Hello everyone! Bit of a philosophical one today, with no D&D involved at all, so feel free to skip it if you don’t need the thinking! And no, it’s not a religious post!
Everything happens for a reason
This is one of those phrases which tumbles about within the human psyche, and it manifests in many ways - religious belief, belief in fate, and my own pragmatic beliefs, which I intend to ramble about for a short while before letting you get on with your day - possibly enlightened.
Before anybody begins revving up the engines on their holy chainsaws of retribution, I will emphasise that this is my pragmatic belief and it is a philosophy, and that does not threaten nor degrade your belief or philosophy either. Also, I’m a cantankerous git and will defend myself, and my chainsaw is fuelled by logic and petrol1.
I believe that everything happens for a reason, and that sometimes those reasons can be so, so slim in their chance of happening that they might seem impossible without some hand or fate guiding them. Well, I’m here to talk to you about Confirmation Bias2.
Confirmation Bias is a technical-sounding way of saying “things that happened in the past did happen”, which makes it another of lifes little gems for “technical” terms which state the mind-bogglingly obvious. Let’s take a real-world scenario:
A young man’s parents split up, and he happens to go to stay with his dad on Thursdays. One Thursday, they happen to decide to go to the pub instead of staying in. It happens not to be raining, so they decide to walk. The first pub happens to be doing karaoke, which sounds apalling, so they decide to keep walking. The next pub happens to have live music, so they decide to go in. The singer happens to be a beautiful young woman, who happened to be singing at the time they walked past - there was a whole circle of people in the pub with instruments. And that young woman happened to notice the young man, at about that same time.
The story of how I met my Wife (that’s right folks, that’s my own story!) is filled with so many “just so happened”’s that it beggars belief that it happened, but happen it did. Now, those who seek the comfort of a greater power guiding the world around them might attribute such things to fate or chance or divine intervention, but I instead look at this as a combination of random chance and our own decisions. If I had said I didn’t want to walk that day, we wouldn’t have met. If my Wife had said she didn’t want to go out that night, we wouldn’t have met. Our decisions to be proactive in our evening led us together. The rest was up to chance, but it was ultimately things that we had power and control over which we used to meet. We didn’t know we were doing it, but do it we did.
So here’s how confirmation bias comes in - everyone who’s ever met someone on the internet will tell you that you can meet people on the internet. And everyone who’s ever failed to find someone on the internet will tell you that it doesn’t work. Both of them tried the same things, and they drew entirely different conclusions from them - because they have confirmation bias, telling them that “this is what happens, so this is what always happens”.
You see this in psychological situations as well. People who like football3 are not inherently violent4, but when a group of them which contains violent people gets together, they start seeing violence, and they start thinking that violence is normal for enjoying a football game, and after some time, they become the violent people who do violence when they watch football - because they only exposed themselves to the “violent football” option.
We can only expose ourself to the present5. We can remember the past, and we can anticipate the future6, but the present is all we can be exposed to right now. So, we have confirmation bias that the present is all that there is - and we’re right7. I live in a present where all of those things happened to make my life the way it is, and therefore I have confirmation bias - I believe that those things could only ever have happened, and knowing how unlikely they were, it’s easy to assume a guiding hand. But I don’t - I believe that my decisions, and the decisions of those around me, made it happen.
How does this condense to philosophy?
Philosophy is the true antithesis to Religion, which somehow managed to make Science the scapegoat and run off free. But I can ramble about that another time.
I can look back at what has happened, and I can see how small decisions have influenced the outcomes in huge ways. And, when I look back, 90% of the things which I had control over were things I decided to be proactive and positive about. I chose to go to my dad’s. I chose to walk. I chose to go into the pub with music. And I met the love of my life.
Looking back then turns to looking forward - I cannot see the effects of my choices yet, but I know that everything happens for a reason, and apathy is me electing to let something else be that reason - if I make no decisions, then something else will, and I leave my fate in the hands of other decisions - not something I want to do.
So what I’m saying, in my rambly way, is this: Everything happens for a reason, and it is up to you to make yourself the reason. That is how you control your destiny.
Later we will return to the regular schedule of D&D content!
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A ratio of 5% logic by volume is recommended to clear jaded viewpoints and peer-pressured opinions out of the carburetor, giving you better economy and much more longevity!
I used to go door to door with this line, and everyone who let me in already knew about it, so I assume you do too.
Or “Soccer” if you foolishly named a game where you carry an egg with your hands “football”.
I do have theories which sort of counteract this viewpoint, but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt.
I can’t - if I get caught again, it’s jail.
If you do this enough, it’s called “Anxiety”!
Probably, depending on if multiverses are real, and then on how they work.