Friendship?

“Friend request pending flashes across my television screen. I don’t know anything about this person at all besides their general location… Germany. All I know is that I am a much superior Halo player. Why does he or she, because I have no clue either way, want to be my friend, is it because I trounced him and he wants to learn from my own abilities? What is the purpose behind such a friendship, can I utilize it in anyway? And why me, Germany is too far away for me to even calculate the miles; we could never feasibly meet unless one of us is willing to pay a great price, or if I even want to meet this random stranger. Well, no harm can come from this, why not accept.” The entire previous passage took place instantly across the mind. To be friends was a whole process in which the passage was only a glimpse and yet a conclusion was instantly derived, is this the same for all friendship? The most important thoughts seemed to follow along the lines of; why does he wish to friend me, and the confusion of distance. It seems that with communications being the way they are today, friendship is no longer culturally bound, or even a location thing. Friendship is now a global enterprise and brings up pertinent question, how does causal determinism play in the role of an ever shrinking virtual world? “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you cannot pick your friends nose!”, but we never pick our friends, friends just happen, so in a world where technology allows us to interact with people across the globe instantly, is there now a choice in the matter?
I.
A good solid definition of determinism is hard to come up with in the field of philosophy because of the definitions of words within a definition, it is therefore imperative to define determinism and its subsequent definitions following the first definition. Determinism shall be defined as: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law. Further explaining is necessary; the world shall be defined as: the entirety of space-time. The way things are at time t is another fuzzy thing but shall mean: the entirety of space given at a specific time. Lastly natural law needs to be defined as: the governing force of space-time that hold true. Therefore a clarified definition of determinism is; the entirety of space-time is governed by determinism if and only if, the entirety of space given at a specific time is thereafter fixed by the governing force of space-time.
So what does it all actually mean? The world has to be explained as the entirety of space-time, because to shorten the range allows for influences that are outside the determinable range. An example would be to limit the range of the world to only our solar system, I could be standing outside having a drink and an asteroid traveling near the speed of light could abruptly enter the solar system, this could have an influence on my actions that was indeterminable beforehand because it is a new event outside the sphere of influence, thus to be completely sure of all possibilities, the entire space-time must be acknowledged. We also further define the way things are at time t because in most cases, when determinism comes into play, we work on the reference of time as a frame by frame, however, determinism can also be seen backwards, the way things are now explain how things were in the prior frame, by adding a thereafter we set time as a foreword momentum in determinism, because we view things in the past as unchangeable, and to our reference frame, things in the past are unchangeable, and if they were changed, we right now wouldn’t know because we are still the results of that change and so it becomes bothersome to view time as multi-directional. The hardest concept to clarify is natural laws, and that is because the natural laws are still, in their entirety unknown, which, to the frame of reference we have, creates a plausible idea of freedom. The laws we do know however, are held to be true. Gravity, speed of light, motion, weight, matter, physics, quantum mechanics, through these physical sciences the physical laws or natural laws are unraveled, giving credence to things of a prior time having a direct effect on things in the present, and thus will have an effect on the future, thereby giving a set of constants in the equation of the universe that we can then work from. With a clear definition of determinism, it can then be applied to the question at hand, how does friendship fit into the picture, or better yet, how does the advancement of technology fit into the determinist theory in accordance to friendship?
II.
Without going into formal research a quick look at the history of friendship can be easily discussed and agreed upon. Friendship started out of necessity, the same way it is generally accepted that communities were created; to protect the interest of the individual with protection of the group. Any large groups will segment into factions and these factions started with ideas shared by individuals. The individuals who work together closely and share secrets, ideas, wealth are what I will call friends. So friends started out as people sharing a similar ideal and growing from that a bond together. And this has held true for a long period of time, before international relations and cultural boundaries, friends existed within communities. Normally people did not leave their communities and so made friends where they were, starting with childhood playing games and coming together.
With the historical sighting of friendship, it can be easily seen how causal determinism will just create friends. Never did a person go out to pick a friend from a group of people, he would just interact and bonds of friendship will be made. An individual’s personality and affluence will create the social and genetic background and events follow through until he is in a sleeping bag on the floor of another’s home sharing secrets and playing games until the early hours of the morning. Eventually, friendship crossed borders, but even these friendships were limited to travel time and letters, nothing overtly active in the friendship. The constant traveler was making constant friends but these friendships were nothing more than networking for future travels, an ease of convenience.
III.
Friendship today is no longer a dire necessary but more a social norm, a recluse has no network to rely on and so friendship is the budding of social networking. Still, this networking is cause-event related, insomuch as individuals still create friends from the surrounding area and this has cultural relevance and normally and affluent one also. If you grew up in the inner city, most of your friends live in the inner-city, if you grew up suburban, most of your friends are suburban. Most but not all, what about the friends who aren’t similar culturally, how did they come about?
The friendships outside of normal boundaries must have a source for determinism to hold true. In the opening thought statement a friend request is pending from Germany, a different culture from a different side of the world, why did the person choose to accept the friend request. His simple answer was a “why not” but what was the full thought process and did he make an actual choice? The very first thought that crossed the pattern is, “was it because I am superior, and trounced him,” this pattern may be causally determined, a decision of skill and pride that the thinker has. The next lines of thought were about the location and possible benefits of the friendship, no actual benefit arises but a deeper look could be at the opportunity to beat the requester again. Playing once again on the pride card, since the thinkers pride is an innate thing it could be inferred that no matter what the thought process fully was, he was going to accept the friend request, leaving no actual choice in the matter.
What if the scenario was different? What if it was a purely random friend request, from a random person in a random part of the world? With the technological world so easily traveled, the distance becomes a null card, which leaves the cultural and affluence boundaries. However since both are playing Halo, it can be assumed that some similarities exist between the two, a competitive nature, a love of gamin, and even some financial means to purchase the system, television, game, internet access, and the capabilities to play the game over the system itself (which indeed costs an additional amount). Even here there are plenty of similarities which makes the questions of complete randomness, impossible. Another scenario is needed to further explore the possibility of freedom in friendship. Suppose the following, a person lives in a tight knit neighborhood with no communication to a world outside the community, and then one day a letter comes in with a complete stranger writing, “How was your day today? I have just completed my first day of classes…” and so forth. The letter was obviously transcribed because of some grammatical errors and by the description of the classes; it’s a completely foreign culture to the person receiving the mailings. This completely random event, in which the boundaries of culture and affluence are crossed, and the person receiving the mailing has no knowledge of anything written in the letter has a choice, to write back or not. Or is the possibility of a choice just an illusion? The receiver of the letter still has his upbringing and his own frame of mind, it would be in his or her personality to respond, not an actual choice in the matter. An opposition may claim that since personality is inherent the thought experiment is really a loaded question, and to that I ask, come up with one that isn’t loaded.
IV.
If all the above is considered to be true, it must follow then that friendship is also determined by factors prior to it in accordance to natural law. How does natural law play an effect on who I am as a person? If we take natural law and use it as an application to man-made laws and genetic law we get the person. I am made up of my genetic pool, these are the results of natural law, and they cannot be changed and is a constant. One cannot choose which genes they are born with as well as be able to be born without any genes; genetics are therefore a natural law. The man-made law or social law follows from the genetic laws of self-preservation. I do not wish to be killed; therefore we make a law against murder. Most man-made laws are either to prevent harm, or to punish those that create harm, either to myself or my property or my community/country. This all derives from the self-preservation given to us in our genetics. And so it can be followed that natural law creates social/man-made law.
If we accept that natural law is the governance by which determinism is possible and that natural law are a set of truths that cannot be changed, then it follows that laws made from these natural laws, though possibly flawed, are determinable and foreseeable, if both natural law and social law are determinable, then it follows that my upbringing is determinable, and if that is determinable as well as my genetic code, it then follows that everything I do is determinable, including the friends I make. Therefore, even with an ever shrinking technological world, a pure random even is an impossibility and the actions I take on what appears to be a random even are determinable, and so a random friend request across my television screen is something that was going to happen, as well as my acceptance of the request, because it was all determinable in accordance with natural laws given at a set time, in a set space.