RE: Does fate exist? (And by extension, is free will an illusion?)
Ooo let's twist the quoted definition even more:
the development of events beyond a person's control.
Yup. Fate all over the place with this definition.
The essence of this question appears to be more about whether there's a puppeteer or not. But in the end, the perceived world seems indistinguishable from, or at least is consistent with, the world that has no puppeteer.
And also given that a human can only perceive one timeline, one could say that fate exists and is predetermined and not be able to demonstrate otherwise. That's a fun part of this.
You know what's another fun thing to explore though? Bell's theorem which has us guessing how perceived nondeterministic phenomena can be explained, and in the metaphysical section spawns some wild theories about the nature of fate. One of which is if course that there's "no free will".
Aaaaaaah, I forgot to mention something important! Quantum physics! According to my big brother, a particle can have many possible properties, but only when it reaches a critical point does it become "fixed". This would imply that there can be many futures and, through quantum hazards and time paradoxy thingies, even a mind all-knowing of the present circumstance would not be able to predict future events.
And I haven't heard about Bell's theorem, I'll put it in a new tab and read it in a bit, since I'm way too sleepy and think I'm going to sleep for a few hours. Dying.
Ok, I didn't sleep, and I came back to read Bell's Theorem. And I didn't understand anything of what the Wikipedia article said, sorry, but I watched a video that explained things in a very understandable manner:
I loved the vid and I'll keep watching the series, since there's apparently something that might disprove quantum mechanics.
Wooo, deterministic quantum mechanics!