Everything Doesn't Happen for a Reason

I'm with Laird broadly. It's possible that there is some higher purpose behind some of the things that happen to us in life but I don't see evidence of any all-encompassing plan that we agreed to at some indeterminate point that works its way out during life. It doesn't make sense to me.

I think we can learn lessons from virtually everything that happens to us, and others, in life but that's not the same as saying everything is deliberately intended as a lesson or as part of some universal plan that was set in motion before we were even born.
 
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I think we can learn lessons from virtually everything that happens to us, and others, in life but that's not the same as saying everything is deliberately intended as a lesson or as part of some universal plan that was set in motion before we were even born

I agree with this while having a feeling that I might be wrong. 'The Universe' might be much more capable than we know, and it eats paradoxes for breakfast!

My wife and I both have experiences that, looking back, seem to be too strange to be random. The circumstances that tie my final company and my stroke together, plus other subsequent events tied to the stroke seem too strange to be random. Complicated family events around my wife's mother's recent passing seem to point to the same, along with the strong feeling that she was being helped by something or somebody outside this reality at peak times.
 
I'm with Laird broadly. It's possible that there is some higher purpose behind some of the things that happen to us in life but I don't see evidence of any all-encompassing plan that we agreed to at some indeterminate point that works it's way out during life. It doesn't make sense to me.

I think we can learn lessons from virtually everything that happens to us, and others, in life but that's not the same as saying everything is deliberately intended as a lesson or as part of some universal plan that was set in motion before we were even born.
But does the phrase "everything happens for a reason" need to be interpreted in terms of some master plan laid out in advance?

To me it just means that things such a trivial synchronicities for example are a clue that things are more interconnected than we might ordinarily imagine. How does this matter? Well, for example, if I treat some random stranger badly, then I might find not long afterwards, in some completely separate situation, I find myself on the receiving end of similar treatment. Any time this happens to me and I recognise it, I'm grateful. It means that rather than having to wait for a life-review in an NDE or ADE, I get to experience the other person's perspective right here and now, and deal with it. The same applies to positive experiences too.

I deliberately chose small examples of everyday experiences. I'm not prepared to comment on huge life-changing events on the same basis. Those things demand proper respect and shouldn't be thrown in a mixing pot along with the small stuff.
 
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But does the phrase "everything happens for a reason" need to be interpreted in terms of some master plan laid out in advance?

To me it just means that things such a trivial synchronicities for example are a clue that things are more interconnected than we might ordinarily imagine. How does this matter? Well, for example, if I treat some random stranger badly, then I might find not long afterwards, in some completely separate situation, I find myself on the receiving end of similar treatment. Any time this happens to me and I recognise it, I'm grateful. It means that rather than having to wait for a life-review in an NDE or ADE, I get to experience the other person's perspective right here and now, and deal with it. The same applies to positive experiences too.

I deliberately chose small examples of everyday experiences. I'm not prepared to comment on huge life-changing events on the same basis. Those things demand proper respect and shouldn't be thrown in a mixing pot along with the small stuff.

I think that's true - that there is always a chain of causation, but I'm not sure that's what people usually mean when they use the phrase. The stranger example is an interesting one, suggesting more of a karmic type of connection, or simply that if we're rude, we're probably going to provoke that in others or attract people of that type etc. If that's what people mean when they say, then I'd be inclined to agree.
 
Well under the Principle of Sufficient Reason everything happens because of something though - depending on how one interprets "reason" - this might be due to decisions. (Or if you're like me you lean into the idea that everything happens due to decisions made by someone/Someone.)

On the larger question of whether there's a Plan...maybe not a perfectly coordinated/enforced one but there might some macro-level directing. This need not even be a "Plan" per se, just a direction of mental/psychic evolution.

Words are violence? I think not, what a slippery slope.

Words like violence, break the silence, come crashing in, into my little world...
;)
 
This appeared on Facebook and it got me thinking.
What are your thoughts?


http://www.timjlawrence.com/blog/2015/10/19/everything-doesnt-happen-for-a-reason

Sounds like an angry white male who had a bad experience with church.

Whether or not things happen for a reason is dependent on how you frame it.

It is difficult to cope with suffering without hope for something better in the future. It is difficult to cope without meaning.

A) If your orientation to the Author of your story is that of the imprisoned gnostic to the Demiurge, then fate has a "stench" and hope lies in escaping to a larger libertarian reality.

B) If your orientation is that of loving child to loving father, then fate is a lesson, a discipline, or a refining fire and hope lies in overcoming this reality and returning home.

C) If your orientation is that of conscious self to unconscious self, then fate is a psychological and memory problem and hope lies in remembering who you are and integrating all aspects of yourself.

D) If your orientation is that of accident to unconscious accident, then fate just is and there is no hope of any better beyond.

It seems as if there are three kinds of people, 1) those who remain in one of the above orientations their entire lives
2) those who get bitter about their initial orientation and switch to a perceived opposite and make a private oath to never fall for any feel-good-bullshit ever again.
3) continual seekers who neither remain in initial ignorance nor the subsequent bitterness and are open to each orientation but remain open and resist the urge to ossify an experience of transcendence into a dogma for the masses.

If you started with B, but became embittered by a harsh fate, then any other option seems refreshing.

If you started with D, then became convinced the Author is not pure unconscious randomness, the other options seem refreshing.
 
But does the phrase "everything happens for a reason" need to be interpreted in terms of some master plan laid out in advance?

To me it just means that things such a trivial synchronicities for example are a clue that things are more interconnected than we might ordinarily imagine.

But this doesn't avoid the problem. "Trivial" synchronicities require orchestration as much as those of a "master plan".

The curious thing is that whilst we don't know that "everything happens for a reason", we do know that synchronicities occur - which has the stated implications for free will. I've had this in mind for some time but haven't fully processed/integrated it yet.
 
I don't know, snychronicites seem to be friendly and warm hearted.
Almost like someone, something is saying lighten up.
(Now that I've made this gross generalisation, a piano will fall on my head)
As the self-appointed, unelected warden of gross generalizations I hereby deliver your piano, sir...

Piano-Falling.jpg


and rest assured that the gross generalization police is always watching!

:D
p.s. = in case you're British please replace the "z" with an "s" in every instance of generalization, to avoid issues with the spelling police.
 
If snychronicites are seen as sort of messenger service or a form of communication.
I don't understand how they can impinge on free will
 
If snychronicites are seen as sort of messenger service or a form of communication.
I don't understand how they can impinge on free will

OK, let's try an example then. You and your partner travel overseas to a distant foreign country. There, coming out of a church, you run into your neighbour from down the road back home, who is entering the church as you are exiting it. Highly improbable,right? Especially because neither you (nor your partner) and your neighbour from down the road had ever talked together about the trips you were planning. I trust that this qualifies as a legitimate sync?

OK, so now let's think about what has to have happened for this sync to have occurred. Either:

  1. You and your partner merrily planned your trip with free will intact and unimpinged, but "something" meddled with your neighbour-from-down-the-road's free will such that he made a series of (forced) "decisions" that led him to running into you on the way out of the church-on-the-other-side-of-the-globe.
  2. The reverse: your neighbour-from-down-the-road's free will is intact and unimpinged, but your (and your partner's) decision-making was interfered with (forced) such that you ended up running into your neighbour on the way out of that church.
  3. Both your neighbour's and you and your partner's decision-making was interfered with (forced - goodbye free will) to ensure that all three of you met on the church doorstep across the globe.

I'm sure you can come up with other examples of syncs, but I'm just as sure that similar (depending on how many characters are involved!) possibilities will apply to them!

Does all of that make sense? Have I made a meaningful case?!
 
OK, let's try an example then. You and your partner travel overseas to a distant foreign country. There, coming out of a church, you run into your neighbour from down the road back home, who is entering the church as you are exiting it. Highly improbable,right? Especially because neither you (nor your partner) and your neighbour from down the road had ever talked together about the trips you were planning. I trust that this qualifies as a legitimate sync?

OK, so now let's think about what has to have happened for this sync to have occurred. Either:

  1. You and your partner merrily planned your trip with free will intact and unimpinged, but "something" meddled with your neighbour-from-down-the-road's free will such that he made a series of (forced) "decisions" that led him to running into you on the way out of the church-on-the-other-side-of-the-globe.
  2. The reverse: your neighbour-from-down-the-road's free will is intact and unimpinged, but your (and your partner's) decision-making was interfered with (forced) such that you ended up running into your neighbour on the way out of that church.
  3. Both your neighbour's and you and your partner's decision-making was interfered with (forced - goodbye free will) to ensure that all three of you met on the church doorstep across the globe.

I'm sure you can come up with other examples of syncs, but I'm just as sure that similar (depending on how many characters are involved!) possibilities will apply to them!

Does all of that make sense? Have I made a meaningful case?!
4 it's a complete coincidence and nothing interfered with anything?
 
4 it's a complete coincidence and nothing interfered with anything?

My belief is that all synchronicities are coincidences in the geometric sense of that word... events occupying the same space in the 5th dimension.
 
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So, if synchronicities are real, no free will. If they're just coincidences, free will.

Well, not necessarily "no" free will, but maybe "a partially compromised free will"? But I want to pay a bit more attention to something Typoz said earlier:

trivial synchronicities for example are a clue that things are more interconnected than we might ordinarily imagine

Maybe you're right, Typoz. Maybe we are all interconnected at a deep level below the subconscious, and maybe that deeply interconnected being has its own free will which sort of works its way up into our individualities, so that even though a little bit of our personal free will is impinged in a sync, ultimately, free will is preserved in the deeper, interconnected being. And maybe that's another way of saying what Hurm said, which is otherwise kind of too abstract for me to fathom!
 
OK, let's try an example then. You and your partner travel overseas to a distant foreign country. There, coming out of a church, you run into your neighbour from down the road back home, who is entering the church as you are exiting it. Highly improbable,right? Especially because neither you (nor your partner) and your neighbour from down the road had ever talked together about the trips you were planning. I trust that this qualifies as a legitimate sync?
It has to be said, the example given didn't seem typical of the type of thing I'd regard as a synchronicity.

I think we need to reach for real-world examples. I don't have a good example right now. Perhaps the key is that it isn't events in the physical world which give meaning, it is the way in which the mind comprehends things in the symbolic language of dreams which gives weight.
 
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