Out of sight, out of mind

Fate

For something to be predictable, absolutely certain, then the position, orientation and trajectory of all the objects in the vicinity would need to be known. This would include things moving at the speed of light heading over too. Objects are vibrating, dancing, and oscillating about. Any object you measure will have rounding errors, approximations which can make the difference between it heading left or right in a collision. The numbers involved are beyond huge. Instead of predictability we have probability. Randomness with most reliable statistical chance of a certain outcome.

On top of the rounding errors, we encounter a data problem when simulating the environment to make a prediction. You need hundreds of atoms to store the data regarding each atom you are tracking. Treating say a tennis ball as one object rather than a collection of gazillions of atoms introduces more errors that can count in the real world. Fate is a nonsense.

How can we explain away fate? It sure seems that we were fated to meet, fated to get a job, and fated to die young. The job one is easy, you have interests in a certain field, preferences, and notice vacancies with your curiosity mechanism. As for meeting someone, you draw on the probability process. Those who stay in their bedroom everyday encounter very few people. Some become so ill they end up having a nurse pay a daily visit who then falls for them. For the rest, to increase the chance of romance blossoming they can tidy themselves up, upping the probability of a match. We can go out, and out, and out, and that raises the likelihood of ‘bumping’ into a potential partner. We can smile, appear happy and be a someone that people want to be with. We can give fate a chance.

Early deaths befall some of the most beautiful people, many of which never paid much attention to the main risks that lurk unnoticed around them. Did you pay attention to your bald tyre and realise that it will blow soon? It leaves you at the mercy of it happening in a benign manner or it directing you towards oncoming traffic. The bald tyre is an example of ‘the when not if’. Balance being a killjoy with dying for a small joy. Are you aware of your surroundings and ready to react to someone else’s recklessness? Are you one to stop and consider safety before turning on a do-in-yourself power tool. People say you only live once. I say you only die once and if it is well before you have had your fill it is not luck. I may be a boring, damp squib sort, but I have dived amongst magnificent reefs, flown small planes looping the loop, planted trees, refurbished my homes, skied slippery slopes, rode horses, surfed, shot thirty thousand clays, had eight thousand hours of tantric style sex, poured many a casting at eleven hundred degrees, floated in the dead sea, walked in the last of the rainforests and so much more. Risk with reason. Risk with hesitation prior. Some of us only come alive when taking risks. They decide how fast, how close, how much more they can push with the dedication to repeat it tomorrow.

Pins arranged evenly spaced, triangular shape, small balls drop down bouncing left right producing a bell curve at the bottom. This portrays our life - with more than one tringle in play. Triangles overlapping other peoples’ triangles. When a collision occurs maybe your car collides, or you spend the rest of your life with this person that has hit upon you. Shift the triangles to alter your fate.

Nothing surpasses buying a child yet more plastic. You don’t want them to play with their toys for longer by giving them wooden, felt or metal ones as that labours their senses. So long as they look different and feel the same. Some are cut into primary shapes and include a dodecahedral skeleton with respective orifices in which to push these shapes through. This is mating. We find the suitable match that suits our personal shape. If a shape has too many of the toddler’s tooth marks around it or was left by the fire to melt and gets distorted, it won’t go in any of the holes. Some of us were destined to be cast aside.

dodecahedron-small

Was it inevitable that you and your partner got together? Many random chance events led to the initial encounter for sure, but you select according to your inbuilt affinities. If you didn’t go that night, would you still have met on another night? Most of us tend to meet in places that we all go to regularly anyway, institutions, workplaces and so on. A singleton is on the lookout for another singleton. Our body language gives off signals. A coupling may appear fortuitous but if you give yourself the greatest amount of probability for it to occur it is ever more likely. You could choose whether to go out, or not, one night based on the flip of a coin. If you use a mechanical device to flick the coin, it will land the same way every time. Portents are at the mercy of human trickery.

Could my fate be at the mercy of an insect flapping its wings in a distant land? No, or to be precise, unlikely. Anything of significance has tipping points. A huge number of insects need to be on the move to get anyway near such tipping points. There are buffers that absorb and discount the effect of the tiny life-form’s activities.

Statistics can sour our perceptions of risk. An accident hurts. We can suffer in hideous ways. It takes a long time to heal, and we might not be the same after. Lots fear dying in a certain way rather than dying per se. Climbing ladders can have a far higher casualty rate than drowning inside a tunnel beneath the sea, but what do some fear the most?

The probability of reaching old age unscathed is lower than you might expect. If one in a thousand of us fall victim to some calamity or another each year, then over twenty years each person could have a one in fifty chance of suffering the same fate. If you add up all the various potential perils, then it can look quite alarming. The one recourse is to invest in ourselves. Examine the main pitfalls. Focus on the big risks. Don’t be lazy. I will spend ten minutes tying off a ladder so that it will not slip sideways. I spend extra on a good diet. We think nothing of spending a fortune on getting an education, but many will scrimp on quality food.