Lucky or unlucky?

[Caprice]

1 2 3 4 10 11 12 13 14 20 21 22 23 24 30 31 32 33 34 40 41 42 43 44 100 101 102 103 104 110 111 112 113 114 120 121 122 123 124 130 131...

 

[Anthile]

A lesson in quinary?

 

[Caprice]

Sure, except it's four, not five. I didn't know there were names for it. Does quinary, etc, have any uses?

 

[snafupants]

There is no such phenomenon as luck, there is only probability.

 

[Caprice]

Oops, you are right, it is quinary.
I totally stuffed this up. Pretend the crab picture isn't there, or give him another claw.

 

[nexion]

Dude, what the heck does this mean?

 

[7even]

There is no such phenomenon as luck, there is only probability.

@snafupants

That's not the point though, think of it this way:

Probability exists,
Luck is an assumption, based on what humans judge as a good (lucky) or bad (unlucky) event - we can all perceive and form similar judgement (in terms of it being lucky or unlucky) when a good event happens and when a bad one does, e.g. if a piano were to fall from the sky and miss squishing me by an inch, we'd all agree I was lucky.
If probability exists,
then it is probable that a certain individual 'wins the lottery' more often than another individual, and that's what makes him/her lucky.
Probability is unpredictable relative to reality after-all.

Hope that made sense..

 

[snafupants]

@snafupants

That's not the point though, think of it this way:

Probability exists,
Luck is an assumption, based on what humans judge as a good (lucky) or bad (unlucky) event - we can all perceive and form similar judgement (in terms of it being lucky or unlucky) when a good event happens and when a bad one does, e.g. if a piano were to fall from the sky and miss squishing me by an inch, we'd all agree I was lucky.
If probability exists,
then it is probable that a certain individual 'wins the lottery' more often than another individual, and that's what makes him/her lucky.
Probability is unpredictable relative to reality after-all.

Hope that made sense..

@7even

Indeed both the piano and lottery scenario can be explained by statistics. With the latter, all persons have the same (dismal) chance of winning "the big one," granted each person purchases one dissimilar ticket for the same lottery. I actually would not agree that one were lucky by sidestepping an unlatched, freefalling piano. That presupposes that life is a good thing, which glaringly isn't the case whatsoever. Anyway, when someone talks about luck they flirt with superstition, which is implausible. My lucky rabbit's foot and so forth. I repudiate your loose (or perhaps paradoxically snug) definition of luck - the universe doesn't play by luck; the universe plays by odds. I would amend the opening of your luck definition ("luck is an assumption") by positing that luck is an erroneous human belief predicated on superstition buoyed by human ignorance in order to justify myriad irrational behaviors. The idea of a lottery frankly frightens me - this notion of escaping sordid normalcy - what Richard Bachman (Stephen King) lampooned four decades ago with The Running Man and The Long Walk - is extremely unsettling. Why would a healthy culture in which everyone were happy need a lottery to boost the morale of the losers and the social standing of the winners? Happy people simply wouldn't play the lottery because they were already contented.

 

[7even]

@snafupants

Indeed both the piano and lottery scenario can be explained by statistics. With the latter, all persons have the same (dismal) chance of winning "the big one," granted each person purchases one dissimilar ticket for the same lottery.

Yeah, I agree both scenarios can be explained by statistics. Although a person's odds of winning two independent lotteries twice in a row would significantly reduce, given controlled factors, and perhaps (according to you) it would be a matter of pure statistics to win both times (although the odds are highly improbable). It is here, when a person wins the lottery (apologies for the lottery paradigm, I do concur with your idea of it) twice in a row, is coined the term lucky; not by the universe, but from a person's perception of the unlikelihood of, for example, this scenario. I never did mean to give off the impression that the universe plays by luck. I'm saying that events are (most probably but not certainly) objective but are extremely interpretative and that, that is its nature.

I actually would not agree that one were lucky by sidestepping an unlatched, freefalling piano. That presupposes that life is a good thing, which glaringly isn't the case whatsoever.

Is that not extreme subjectivity?
Are you saying that life is a bad thing?
Or are you rationalizing morality and being nihilistic?

I would amend the opening of your luck definition ("luck is an assumption") by positing that luck is an erroneous human belief predicated on superstition buoyed by human ignorance in order to justify myriad irrational behaviors.

Alright, irrational behaviors such as what? Don't quite understand.
I do agree that luck is superstitious, but superstition could very well exist for a reason, a natural phenomenon. To disregard it would also be unjustified, until disproved, would it not? I'm just considering the existence of unexplained unseen external factors. That perhaps not everything can be explained 'rationally'.

I'd like to ask whether you believe in coincidences?

 

[snafupants]

@snafupants



Yeah, I agree both scenarios can be explained by statistics. Although a person's odds of winning two independent lotteries twice in a row would significantly reduce, given controlled factors, and perhaps (according to you) it would be a matter of pure statistics to win both times (although the odds are highly improbable). It is here, when a person wins the lottery (apologies for the lottery paradigm, I do concur with your idea of it) twice in a row, is coined the term lucky; not by the universe, but from a person's perception of the unlikelihood of, for example, this scenario. I never did mean to give off the impression that the universe plays by luck. I'm saying that events are (most probably but not certainly) objective but are extremely interpretative and that, that is its nature.



Is that not extreme subjectivity?
Are you saying that life is a bad thing?
Or are you rationalizing morality and being nihilistic?




Alright, irrational behaviors such as what? Don't quite understand.
I do agree that luck is superstitious, but superstition could very well exist for a reason, a natural phenomenon. To disregard it would also be unjustified, until disproved, would it not? I'm just considering the existence of unexplained unseen external factors. That perhaps not everything can be explained 'rationally'.

I'd like to ask whether you believe in coincidences?

Deeming superstition "a natural phenomenon" says nothing whatsoever about its irrationality; these are two different discussions (i.e., natural and rational). I agree, somehow, with the first portion of your post: luck on a cosmic scale doesn't exist but luck persists as this fabricated/fallacious human conception. Winning the lottery eight thousand and five times in a row wouldn't persuade me that luck was involved; I'd be more apt to assume cheating. Objective luck, apart from and external to the individual, doesn't exist: statistics and odds dictate the conditions of the universe.

 

[Coolydudey]

Humans call an event lucky when they percieve it as favourable to (insert human/animal of choice) given improbable odds. Luck doesn't exist, it's just a short term for the phrase "a (perceived) favourable outcome given improbable odds". Saying someone is lucky in the sense of them having better odds of achieving a favourable event is irrational and untrue.

 

[nexion]

Wow, thanks for digging this up along with my completely useless response. For what it's worth, I recognized that these numbers were quinary almost immediately this time around.

Anyway, to answer the actual query, since I apparently had no idea way back when:

Luck doesn't exist. Probability (probably) doesn't exist. Still waiting on the secrets of quantum physics to be unlocked for that one, but for now I assume it doesn't since that seems most philosophically sound to me.

Probability and luck are both human ideas that arise from the human inability to perceive reality as it is (ie. humans perceive reality as linear, causal change where, once one event has happened, that event cannot happen in the same way again), probability a result of the inability to see how exactly how the present will affect the future ('present' in relative terms of course), luck a result of probabilities perceived as having low likelihood of occurring, actually occurring.

 

[Hadoblado]

Wow, thanks for digging this up along with my completely useless response. For what it's worth, I recognized that these numbers were quinary almost immediately this time around.

Anyway, to answer the actual, since I apparently had no idea way back when:

Luck doesn't exist. Probability (probably) doesn't exist. Still waiting on the secrets of quantum physics to be unlocked for that one, but for now I assume it doesn't since that seems most philosophically sound to me.

Probability and luck are both human ideas that arise from the human inability to perceive reality as it is (ie. humans perceive reality as linear, causal change where, once one event has happened, that event cannot happen in the same way again), probability a result of the inability to see how exactly how the present will affect the future ('present' in relative terms of course), luck a result of probabilities perceived as having low likelihood of occurring, actually occurring.

This.

 

[Hawkeye]

Perhaps "fortunate" and "unfortunate" are more appropriate.