It's a very loaded question and it depends on your view leading up to what constitutes "random". For me the answer is: For all intents and purposes there are random events. Is anything truly random is a tricky question but from our perspective with our limited abilities and knowledge the answer really doesn't make any practical difference regarding almost everything. It's similar to the question of free will. We either have free will or the illusion of free will which, to us, is indistinguishable so we may as well act as though we do, regardless of the truth.

What I'm doing here is saying, for ease and practical purposes, the universe is a place full of random events so that it matches the wording of your question otherwise it becomes a semantic exercise in rewording everything.

That doesn't mean everything is random even by that slack definition.

The problem I have with "random people" is whether you mean we exist by pure chance or whether we just made our way here, to this forum, by pure chance. There's an element of chance involved in both but the second one is within the realms of something calculable. This a purpose-driven site and whilst it's certainly not inevitable that people with an interest in the things this forum covers would end up here, it's hardly surprising when we do. Given the pre-supposed conditions I'm implying many would say it's inevitable. But I've also tried to set parameters above in which free will and, other notions of chance and randomness, are accepted as equivalent to true.

Ultimately, in the big picture, the answer to your question is, probably, "yes" but if you define realistic parameters (such as the assumption that we exist) then you can ask more "real world" questions. A broad, open-ended question of "Why are we here" or "how are we here" is THE mind-blowing question humankind has pondered for so long but it's not the only question we ask nor should it be because without defining parameters for everything else we ask and everything else we do we'd be paralysed until we can answer that question (which we'd be unable to do).

Thus, given a suppositional framework, your question could be answered quite easily as I've done. But is that what you intend? If you're asking that within the framework of the universe and everything it's almost meaningless. If you're asking it within the parameters I've defined (i.e. Let's suppose we exist, however that came to be) it's no biggie - it even bypasses the supernatural elements and faith unless you bring strict religion into the equation where a guiding hand defines everything you do.

The answers to such questions vary wildly depending upon frameworks and hypotheticals.

 

Question: Is it Chance Luck or Synchronicity in Life ?
Answer: YES!

 

the cells do NOT do what they want, the cells are NOT a purpose and consciousness orchestrating everything behind them. just to be clear , out of the 2 options you gave both are equally not the answer. the answer is that the laws of nature in this instance chemistry is why the cells do anything.



"When someone that was perceived as wise was asked if there is something after death....he simply said : how would i know i'm not there yet so don't come to conclusions easily "


I only know the facts about reality in the ways that they show death is real, nobody comes back or goes anywhere as far as we know, i would like it to be an afterlife though but reality has shown what i meant to be a false thing. go figure, its like how i want a 100 dollar
bill to re-appear once i take it out, but reality has shown me thats not the way things actually work. im always waiting for that 100 dollar bill to re-appear just in case though.

 

I think we tend to overthink the small, and can't really comprehend the big picture very well if at all. But we keep trying. Then again in a sense, we are the Universe made aware of itself.

 

Like "god" let all the kids die in all the recent mass shootings, seriously?!?

 

So do we have to blame the concept of "god" for everything bad happening in a human society ?

 

Only if we have to thank the concept of God for everything good happening in a human society. i.e. We're responsible for nothing. I'm not sure what the original quote was referring to but it seems a little out of place.

 

i agree

is that the absolute truth ?

My intention for this thread is to have a healthy & interesting conversation between fellow members here about chance, luck & synchronicity
in association with life & music, that is all.
no politics & religion
also it can serve for inspiration to create some new & interesting music imho

 

no, it that a god as described by everyone that has ever believed in god, has a definition that does not match with reality we see.

in this instance a all powerful, all knowing, all loving god , knew this school shooting would happen and watched it happen did nothing. its a why to try to think and evaluate if reality matches with the concept itself.

the concept of god is on trial.
the idea is to say "okay, we know people have a thought an idea they call god"
we have to use our brain to see if that concept is different than the concept of spider-man or incredible hulk. or is it the same as those? (meaning invented by flipping words in different order in thought process to randomly create storytelling.)

 

lets take 3 concepts.

gods
souls
afterlives

next you can use the knowledge of the entire human history ( demonstrable knowledge)

besides these 3 concepts being a thought inside of the imagination, can we find them existing in any other place besides our words and thoughts?

If the answer is no. ( these 3 concepts can only be found as writings and thoughts)
then they are identical as fictional story's of superman and wonder woman and spider-man with super Powers and villains and backdrop of environments through storytelling.


Science is a unique process of finding out real answers of how things actually are for real.

we have not uncovered anything as depicted in the 3 concepts "gods" ,"souls" and "afterlives"
but even more damning is that what we found out instead in the areas these concepts should have been uncovered about reality, we found out instead that these 3 concepts are not possible probable or plausible.

I will describe exactly what I mean.


Us human beings used to think we were a single object, meaning a human being is 1 thing.

since we thought a human being was 1 thing or 1 object. it made sense to couple this idea of a "soul" to a human being. 1 human ebing has 1 soul.
seems like it makes a lot of sense right?


well through science we found out that in reality a human being is trillions of living cells. the cell is the 1 thing. we are a community of living cells in the trillions. we found out that there is no place in reality that a human being is a single object, 1 thing.
instead we found out that each human being is a community of trillions of cells. just like new york sate or russia is a name given to trillions of things.
this refutes the idea of the "soul" right away because how can 1 soul connect to russia? how can 1 soul connect to new york? how can 1 soul connect to a community of trillions of living cells we can a human being?

this is one single example were science uncovered this fact which flys in the face of the concept we call "soul"
the facts of reality make the concept "soul" not possible, probable or plausible.

Now, if instead a "soul" was a real thing in reality, science should have first uncover that a human being is a single object, or 1 thing.
the entire concept of a soul hinges on that a human being is 1 thing or 1 object. at bare minimum science would 100 percent HAVE to show the way that reality works is that a human being is 1 thing 1 object, we could than go on to find out more and more .
instead science has uncovered in millions demonstrable ways that a human being is trillions of living cells, each cell is the single object we are made of living legos called cells. these cells operate at the level of chemistry with no awareness or consciousness.

this 1 basic demonstrable fact that a human being is a community of trillions of living cells refutes every possible version of a "soul"

( this, without getting into any of the other independent millions of things that science has uncovered that also refute the "soul".

So even though I WANT the soul to be real almost more than anything else that I want, when I am honest I have to admit that the "soul" is fiction. both my parents that have died and I love and want to be with again, I never will be able to because they have vanished, they are gone forever. I have zero percent chance of re-uniting with them, even though I want to as bad as I do. I have to be honest with myself and look at reality that science has uncovered. when I do this those 3 concepts "gods" "souls" and "afterlives" vanish in a puff of smoke there is nothing to them except words written on paper and thoughts people have of the concepts, there is nothing about reality itself that is compatible with these 3 concepts.

yes it is painful to accept that death is real.

but we have trillions of indications that death is real.
when someone belives in souls and afterlives they are denying death , pretending that it is not real, then they don't know how to deal with it when it happens.
It is much more healthy to accept death is real and develop a healthy way of dealing with it.
don't be a "death denier"
it will hurt your feelings.

 

Last edited: Apr 3, 2018

^ i agree no one denies death, it is a natural phenomenon

no feelings hurt here
in life i always go with the "flow"

 

This is not a fact that disproves the concept of a soul. Because it doesn't explain consciousness. Science is still working on a way to define and explain it. We're not there yet. There's no evidence to suggest the reality of an eternal soul (some ideas worth considering maybe but no evidence) but the fact that the human body is comprised of trillions of individual cells was not proof that there is no soul.

Of course it doesn't stop at cells. Cells have parts. And we can go further. The human body is more space than it is substance if you look at atomic structure. None of that disproves a soul on its own. You need to go upstairs and check out the brain and tackle the concept of consciousness before you can do that.

What makes the argument against the soul most compelling is that the human body after death doesn't actually lose anything that can't be explained (in spite of a dubious experiment done a long time ago). There doesn't appear to be any energy transmitted or anything else suggesting our consciousness (whatever that is) survives.

Your analogy about countries is probably not a good one since our brain does, in fact, connect and communicate to cells all over the body. I agree with your conclusions but not how you arrived there.

 

Consciousness is a word, a description. when we say that word we are describing trillions of processes between the body and brain. this is perfectly demonstrable, so i guess what im asking is what do you really mean by ...

yes, it stops there.
a cell is one living thing 1 object,
the parts at a tinier level are just zooming into that single object and describing chemistry.

so you are saying that a single soul, 1 soul, has a connection to a community of trillions of living cells each 1 living being.
how so?
in what way?

in what way? consciousness iis a word to describe all the millions of interactions between the body and brain which add up to give us a certain perception from our experience we call consciousness.
what do I need to do upstairs? how much more does it need to be tackled, we perceive millions of things per second, we shortcut it to a single word "consciousness" to make easier to talk about.

sure, that is 1 situation that is compelling yes.
there are millions of others also.

I dont know which assumptions you are making about my "arrivals" all I did was speak about one very specific situation before.

so If someone believes you have 1 single soul which connects to a community of multiple trillions of living cells ( human for short)
then why couldn't a single soul or 1 soul connect to a community of multiple trillions of blades of grass?( new york for short)

 

so do you believe that human beings last forever?( immortal)?
if so that is opposite of "death"

when I say "death denier"
I mean of your consciousness. to deny that consciousness is small finite aspect of human being.
that is how we define death the vanishing of consciousness forever.

 

my position on consciousness is that it is a word a description of many millions transactions per second between the body and brain.
we shortcut everything that is happening, just like we shortcut all objects to say a "chair" that word is a shortcut there is no such object as a chair, its a symbol, virtual.

even though we place much significance on consciousness as a human being.

there is zero information from reality itself that places any significance on it.
I would expect reality to actually place significance on it IF there were gods souls afterlives .

nice speaking with you I love talking about these topics.

 

Last edited: Apr 4, 2018

i don't know ^
i'm comfortable with the Unknown

i'm not so sure for this ^ & the definition of it....
i'm still a student of life & its Mystery

 

I'm talking about the brain (which is our consciousness, or soul even) communicating via the network of the human body (nervous system). So the simple answer as to why one soul can't connect to any amount of grass is... no pathways. I really don't know what else to say. My original point was simply that saying the body is made up of cells is not scientific proof that there is no soul. We've already established that the brain can talk to and, in a fashion, control all of these cells. So why not a soul?

If you didn't look at the brain as a collection of cells and think about consciousness you'd be left wondering what on Earth makes all these cells act as one... I know! A soul! No. You need to look further. The body isn't just comprised of cells either. A working human body contains non-cellular components in order to function including plain old water. And a cell isn't the end of the line. A cell can be broken down further - not just into chemicals. There are more to cells than that. And why not break them down further? Maybe the answer to how all these things interconnect are found further in. Maybe the soul is sub-atomic!

Like I said I agree with your conclusions but the methodology in arriving at them is flawed.... scientifically.

As for consciousness itself science has not explained it in full. It's on the "to do" list. I'm pretty sure we'll get there sooner rather than later (we're a fair way there really... a few hurdles to go).

 

not the point or subject of this conversation

 

Did he though? Only with intuition and insight? It had nothing to do with extreme intelligence, years of scientific thought, practice, and studying physics?

My point is that while he may have attributed that concept to an intuitive leap, there is are separate reasons why he was able to make that intuitive leap. Intuition isn't necessarily some "other" sense or ability which can only be described in New Age ways. I think intuition is mostly a result of the sub-conscious working on a problem using practical experience (common sense), theoretical knowledge (book learning), and any other types of sensory input that has been fed into the brain over one's lifespan. The only reason it's called intuition and not problem solving is because it's sub-conscious so it's harder to articulate exactly the steps used to arrive at a particular conclusion, but that doesn't mean the process is particularly arcane--in the sense of it being divinely inspired or mystical--it's just something harder to recognize because it happens when we aren't focused in the usual sense. That doesn't mean intuition isn't informed by empirical data and prior learning, just as dreams don't occur in a vacuum.

 

Great intelligence comes from insight & intuition
years of scientific thought, practice, and studying physics is information & knowledge.

nice ^
but did your mind tell you all this ? or your intuition ? did it come out of an insight you had ?