Cause and Effect vs. Fate and Destiny
             A young man sees a palm reader in order to find what his future holds. The dark and mysterious turbaned figure looks cross-eyed at the young man's hand and croaks, "You will die by water!" Well, that is enough for this young man (his great grandmother was a palm reader herself). Though he lives on the western coast of the United States, he moves to a place in Utah, away from any rivers, streams, or lakes. Though a talented swimmer, he stays away from any accessible pools. He even refuses taking baths or showers, thinking of possible water related accidents that may spell his death. His life develops into a paranoid evasion of all possible contact with water. But, he still must consume water to live. So one day at his home, slouched over a bowl of chicken-noodle soup, he is struck on the head by a cookie jar, knocked off the refrigerator by his cat (a black cat, naturally). Rendered unconscious, his head falls directly into his soup, and he drowns!
             This young man's death was inevitable, a product of fate. Although he was lucky enough to find the cause of his eventual demise, he could not prevent it. Many would read this short narrative, inspired by Sophocles' "Oedipus," as a deterministic fable. However, it distinctly follows a separate and less known philosophy. Determinism is commonly mistaken as fatalism; however, it is vastly different in definition and structure, most notably making it compatible with the concept of "free will."
             After learning about the concept of determinism, there is a natural response to conclude that, under this theory, all human actions are "set out for us" or "cut and dry." Another way of phrasing this inevitability is that human action appears to be fated. We all have some idea of what fate or destiny is supposed to be. At times we might say that "it was fate that brought us together," or a certain spor...