I don't believe it's a psychic thing, though. I think by imaging certain things happening in our lives, we kind of program our brains to make those things happen. Approaches like personal coaching (which I'm training in at the moment) where we use visualisation to help achieve goals are based on this idea.

Cath

Yes, that's what I meant. Having done a lot of drama helps, but some people find it incredibly difficult, or even silly, to pretend to be a tree, so it must be just as hard from some people to project themselves mentally into some future scenario. We do it as children, but seem to lose the knack.

Sheila

Oh I think that's far from the whole of it personally. We use so little of our minds, and instances of 'second sight' go waaaaay back in time. Psychics have even helped the police solve crimes, find missing persons etc, and not all of it can be easily explained away as the 'brain paving the path of the future'. Time is an ethereal energy at best, and though I don't know it, I am more than willing to believe that some people can look through its misty curtain and divine the possible future.

JB

Sorry, Sheila, somehow hadn't read your post properly!

I do agree, though, that our minds are a lot more powerful than people often realise.

Cath

Except, of course, on a Monday morning, when I'm no good to anyone, or on a Friday evening, after too many vodka's, when I am 'anyone's'

JB

Yes, I think I'm a bit confused, too. I think I had this conversation about time travel yesterday, when I said that it wasn't possible yet. Not that I know of, anyway. 'But thre are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...' , came the stern reply. So I threw the towel in.

Sheila

I believe that psychic powers are a possibility, if not a particularly likely probability. Life follows a pattern, because it can do nothing else. Everything that happens does so because of everything that has happened before it. If one can obtain a view of enough prior and current events, one can predict what will happen going forward. It's a grand notion though. A near infinite number of variables in a pattern so vast, it encompasses everything happening in the entire universe. But who is to say some part of our brains isn't capable of unconsciously reading the pattern, predicting the future.

It's highly unlikely, but it's difficult to discount it completely as a possibility.

Succinctly put. But what if our brains not only predict the pattern, but create it - and each single one of us is following the thread of their own individual destiny, in their own individual world? Imagine the billions and billions of time streams, past and future, all weaving through infinite space towards the cosmological equivalent of...Nirvana?

JB

Hmm, destiny. I could understand pre cognition if destiny was "true". If something was pre ordained to happen - then I'd be more likely to believe it could be foreseen.

But destiny - as in "what is going to happen to you has already been written" - is a tricky one for me to grasp. If my future has already been determined, then what's the point of me ever making a decision? Maybe I'll just sit here for the afternoon with my feet up.

Would it be my destiny to miss that meeting? How far in the future can destiny be measured? Is my destiny to wind up in the earth as ash? Very probably, yes.

I too struggled with the idea of destiny or fate or pre-determination... Like DP it made me think 'What's my role in it all if everything that is going to happen to me has already been decided?' However, I heard a good analogy (and I can't remember where I read this) that life is like a game of cards, where the cards that you are dealt are pre-determined (by fate or destiny), but how you play them (and therefore the ultimate result) is up to you. So I guess given the cards you are dealt and self-knowledge of how you play, you can to some extent predict the outcome...

Phew, that was deep for a Monday!

There is a school of thought which believes that although our lives are mapped out for us from the moment we are born, there are several paths to take, which lead us to the same eventality.

Which path we choose to take, however, is up to us.

So although our lives may be planned by destiny or fate or whatever, how we get there and the amount of time it takes is up to us. I guess we can take the easy route or the hard one. But you dont know which route you have taken until you encounter a problem. Wonder if this is where the 'if onlys' come from, as in 'if only I had taken the easy route, short path'.

Kat

What I think I'm saying is that what you choose to do is your choice to make, only that due to the experiences you've had, the structure of your life and physiology, the world around you and how you've been engineered to react to them means that regardless of the number of options you have, the choice you will make for any given decision is inevitable. It's just next to impossible to calculate with any certainty what that would be ahead of time.

Does that make sense?

Because we are all individuals, even if we were given the same scenario to deal with, we would all deal with it differently, to a certain extent.

We are a product of our genes, upbringing, and influences around us, these are what determine how we would react to any given situation.

I do however believe that when your time is up, it is up. We are all meant to live for a certain length of time, and when that day comes, that's it. We all have a 'use by date' if you like, so if someone is meant to die when they are 27, so it will be.

I have seen too much, being in the funeral profession, to think otherwise.

Kat

Yes, it is all such a paradox. If destiny is 'fixed', as most leading religions uphold, then there can be no real free will. In short, we are all slaves to fate and have little say over our individual outcomes.

Funnily enough, one usually refers to destiny in hindsight i.e it was a 'fated' meeting etc. So many things don't seem as random or chance when viewed in that light, but whether it is inherrant romanticism, wishful thinking, or actually true, will only be known after our sell by date has passed, I reckon. Or not.

JB

Mmm very thought provoking.

I've got to go and do a job I've been putting off for a couple of days now... decorating the Christmas tree.

I'ts not something I particularly want to do, it was ok when my daughter was here and we did it together, but she moved out in May to live with her boyfriend. They aren't just 5 minutes up the road either, she's 6 hours away.

Hubby doesn't get home til 7.00 each night, so I can't and don't expect him to do it with me then, so it's down to me.

I think I'm suffering what is commonly termed as 'empty nest syndrome', damn, I'll just have to satisfy my maternal instincts with a couple of cute little kittens, though I dont think my two elderly cats will be at all pleased.

Kat