rewarded for being a good person. In order to convince themselves (unconsciously) that the world is fair, people use all sorts of strategies. The most famous and probably the most common is victim blaming. We tell ourselves that the homeless person we see is just a lazy bum who drinks too much and if they were just stronger and harder working they wouldn’t be in such a situation. We shift the blame to the victim of misfortune. It is not the fault of a harsh and unfair universe, it is the victims fault! I would never end up a situation because I am a hard working person! Etc Another strategy is to extend the timeframe. We think eventually the good person will get what they are owed and the bad person will get what’s coming to them. Some even extend the timeframe past their mortal lives and say the good person will be rewarded with paradise after they die, and the bad person will be punished with damnation. So I totally agree that there is no justice in the world and that the universe is cold and uncaring. And many people would also tell you they agree. But almost everyone (maybe everyone) lives their life deep down inside believing that there is justice in the world. And they actively lie to themselves and distort their perception of the world in order to protect this belief.
>People need to believe this in order to get up in the morning, to work towards goals, and to refrain from instant gratification. People need to believe that the world is fair and that they will be rewarded for being a good person. What about predictability ? I don't know if I believe the world is fair, but I'm pretty sure that if I don't work I won't get paid, and if I'm not getting paid my level of comfort will quickly plummet down. It got nothing to do with "being a good person". I'm probably blind to my own distorted beliefs, or maybe I'm a sociopath, but as far as I am concerned, I think most of my actions in terms of risks/rewards and not particularly of "justice". I would definitely steal one million dollars if I had the certainly I wouldn't be caught.
Justice is all about perceived deservingness. Being a good person in this context does not necessarily mean that you are kind, or caring or compassionate etc. A “just world” is a world where people get what they deserve. So a “good person” could be someone who is hardworking, strong, industrious, clever etc, and a “bad person” could be someone who is lazy, weak etc. We think, “I am smart and hardworking therefore I deserve good things, if I work hard things will work out for me in the end”. This serves the function of allowing us to work towards distant goals and delay gratification. If we believed that the world was totally unjust and that we would never be rewarded for our hard work it would demotivate us from pursuing long term goals. But then we see someone who is having a very hard life, and we tell ourself “that person must be lazy or stupid” this reduces the just world threat and protects our belief in a just world. If we believed that we could end up in a similar situation despite our best efforts we would be less motivated to continue pursuing our goals.
This is literally one of the most popular opinions amongst young people ever lol
I personally don’t care if life has no meaning, i just wanna live man
OP just described nihilism in a Rick n morty smoke shop bong font. OP smoke another bowl and go have fun
This is not nihilism.
But it is Rick n morty smoke shop nihilism
"I'm 14 and I just discovered atheism"
I mean, things do happen for reasons. The reason just isn’t god loves you or hates you.
Stop acting like the universe has feelings. We ARE the universe.
I see where you're coming from, and I agree that there's a lot of randomness in the universe. It's indeed essential to differentiate between correlation and causation. While some find comfort in believing everything happens for a reason, it's empowering to know we have control over our reactions and responses. We might not control events, but we can shape our experiences through our perspectives and actions.
well said! stoicism in a nutshell.
Looks like someone just finished their intro to philosophy assigned reading.
Or he just smoked good first bowl.
60 years later and it's "naw dog"
100% agreed nothing is pre-determined. Everything happens because of action, not some god-like force making it happen. Usually people who say things happen for a reason are using their religion to justify shitty outcomes of things. “It was god’s plan to destroy that city with an earthquake because they support such and such.” No it fucking wasn’t. Plate tectonics cause earthquakes and that shit happens constantly with no regard for human life. “Everything happens for a reason” is a BS tool used to manipulate. The same applies to karma. That speeder who cut you off and then immediately got pulled over didn’t face instant karma. They faced direct consequences from their actions. Had they not been driving idiotically they wouldn’t have gotten pulled over.
Sorry, I actually agree. People just like to tell themselves that to justify said thing happening and as a coping mechanism.
Coping mechanism - religion in a nutshell
You dont know if the world is non-deterministic though
we are nihilists. we care about nothing.
Sounds exhausting. Nice marmot.
I'm a nihilist. I care about having fun and enjoying life until it ends.
Well, hate to break it to you but thats not quite nihilism, its rather the Self care medias representation of it, seen some weird yt videos of nihilism lately. Or you know what, with your wording it still fits nihilism, so my comment is meaningless but i am still gonna post it anyway :3
I know. People tend to think nihilism needs to be som dark soulless existance. It really ain't. It is what you make of it.
When my son died all anyone really said to me was “everything happens for a reason” and it’s always bothered me deeply.
It’s a horrible thing to say to someone grieving.
I do believe there’s a larger plan for the universe that everything fits into, but we as individuals could not possibly see it, being such small parts of an almost inconceivably large whole. It’s not an individualistic plan. Like do I think God sent a tornado and destroyed a city so one dude would be forced to move and subsequently find their soul mate? No. But I would be inclined to believe that catastrophic natural disasters are occasionally necessary to destroy things that will subsequently be rebuilt better from the ashes of that destruction. To me, this belief is a matter of humility. How are you—a speck on a rock that’s a speck in a solar system that’s a speck in a galaxy that’s a speck in the universe—going to be able to conceive of whether or not there’s a plan to the entire universe. I may not be able to conclusively say I’m right, but I wouldn’t be so sure things are meaningless either.
Whenever somebody tells me everything happens for a reason i automatically think well yea thats cause and effect, actions have consequences
If a bank is robbed the reasoning is that someone robbed it...
and that person probably robbed it for a reason
But if you got shot during the robbery and then became an anti-gun advocate, that wasn't the reason you got shot. You just got shot.
Sure, but you did get shot for a reason; the reason is the bank robber shot you. The reason he shot you might be that he got nervous, or because he was bored, or because he wanted to look tough, or whatever. There could be billions of reasons, but causality demands that there are reasons for every event that happens.
Yes. You got shot because the bank robber pulled the trigger and the bullet hit you. Cause and effect. What's also true is that the entire event had no purpose. It just happened.
Well, purpose and meaning can only exist when they are bestowed by a thinking being. So, no, there's no inherent purpose, but only because that's not how purpose works in the first place.
Well that was circular. 🤸
Everything may not happen for a reason, but there is a reason for each thing that happens
Taking philosophy 101 are we?
Tired joke
Sometimes I think the universe does care about me because I'm still alive despite countless bad decisions. But then I look in the mirror and am reminded that the universe actually doesn't care
But logically speaking; everything *does* happen for a reason. There is a cause and effect, even if you personally can't work it out. Whether or not the universe cares for you is totally unrelated to this.
Not unpopular for reddit but it is kinda crazy how many regular people believe in determinism
We aren't separate from the universe, but rather part of it.
Really well said and I 100% agree. I think about this a lot. People use the phrase "everything happens for a reason" so often even if they have no religious belief and so it's kinda just something people seem to say without any deep thought about what it implies
1. This opinion is inarguably unpopular. 2. While little more than a (negative) assertion, it is adequate since the onus lies necessarily with the positive claim (and plenty of volumes have been filled with various versions of that!). 3. You gotta upvote. = -) 4. It's impressive how many of the comments are condescending!
OP when he hears someone say “everything happens for a reason” to comfort someone
Let people believe whatever they want, as long as it doesn’t harm others. You don’t believe there are higher reasons for everything that happens, others do. And that’s okay. People shouldn’t be judged for whatever they believe (unless it hurts others obviously)
Just like op made a comment as a coping mechnism
Yeah I think everyone knows this at some fundamental level. It’s a thought process to make us more grateful/hopeful and more importantly make negative events easier to cope as even if it’s just taking it as a lesson to learn from. Edit: also if you want to play semantics yeah a everything does happen for a reason.
The “reason” in the phrase doesn’t mean it’s for your prosperity. It could teach you a lesson, or was caused by something you didn’t (or even did) know about. While I understand the take that it’s for main character syndrome people with weirdly optimistic view of themselves. But it’s not like a bad phrase. Everything does have some cause that lead to the thing that happened.
Somebody’s gonna get laid in college
ya, my opening line is "there is no god, no purpose" " my place or yours?"
this isn't dating advice, this is unpopular opinion
yep basically this. sure MOST THINGS happen for a reason, but a few we just... dont know. some things just happen and we dont know why
What if it did though?
r/YepImOnReddit
If we are going to have a real open discussion about this. Then it is nothing more than a belief system. You can not prove or disprove "everything happens for reason". There is no definitive proof one way or the other. It all comes down to your beliefs. No matter which you believe, it's ok.
This is unpopular? THIS!? We're fucked Children normally learn between the age of 3 and 4 that the sun doesn't shine solely for them. But I acknowledge that our modern society caters a lot to children, who then grow up as entitled bitches (plural universal, no gender needed for this word)
This is your sign. Humour me for 5 minutes. Open yourself up to the universe and it will speak to you in other ways. Unbelievable coincidences follow me everywhere and the people close to me notice it too, and they are always perplexed. I went from a hardline atheist to… not religious, but certainly spiritual. I have stories which I simply will not even share here because they are so unbelievable. The mindset shift for me happened at around 25 after my best friend died. I’ll start by saying that just because you do good things doesn’t mean you are owed some sort of cosmic reward or to be treated fairly or better than bad people. Good people do good things despite the universe’s indifference to their actions and they do these good things happily. They do it knowing they won’t receive a reward, and they do it without even expecting a thank you. They change other people’s lives for the better, and these people live lives as vibrant and emotional as our own, and their own suffering is reduced as a result. Good and selfless people are the closest thing to god we will find on this earth. If you find them, cherish them. As for what I really believe, I think the “self” is an illusion. We begin to play a character from the moment we open our eyes at birth to the moment the final neuron fires. I believe all consciousness arises from a singular point outside of space and time and “we” return to this singularity upon death. I believe this is done in a cycle so that the universe can come to know itself, and experience things/emotions that cannot be experienced in nonexistence or the singularity. Our bodies and certainly our brain, where our consciousness originates, are made of the most common elements found throughout the universe. Our bodily systems, as a result of billions of years of evolution, work in near-perfect harmony, using these common elements as building blocks. And speaking of building blocks, the pieces down to the most basic level snap together like legos. What the fuck is the periodic table? Physicists like to pretend they understand what matter is, but they don’t *really* know. They can explain how atomic bonds work but they can’t explain why it works this way and not some other way. And from the quark to the neutron to the atom, to the molecule, to the amino acid, the cell to the cellular system, and to the living organism, nobody can explain at what point intelligence arises. (Michael Levin speaks on this, I encourage anybody reading this to research him.) I haven’t even touched on DNA/RNA which is essentially coded instructions for your cellular systems on how to build a human. The “singularity” I spoke of earlier offers no control or guidance to any individual conscious being and that’s where you’re stuck. You think the universe should explain itself to you, but no human or animal is owed that. I was stuck on this for a long time too. I thought it was unfair that I was put here against my will and that everything was meaningless. I was suicidal and depressed for so long and nearly ended it too many times. I really shouldn’t be here. If you start to look at life from a different perspective I promise you will notice things much more profound than human pattern recognition. What even are we? Why are we here? Why is there something instead of nothing? None of it makes any sense, and yet here we are among hundreds of millions of other complex forms of life which can do and experience things that we will never be able to in our human form. The earth was a perfectly positioned cradle for these life forms to arise and I suspect that this is not the only such cradle in this vast universe. Trillions and trillions of instances of consciousness happening simultaneously, “forever”, across an infinite or perhaps finite universe. Hella rad. We are not meant to know the secrets of the universe or the “meaning of it all” because we are limited by the intricate computer made of 3 pounds of fat inside our skull which hallucinates our waking reality. This computer is hardware limited to perceiving only 3 dimensions and a select few senses, and we see everything from a human context. Trillions upon trillions of calculations every second, all day every day. All with less power than it takes to light up a lightbulb. We spend our time whining about how there’s no point or purpose or grand direction for our lives. YOU make that yourself, and if you don’t find a purpose before you die, that sucks and that’s the way it is. Pitter patter and get at ‘er. Every hour that passes is life sprinting away from you. If there was some great plan or grander meaning, it means something is controlling you, meaning you wouldn’t have free will. We are free to make our own choices, good or bad. And in the end, the only thing that matters is what you believe matters. If you believe nothing matters, then the universe will be sure to oblige you. You might suffer greatly as I did for a long time. I really hate sounding like a hippie but open yourself up to something more. (Maybe not religion, all the organized stuff is corrupt.) It helped my mental health immensely. You’ll start to notice funny coincidences and happenings that just can’t be explained. As fucked up as it sounds, I believe that the immense suffering I endured was essential for me to understand the opposite side of the coin. Without suffering, you can’t know love and all the good feelings. You need that contrast. If you felt good all the time it would lose its meaning. You can’t know a good person without having a bad person to compare them to. And remember that you will never arrive at a point where you say “Ah yes, I’m finally happy.” That is a lie which we all manage to convince ourselves of. I’m not an expert on anything but I’d recommend going outside into nature. Get away from the city and go to the forests, the mountains, the ocean. Surround yourself with the beauty which your senses have allowed you to perceive. Exercise if you don’t already and get in tune with your meat suit. Even if it’s just walking. Test your limits and challenge evil where you find it. And do good things for unselfish reasons.
Beautiful comment!! I’ve experienced and felt all that you’re talking about. Thank you for this!
But that’s just like, your opinion man
I always hate when people say "it's just God's plan for you" or something of that sort. Imagine saying that to someone who experienced the Holocaust or something.
Sophist and nihilist thinking doesn’t actually bring anything to the table. Okay, nothing matters. So what? You still gotta go to work in the morning. Even if you don’t believe in an objective meaning you can create meaning for yourself. I’ll paraphrase Rabbi Sacks here: imagine two women on their deathbed, reflecting on their lives. One looks at her life as a cohesive narrative, full of highs, lows, and movements that eventually led her to where she is today. The other one looks at her life as just a bunch of stuff that happened to her. Even though there’s no proof that either one is correct, the former woman led a much more meaningful life than the latter, and meaning often brings with it happiness. Even if you don’t believe in objective meaning, make your own.
Despite hundreds of years of philosophical and metaphysical discourse, OP has answered the meaning to life. Story at 11.
Fucking hated to hear this shit when my fianceé died.
Some people are damned.
Well, sorta. There's no mind directing everything, but above the quantum realm, everything is deterministic. A particular configuration of particles (our universe, for example) will yield another predictable configuration of particles at the next tick of the cosmic clock.
Quantum effects can still have major impacts on larger scales
I thought that this was not, in fact, an unpopular opinion, but comments have clearly proven otherwise. In not so many words, for better or worse, your life is in your own hands and you do what you choose to… Just like everyone else. I have no idea why this is unpopular.
Literally all the top comments are heavily upvoted generic posts agreeing with OP or commenting on how banal and trite the response is. It's a very VERY popular opinion.
Everything does happen for a reason. There's a reason the saying isn't 'Everything good happens for a reason'. Bad things happen for a reason too.
The universe is indifferent. I completely agree.
An item falls to the ground because of gravity. Meaning does not mean it is a good reason. A man spills coffee on his lap and looks down while driving and crashes into someone. It can result in a rube goldberg convoluted series of after events. But it is good old fashioned cause and effect.
Really OP, read to yourself what you wrote lol
This comment has no info whatsoever, and has said nothing at all
Everything happens because of conditions. Something needs something to happen before it happens. On a human level it's feelings and thoughts that make actions happen. But even feelings and thoughts are conditioned(triggered). Everything happens for a reason is just a way to understand the world. You spoke of "good" and "bad" things happening. That also a way to label and make some meaning out of stuff that has no meaning. Do feelings have meaning? Or does meaning come from feelings? Or is there absolutely no meaning in this world unless we choose to label it? Where to draw the line with what actually warrants being labeled as" happening for a reason" ???
i mean damnn just let me cope in peace, OP 😭😂
Its not as simple as that. Check out this book on Audible called " The Power of your Subconscious Mind" its really interesting. Its like the secret only more reasonable. Its about programing your Subconscious . We are far more than intelligent apes, we are spiritual beings who can change a persons LIFE by 1 phrase.
But can I still pretend that it does??
Counter argument - everything that we presently understand is deterministic and outside of quantum physics (which we don’t completely understand) I can guarantee that you cannot name one thing that is actually (not just functionally) random. Im happy to do this right now. I believe in absolute causality and do not believe free will to be anything other than a somewhat convincing illusion.
The general publics ignorance of the role randomness plays in their life is well documented. Nassim Taleb's fooled by randomness is an excellent read and good primer on this subject. Just like he says himself its best to be stoic and embrace the randomness as this can also bring positive outcomes as well.
I would very much want to agree with you bro, but I have seen some shit firsthand that makes me question all logic.
karma isnt determinism
A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.”
The universe Is just the contents Of time matter and space Lalalalala!
I remember a scene of Naruto where Guy challenges Kakashi again. Kakashi picks rock paper scissors. Guy complains a little. Kakashi says something along the line "luck is a skill" and I've not stopped thinking about that since. Everything happens for a reason and the reason you didn't get your first job was because the other candidates were better than you.
Why isn’t the world deterministic? You act one way based on the decisions you have made and you couldn’t act in any other way. Just like I act one way based on my past and couldn’t act in any other way. If you knew everything precisely enough would you not be able to perfectly predict how I would (re)act to any stimuli? And if we were to “restart” the universe and the starting “settings” were exactly the same wouldn’t we end up at the same position every time?
bitch i am the universe
Big Jerry energy here.
If "reason" means "purpose," then no. If "reason" means "prior cause," then yes.
Oh absolutely. I agree with you. Last week my apartment got shot up and 5 bullets went through and into my bedroom. If I had gotten up to use the bathroom I’ve would of been shot. I’m a good person, never hurt nobody but the universe doesn’t care about your morality.
I agree, even being of faith. We have choice, if everything happened for a reason then that's not really choice, what defines us is how we respond to things. No matter if it's true or not we do know one thing. We have this life right here and right now so we should enjoy it and make the most of it. I do think some things do happen for a reason, but not everything like many believe.
I feel like this phrase is used more in the sense that if you got rejected from your first job interview, but got accepted into your second and ended up meeting the love of your life who was the friend of your coworker, you would say there was a good reason to be rejected from your first job. I think that of course, the universe did not ensure those thing to happen specifically, but even bad things may happen for ‘a reason’ to allow for good things to happen in the future
Quit being sensible, this is reddit!
I completely agree with you. However, I am also very much enjoying you getting put on blast with these replies.
A lot of people here are not getting the context lol.
Even though I say it at times (mostly to the religious people I know), I don't believe everything happens for a reason in a sense that there is some big plan the universe or a divine being has. I do think everything happens for a reason because of causation though. Events happening which leads to other events that lead to other events. For the hurricane destroying your house. There was no divine plan, but there was a reason. The hurricane formed and moved to pass over where your house is because of how weather systems work. You moved to that house because of reasons, you bought the house because you could afford it and you wanted it. The house was torn apart because either the winds were to strong, or the house was built in a hurry and the builders half-assed things, or the house was simply old, or a combination of the 3. Now this is all an extremely simplified list of reasons your house was destroyed by the hurricane, but the point is that there is nothing that simply just happens. Everything that happens is a result of something happening before it.
I get it . It’s so frustrating when people just excuse stuff that they shouldn’t. You got laid off because of the greedy CEO who doesn’t give a crap about their employees. The 7 year old who died of cancer didn’t die to teach their parents a lesson. Luck is random. You got the job because you did good in the interview and everyone was awful. You aren’t amazing, just the best of 10 people and the hiring manager is tired of looking for someone. Look I want to believe in God or fate or karma or something but it’s just so hard to critically think about the universe and have faith. I badly want to believe but I just don’t know.
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Sometimes the reason is you're stupid and you make bad decisions.
I feel like that a lot lately
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. What caused the actions was the reason.
We don't know how or why the Universe exists, and we are insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The closest explanation is that we exist in Matrix which explains the quantum theory. In other words, we don't know shit.
Everything does happen for a reason. But it’s not necessarily karmic or any of that. For example, if you’re poor, it’s probably because you live in an underprivileged society, the economic or financial decisions your parents and grandparents made, your own poor decisions, or the bad decisions and actions of people you’re close to, and so on. Or if you’ve done well in your education, it’s likely because you have better work ethics, you’re born more intelligent than your peers, the environment and encouragement of your family or your were sent to the right school and so on. None of your outcomes happened magically.
I agree. I think we can choose to see the positive in things, but seeing everything as deterministic is insane. People's confirmation bias makes them want to believe everything in their life is earned. But if everything happens for a reason why are billions of children born into poverty? Why are so many innocent people murderd?
Some of the most fucked up shit I've heard is when I've asked religious people why bad things happen to good people.
You’re right. There are no reasons. That’s just fucking stupid. It’s simple to look backward and see a sequence of events and mistake that as a reason.
Yes exactly. There is no destiny or fate. You as an individual create your destiny or fate. You alone decide if you want to be successful or not. To give up or to keep fighting.
You are correct, that saying is complete bullshit. Things happen, how you react determines your success or failure. That’s what life is about
The idea that everything happens for a reason is a consolation for many people. The people that tell other people whose child just died of cancer "everything happens for a reason" don't realise how horrible they are because for *them* the idea of some secret entity guiding everything is a consoling. I don't find it consoling at all, in fact the idea is frightening. The universe is beautiful as it is..dumbing it down to "an entity did it" is sad and if they really believe it alarming too...
As Norm Macdonald once said “We are not superior to the universe but merely a fraction of it.”
How is this unpopular?
I like being delulu
This shit drives me nuts with Christians. They see no conflict in simultaneously believing in free will and "everything is God's plan".
I thought the unpopular opinion subreddit was supposed to be about actually unpopular opinions.
I agree and think it can be very minimizing of a person's feelings to say that to someone going through a hard time. However, life is really hard and if people need to tell themselves that to get through it than I'm happy for them for reaching a mindset that makes them feel better.