Talk:Fatalism

message: hi can someone who knows how to wiki fix this article please? It's pretty bad. Lots of personal opinions reported as facts: "Fate is dictated by the position of every planet, star, moon, solar system and galaxy in the universe," "It is, however, a false argument." I'm sorry I don't know how to actually flag this. 2604:2000:7012:5700:8DC9:BF9:AE9F:E10 (talk) 07:08, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

message: The given definition of "amor fati" fits much more closely with the practice of taoism than with the concept of "fatalism."
136.165.112.85 21:07, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Taoism

message: So I am taking course on methods and problems of philosophy, and fatalism has in fact been formally invalidated.  I do not remember exactly how, but it went something like this:
1. X happens, this is a contingent truth.
2. if x happens, then x necessarily happened (this is a necessary truth based on a contingent premise)
3. x necessarily happened (this is where the argument falls apart, and it is known as a MODAL FALLACY)
Because fatalism has been formally invalidated, i believe it is of utmost importance and priority to mention this on the page, since it is not there.  I am not a wiki user or anybody reliable, but this is true, and you can confirm with a philosophy/logic professor before you dismiss me.  Thank you, and i hope someone with authority on the wiki reads this soon!
-Amir
160.39.110.137 (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Invalidated

message: Is there still anyone available to continue this discussion? It appears the last entry was on 2/23/08. I am very much interested in having a  discussion on fatalism (by any name) other than the continued disagreement on the correct definition.
Anyone there?Zi14 (talk) 19:18, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: The Idle Argument

message: I think of fatalism as the following: You might be able to make your own choices, but those choices won't really matter because there will be events that you can't prevent from happening. Those are "fated" events. Fatalism might go so far as to say that the every event we can view as important is fated. This view of fatalism is clearly different from determanism because we could have free will in a fatalistic world.
Is fatalism really the result of predestination? I think determanism is the result of predestination. If I write this comment, but God already knew I would write this comment, then do I lack the power to refrain from doing so? No. I have the power to refrain from writing this comment as long as I could have refrained if I chose to. (The fact that I couldn't choose to is beside the point because we usually only care that we can do what we choose to do.) This is how some people argue that freedom and determinism are compatible. The same argument can be used when there is predestination in order to show that people can still make a difference in the world. --dragonlord 05:15, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That isn't fatalism at all. It's defeatism or predetermination. Fatalism is simply the denial of free-will and chance. There's no choice, the outcome can only be one way. Defeatism says that you can't make a difference. Fatalism doesn't imply that at all. Predestination says that events are a result of God's will, or a supreme being who operates outside of causality. Events are a product of many different actions and processes. People can make a difference, but that doesn't mean they are free. Those are separate issues. What you think and what you do can change how you feel or even the world. There is no reason to believe in free will. It's a superfluous idea which fails the test of Ockham's razor. We can explain everything without reference to free will. Utopianist 09:29, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're wrong.  Fatalism is not the same as determinism.  Classically, fatalism (e.g. the Stoics) is the view that your choices are free but irrelevant to your fate.  Act however you wish, you cannot avoid your fate.  People who conflate fatalism with determinism usually have an "ax to grind."  The oppose determinism so they like label it as "fatalism" because fatalism has more negative connotations.  The distinction between determinism and fatalism is important and shouldn;t be glossed over because one doesn't like determinism.    —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.239.139 (talk) 03:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the first line of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on fatalism: "Fatalism is the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do."  The article goes on to identify three ways of arguing for fatalism, and notes that those who argue for causal determinism often forgo the term "fatalism" in favor of "determinism."  This does not change the fact, however, that determinism in this sense is a species of fatalism.  This could be made clearer in our article, but the current lack of clarity does not change the facts.  Postmodern Beatnik (talk) 14:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fatalism and Predestination 

message: I am not an expert on fatalism, but I feel this article could be drasitcally edited. I am thinking of elaborating a bit on what fatalism is, move the "idle argument" to it's own page, and talk more about fatalism and less about the examples associated with it. What does everyone think? Any helpers? --Kevin L. 03:15, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please, do. We need to get rid of this clown (Peter D Jones) who keeps hijacking the whole article with the straw-man "idle argument" and saying it doesn't matter what you do. That is not fatalism at all. Fatalism is the belief in only one possible past, present, and future. Every thing that happens is inevitable, unalterable, fixed, predetermined... I don't see the idle-argument as a justification for fatalism or a conclusion of belief in fatalism. It has more in common with Defeatism, and Divine Predestination. The strict definition of fatalism does not imply that human actions are pointless or that things just happen, outside of causality - as this author continually asserts. He is posting a biased concept of fatalism. Utopianist 08:35, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revamp... 

message: That still isn't fatalism. I think you're confusing your definition of fatalism with certain aspects of determinism. The determinists on naturalism.org, (who are extremely well researched and thought-provoking, give excellent explanations of determinism and provide a great way to live meaningful, moral lives while relinquishing free will. They argue that free will isn't a necessary illusion like some people believe.) would vehemently disagree with you.
Then again you wrote that about 5 months, but I just wanted to say my piece.
:I would have to agree with you that what User:Dragonlord reffered to was in fact determinism rather than fatalism, in the belief that all events, including human action, are pre-determined and that this world is the only world that could have formed. However, a question that this provoked me to ask is; can certain fatalists believe in free will, yet also hold the belief that a person's choices are so inconsequential that no matter what they do, thier decisions cannot alter their fate? I ask this because, if so, it seems as though there should be a mention on this page that where determinism and libertarian free will are mutually exclusive, that may not be the case for fatalism. (Note that I do not hold the aforementioned viewpoint, I simply want to bring into question whether or not the reltionship between fatalism and free will should be mentioned.) 66.24.229.233 01:49, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fatalism and free will are incompatible. People can't choose anything. This doesn't mean we can't change anything. We can change our minds. We can influence other people. We can do things. Fatalism doesn't imply defeatism or feeling that events just "happen." There are some things we can't change, but we can undermine them or disengage from them. Those who oppose fatalism mostly misunderstand it. There is nothing depressing or negative about accepting that events are inevitable. Utopianist 08:31, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: In response to Dragon Lord

message: Here is my justification for fatalism. "We can't change the past. We can't change the present. The future hasn't happened. It's nonsensical to say that we can "change" the future. Human actions and deliberation have important effects, but we can't show that they involve free will. It's easier to assume that everything is inevitable. Free will is superfluous." Utopianist 00:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for sharing your personal beliefs, And for keeping them out of the article.1Z 14:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Towards an Understanding of Fatalism 

message: I'm not sure if you'd want to merge these necessarily, but they are obviously related (and did not link to one another). --24.57.157.81 01:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: These views are related and they should definitely be linked to one another. I don't think it matters whether they are merged. Do you think it would really help people to tie these ideas together that closely? I don't see why, but I could be missing something. I also suspect, having looked at the talk pages, that combining the two pages will lead to extensive and unhelpful discussions - but maybe this isn't relevant. Anarchia 10:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Theological fatalism 

message: The article on fatalism on the french wikipedia (entitled 'fatalisme') is labelled as an "article de qualité" - I'm a novice at this stuff so what I want to know is how do I go about using it as a source/shamelessly copying it?
Julian Roberts 08:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  French wikipedia article 

message: People do what is inevitable. Tell a Christian to start sinning... or to stop sinning, for that matter. If they say they care about a chance – about indeterministic, random, fatal events – then it is a gigantic lie... Everything has value only because of what it causes: that their moral determination has effects is the only reason it was ever introduced – and the only reason to keep it.
(Let's take deterministic brain as the starting point. Now, if you add some randomness to this picture, what actually does it change? Of course, you can say that the true thing is beyond materialistic world etc., but still -- what does it change?)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.115.47.252 (talk) 17:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Free will, morality, and such 

message: I don't know much about the subject and came to the page to look for possible philosophers or just famous people that were fatalists. Do none exist? If there are any I think it would be fitting to list them, or if none adhere to the belief at least put philosophers names that developed the idea. 207.255.62.9 (talk) 06:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famous Fatalists? 

message: In particular, it would be nice if someone included a section on Bell's Theorem and the Aspect experiment on the topic of fatalism.   It is well accepted within the Physics community based on Bell's Theorem and the subsequent violation found when tested that bivalence of future propositions MUST be rejected.
Including this under "The logical argument" would be nice.  I would do it myself, but I don't have enough eloquence with words to portray how the violation of Bell's Theorem necessitates the reject of bivalence (as it pertains to future events)
Eluusive (talk) 22:15, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bell's Theorem and the Aspect Experiment 

message: No, I'm not complaining that this section exists. I want to call attention to the drastic lack of evidence for the claims in the IPC section. These are broad statements about the natures of several fictional characters with no sourcing or evidence. One of them, about the character Tweak from South Park, is phrased as outright conjecture. Unless some of this can be shown to be more than conjecture, I don't think it belongs. It's rare, but I'm currently on the side of voting for this section to be removed. I'll leave most of it untouched until it's discussed, but I'm going to remove the Tweak statement immediately.
207.178.110.153 (talk) 05:40, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: In Popular Culture

message: I've undone the revision by 85.226.151.39 which completely replaced the introductory text with new text (including spelling error) as there was no justification cited nor apparent consensus that there was need or benefit from a change. The new summary definition of "fatalism" was a significant change. Additionally, the quotation cited was not found by Google anywhere else on the web (even with the spelling corrected) and so its authenticity is dubious when combined with the change in meaning of fatalism. StephenDawson (talk) 11:59, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Introductory text

message: Fatalism sounds like "Fatal Ism" correct?--Dana60Cummins (talk) 17:05, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sounding it out. 

message: The uncertainty principle, or anything else from quantum mechanics, cannot prove or disprove fatalism or any other fundamental issues from philosophy.  Therefore, I propose to delete the first and the third paragraphs from the Criticism section.  Also note that there are no sources or references in these paragraphs.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hulten (talk • contribs) 12:39, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quantum flapdoodle 

message: I object to the wording "philosophers usually use the word to refer to the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do.[1]" in the opening description, on three counts:
1. Stanford is a highly politicized institution notorious for ideological bias and conflicts of interest in it's staff.
2. That it is the usual reference made by philosophers when using the word 'fatalist' is a subjective opinion at best. At best the statement "philsophers usually..." refers to philosophers that Stanford recognizes, which is without doubt a small subset of the philosophy fraternity. At worst it may refer only to those philosophers Stanford approves of. The task of polling the set 'philosophers' on their definition and subsequently collating would be prohibitively monumental.
3. The view quoted is ambiguous in that it may be read as suggesting that we have no influence on the future which is easily empirically falsified, thus it is unlikely that anyone holds such a view, elsewise we might expect to see fatalists everywhere, lying in gutters and so forth waiting for the end. Our very engagement in the world we perceive contradicts such a view.
At best the paragraph makes an oblique reference to the question of freewill, which I suspect few philosophers regard as being one that has been settled. I therefore propose that the statement be revised to say "some philosophers use the word..." and append "though this does not imply that we have no influence on the future".
94.194.67.172 (talk) 10:42, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stanford citation [1] 

message: Although it currently has a whole section on Determinism, Fatalism, and Predestination that attempts to address how these are distinguished from each other, it fails miserably. The average reader will be as confused if not more so as to the differences after reading. The key difference/s need to be stated clearly and simply in one sentence each and in such a way that the contrast is apparent. I would recommend dividing the section into paragraphs according to type of fatalism being contrasted. Similarities should be noted here as well, just not to the extent that the contrast is hidden. As it stands, it fails to clarify where these 3 overlap as well. It also states, "Fatalism is a broader term than determinism," which is not an entirely accurate insight; it is not broader but different. It would be less misleading to say something to the effect of "what excludes determinism does not necessarily exclude fatalism." --PrincessPimpernel (talk) 08:28, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fails to distinguish itself 

message: Arabic interwiki is wrong, because arabic article "قدرية" is about the same subject as "Qadariya" and should be linked to it --Andrushinas85 (talk) 16:59, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  arabic interwiki 

message: "It is, however, a false argument because it fails to consider that those fated to recover may be those fated to consult a doctor." Is it really true? I mean is this what is (also) said at Idle Argument? Then I say it's ok, otherwise it's an unsourced statement. comp.arch (talk) 11:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Idle Argument refuted? 

message: This article says that some people take fatalism to mean determinism. However, I remember seeing a television programme where there was a determinist philosopher on who said that fatalism (which he described as a loony view) needs to be distinguished from determinism. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article on determinism says "Not to be confused with fatalism". Vorbee (talk) 18:33, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Fatalism is not synonymous with determinism