The Universe Confirms Biases - The Problem With Seeing The Future

[Centh]

You pull out a tarot deck, and you deign to pick the most, "exact," answer. The problem with future things is that, simply, your choices matter so much. But I don't think that's a cause for conflict. What are the cards to tell you in that case, still? You pull one card, and with that, you confirm one path. However you react to that card, whether you like it or not, it will spell the future you crafted. This is not a good thing, necessarily.

Think of the gods binding Fenrir to a rock. In the process of trying to avoid Ragnarok, they brought it about. Truly, if they'd done nothing, it would have also come about. But then, if the gods were to do nothing, then the prophecy of Ragnarok would have never been told.

Time is not linear. It works in loops. You can't escape inevitability. So, prophecy acts as a sort of path picker. To divine the future, you must confirm it. To make the unreal real. Is that worth knowing?

Perhaps not. And yet, it is all in the question, is it not. Choose your questions wisely. You cannot change the future. You can merely ensure it was different all along.

Good luck, and be kind.

-Luz

 

[Robert Ramsay]

The way I look at it, as Peter Carroll put it: "Divine short, enchant long."

Like forecasting the weather, there is a time limit beyond which divination is useless unless you are looking at major trends instead of details. That limit is probably about two weeks, or, being generous, maybe three.

If you take a reading for, say, six months in advance, and the reading comes to pass, you have probably enchanted it and not divined it.

I would say that "you cannot change the future; you can only choose which future you end up experiencing."

 

[stalkinghyena]

You pull out a tarot deck, and you deign to pick the most, "exact," answer.

I suppose it is ironic to attempt certainty using the tools of allegory. I often try to remind myself that Tarot is a game of understanding more than it is a tool of prediction.

The problem with future things is that, simply, your choices matter so much.

But we only know this when the future becomes the past. All the mechanism of choosing (our bias of projecting ourselves into the future) really matters most in the present moment, which is an illusion because the present is always passing instantaneously.

This is not a good thing, necessarily.

But it's not necessarily bad either. It just is.

Think of the gods binding Fenrir to a rock. In the process of trying to avoid Ragnarok, they brought it about. Truly, if they'd done nothing, it would have also come about. But then, if the gods were to do nothing, then the prophecy of Ragnarok would have never been told.

Nice - I like to think of the term "binding" here as transcendental.

Time is not linear. It works in loops.

I agree that time appears cyclical to us, but I would also add that it can also be perceived to work in patterns. If you can understand the nature of patterns then you can potentially react more thoughtfully, or at least be ready, but there will never be certainty.

Regarding the myth presented above, there are so many figures which symbolize the patterns, which, when extracted, can be viewed as kind of Tarot spread laid out across the interplay of human events and struggles.

So, prophecy acts as a sort of path picker. To divine the future, you must confirm it.

Looking at the history of prophecy, I am kind of developing this sense that the way we use it is as a motivator or consoler - a kind of futuristic propaganda when positive (the Messiah will come!) or a a relaxation towards fatalism (glad I'm saved, cause the world is doomed).

To make the unreal real. Is that worth knowing?

I think it is a process of knowledge that we can color one way or the other depending on our attitudes at the time. But to make the "unreal real" reflects a notion of intrinsic doubt that, ironically, ensures something will be real when it was not before. In any case our judgements will always be biased towards ourselves.

You cannot change the future. You can merely ensure it was different all along.

I think this all conceals an elegant paradox to which we are all enslaved as beings in time. But then time itself is a paradox, maybe the greatest one of all next to "to be".

 

[Centh]

I was using tarot as an example. In honesty, I haven't used the cards for a hot minute. I just sort of use my own internal. Prediction intuition. Works, for the most part!

 

[stalkinghyena]

"If it works it's true", as Whitcomb presents. I'm happy with that myself so long as I remind myself that the understanding is a perpetually operating mechanism in a self reflecting ocean of "this or that".
Under the Will, of course.

 

[Viktor]

I often asked myself whether fate is real or do we live in chaotic and undetermined world?

Honestly I don't believe in fate, I don't believe there is a book which tells how my life is going to be and end up,
I think the future depends on our actions and the actions of others, this makes predicting the future more challenging but not impossible.

So fate IMO is old fashioned and not required, all that is required is ability to read the people and trends and to know yourself to predict the future.

 

[Anziel_Merkaba]

I often asked myself whether fate is real or do we live in chaotic and undetermined world?

Honestly I don't believe in fate, I don't believe there is a book which tells how my life is going to be and end up,
I think the future depends on our actions and the actions of others, this makes predicting the future more challenging but not impossible.

So fate IMO is old fashioned and not required, all that is required is ability to read the people and trends and to know yourself to predict the future.

Our 'fate' is retroactively self-actualizing. The end result of your path and life is pre-determined, but it's pre-determined based on everything that happens/will happen in your life. There is a fixed end, but you won't necessarily know it, and might even think it's actually something else before you reach it. I say this as opposed to 'your fate is what you make of it' because time, while appearing linear, all occurs at a single instant, and what we perceive as the passage of time is just as illusory as ourselves and our dreams.

 

[Tiana Silvermoon]

I personally was never interested in predicting the future, yet if you have this knowledge you may try to make most of it, from little things to big. There will be rain next Tuesday? Take an umbrella, or go to a beautiful place to walk without one. You're going to die in two years? Make these years worth it and don't leave any unfinished business when the time comes.
But, as far as I can see, people usually don't change their lives based in prophecies, whatever they are. Sometimes they try to avoid them, though, but as mentioned above in the thread, it's pointless.

 

[Centh]

Our 'fate' is retroactively self-actualizing. The end result of your path and life is pre-determined, but it's pre-determined based on everything that happens/will happen in your life. There is a fixed end, but you won't necessarily know it, and might even think it's actually something else before you reach it. I say this as opposed to 'your fate is what you make of it' because time, while appearing linear, all occurs at a single instant, and what we perceive as the passage of time is just as illusory as ourselves and our dreams.

Yesssssssss