The role of chance and contingency in life (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, January 19, 2015, 18:45 (3595 days ago) @ David Turell

David: In your explanation you have described a series of contingent choices. This means the pattern was directed by your desires. In Darwinian evolution, as a theory, chance plays a huge role. That is the randomness I was discussing. At your level of discussion, in my life, a world-famous cardiology professor approached me to be his research fellow. That was a chance event in my life. At that juncture I had several sub-specialty interests, and he did not know I had a strong attraction to cardiology. We knew each other but had never spoken about it. I accepted and never regretted it. I view it as a combination of random and directed. My life has been a series of these events.-And how is the determination being made about what is random? Is it random chance if one of the parties is acting with intent, but not the other, as in the case of predator and prey? Is it random if both parties are acting with intent, but different intent, and the path dictated by their intentions intersects? Is it truly random if a star explodes because of a series of progressive changes that were dictated by the very nature of its composition like a clock winding down? Is it random if the ejecta, traveling along a trajectory determined by the explosion of the star crashes in to planet Earth which is also traveling along a determined path?-Are any of these things ACTUALLY random, or do they only have the APPEARANCE of randomness because we do not have all the information? -Random: made, done, happening, or chosen without method or conscious decision.-Nothing happens without a method. Nothing at all. Everything obeys rules. So, that leaves the question of, is consciousness, design, and/or intent the determining factor in randomness?-
**Edit** I am assuming of course that you mean random chance and not simply the probability that something will occur.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.