//fate

Ever had that feeling that you're not supposed to do something? I don't mean that strange and irrational aversion to stabbing people in the spleen, or daubing ink all over your mother's walls (Ian); I mean, stupid little things? Like, walk around the lamp-post this way around, or do something entirely random because of what might happen as a result? No? Well, that's probably just me then. But - er, hang on…

What I mean is, to what extent do tiny decisions like this affect what happens in the great scheme of things? Granted, the degree to which it really matters which way I choose to walk in a straight line is something of a moot point. But the thing that gets me started on this subject is the idea: where do we draw the line where our choices begin to have an significant effect upon the greater causality of our lives? And how much control do we have over all that?

Phew. Let's deal with that more slowly. Firstly, I'd like to say that I fully, whole-heartedly believe in free will. I don't think what we do is predetermined, else God must've been feeling pretty mischievous the day he created my subconscious. I think I'm the only person I know who's found themselves changing their mind about whether to do something stupid, petty - on the level of picking up a pen or not - just to see whether all those changes of decisions were predestined. Well, I'm the only person I know who would *admit* to doing that, at any rate. But the main point is, I think we do control what we do. At least to an extent.

Dot dot dot. That "at least to an extent" bit is where things start to get a bit ominous. To start with, there's obviously elements in our lives that we can't control, the elements in our lives that are dictated by /society/ - like how quickly we get to work of a morning in the car, or what day we get our rubbish collected. But then there's also our choices impacting upon those results - in these examples, whether we leave the house on time or not, and whether we choose to actually put the bin out for the collectors or not. The results that come of these actions are therefore a combination of individual decision (however indoctrinated we are through society) and larger society itself (however much we claim to ignore society's impact).

And this brings us to our second possible force at work to explain mysterious apparently random events: just that. I said that we had control over our lives to some extent: and that control means that, along with the control every single other human being on this planet possesses, one day your actions are going to tie in with that of another human being you happen to know. Sometimes this is more fortuitous than others: you'll end up going for a drink and stay chatting for a whole evening, or you'll just get a passing nod and the feeling that at least you knew someone here. But in either case, what just happened could've been random, it could've been evidence of a growing collective emergence in society as it develops, or, or…

Or. In an overly postmodern piece of thinking, I'd argue that the third factor exerting influence over our lives is our degree of belief in this kind of thing. If you believe in fate, you're going to start exhibiting behaviour patterns accordingly: you'll do more things for which you'll have no logical reason, aside from the entirely (self-contained) logical reason that you felt you ought to, because of fate. Similarly, if you take on board the idea that a close friend will have similar ideas as you at a similar time, you may stop professing these ideas verbally, and instead rely upon that belief to allow you to do something together. The degree to which this choice of actions will obviously impact upon the faith you have in the underlying causality, and therefore the extent to which your actions are based upon this faith.

But apart from all this, we still need to answer the question we started with: where do our choices begin to have a significant effect upon the greater causality of our lives? Well, this is just personal speculation based on my own, highly irrational left-brain, inclinations, but I'd say that even the smallest decision or action can impact in some unknown way upon another yet to happen in the future. I'm not suggesting that me deciding that yes, actually, I may pick up this pen now will somehow affect who I may marry, but I would cautiously posit that there may be things that we don't realise will have any result that cause a domino effect later down the line. It's a bit of chaos theory that I have taken on board, and I'm not sure how realistic it is, but I'll end with an example: you buying a particular CD in a shop may just be witnessed by someone who happens to admire your taste in music and, as a result, you become friends. It's unlikely, yes, but it may just work.

But there must be more to it than individual and society. I mean, have you ever found yourself meeting the same person over and over again in a certain stretch of time, particularly if it's a person who you'd rather not be meeting like this? That can't be put down to individual decision, and attributing it to society seems to fudge the issue a little. There's no rule - certainly not written or acknowledged - that explains why we might have repeated instances like this happen to us. But this leads us to a deeper question: why did we meet that person in the first place?

Certain personality types attract, given. It's to a great extent random as to which people we meet and with which of those we remain friendly. But I suppose what I'm getting at is that, yes, I do believe that there are other forces at work between just us, singularly and us, collectively.

The first of these possible forces at work is that of collective behaviour. Though we may abhor the notion of the hive mind - look at any example of scary science-fiction collectivism as a diatribe against the evils of communism for a clear demonstration of this - it's becoming increasingly clear that our behaviour often ties in with that of others in ways we'd previously not realised. You know that thing that married couples do - and some pseudo-married ones, natch - where they both start the same sentence, or sing the same song, at exactly the same time? That's possibly the clearest indication that they're sharing similar thought patterns. There's no reason why two people should start singing "We're All Going On A Summer Holiday" at the same time with no provocation in the back of a Hyundai, unless they've worked out some ornate pre-arranged pact to confound my entire argument. But I'd suggest that because, as we said earlier, certain personality types attract, they're ones most likely to be able to adapt to match each other more closely. And, over time, with increasing degrees of contact, these individuals begin to think in similar ways based on similar sets of stimuli. It's not so far-fetched: it's passed into cliché that, after a while, married couples begin to dress the same and like the same TV, so the evidence for a match in brain activity doesn't seem so unlikely.

But how much can we attribute this small-scale potential brain-matching to patterns in society at large? Obviously, if you and a friend frequent the same café, hanging around that spot for an infinite period of time will eventually result in you bumping into each other. But you're not going to do that. So there must be some stimuli that results in you both being there at the same time; hunger, anticipating the other person's actions, or just sheer random timing.