Come to think of it, I don't really see the difference!
Isn't coincidence the vehicle by which 'fate' slowly and imperceptibly materializes itself? And what is fate anyway, if not that labyrinthine path we chart by reacting to a plethora of mundane coincidences that bombard our journey through life?
A tiny little enzyme swims within the confines of a bacterial cell, bumping haphazardly into all sorts of oddly shaped molecules that make up the magical living goo surrounding the nucleus. Its dance, shaped by unpredictable forces that lie entirely outside of its control, can be described as chaotic, and its brief encounters with molecule after molecule, completely coincidental.
Except that, as a wise observer will eventually conclude, there is nothing chaotic about the dance of our little enzyme. Because sooner or later, as chance ultimately grants it an encounter with that one special molecule it is looking for, magic starts to happen: its valence electrons suddenly latch onto the newcomer in such a precise way as to lock the two bodies in an exact geometrical fit. What seemed like a random bump suddenly metamorphosizes into a perfectly precise bond that can only be said to have been carefully planned by a talented choreographer.
One might proclaim - if one was an enzyme - that this chance encounter with that one perfect molecule must have been a fit of destiny no less. That his molecule was made for him and him for her. An other enzyme -less poetic and more informed about the anthropic principle- might claim that it was nothing more than a remarkable coincidence, just the effect of the law of large numbers playing out: You don't win the lottery because you're special, someone just has to win and it happened to be you.
In a sense, both points of view are right:
Every little bump with every little molecule is a coincidence. But which molecules click and which ones don't is no coincidence; it follows directly from the laws of chemistry governing -at once- that one little enzyme's affairs as well as those of entire universe at large. Those few simple laws, governing everyone and everything, have been at work for a very very long time. During that time, a plot emerged in which our enzyme plays the role of seeking one particular kind of molecule.
To fully explain why one particular enzyme is good at bonding with one (or a few) particular molecule, you'd have to account for events that took place thousands of ions ago, starting a long and very slow process of natural selection that can be described as projective, as in deliberately shaping one particular enzyme, generation after generation, to be better at bonding with one particular molecule. An enzyme, not aware of such voluminous history, is entirely warranted in making use of an effective theory that it was meant to bond with this molecule apart from any other. It exists for a purpose, it is there to perform a function, and that's where the language of intention eventually leads to the idea of destiny.
Destiny in this sense is simply the accumulation of an intractable number of events over vast lengths of time, resulting in a present reality that is best understood by a teleological approach, so that people and things are actors playing roles according to a plot in a universal theatrical masterpiece.
Gravity, magnetism, locality, symmetry. You start with a few such universal laws, so very simple and elegant. Now add a huge amount of random events to shake things up a little, and eventually, out of sheer randomness, a predictable set of events emerges:
An enzyme bonding with its long-awaiting molecule, a cell undergoing metabolism, eventually realizing its dream of becoming two cells. A lung breathing cool fresh air into an awaiting body. A heart beating inside a sensitive human being, charting her way through life, bumping into all sorts of wrong people, until eventually and surely, two human beings naturally gravitate, bump and click. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if doing otherwise would be swimming against the current or disobeying a grand tenant. As if it was…. meant to be.
The paradox of chance and necessity, while thus explained, doesn't lose the least bit of its marvel. There is no need for anyone to hold the ropes or orchestrate the show. Just a few simple rules of attraction, a shake of randomness, and everything else follows, so very naturally.
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