All sorts of impacting factors are random variables in our lives. Just what DO you think "luck" means?Originally Posted by RandBlade
All sorts of impacting factors are random variables in our lives. Just what DO you think "luck" means?
How many are actually random? Who my parents are etc is anything but random.
Rand is completely ignoring the actual definition of luck. Most dictionaries associate the word with chance. Rand wants to limit it to beating odds so he doesn't have to admit that luck did play a role in his lot in life. He wants to believe he earned everything he has. He earned being white, he earned being male, he earned being born in the UK etc....
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
You tell me! How many of your 'misfortunes' are related to random accidents? All car accidents can be avoided if you don't drive or ride in an automobile--cab or bus--but that doesn't mean you won't experience a bike or pedestrian incident. All bar room brawls can be avoided if you never enter a bar--but that doesn't mean you won't encounter some violent drunk on the streets.
Parents absolutely DO matter in the scheme of things, and are connected to life-long impacts we can't "control". Just ask anyone who's been adopted, raised in an orphanage/group home/foster care. Or ask anyone dealing with a genetic malady just how "random" life can be.
Rand, you're using Game Theory to say the Game of Life isn't partially luck based? That everyone is playing strategic Chess or computer driven games? That luck plays no part if we just don't wager any bets? Really?
Again....what DO you think Luck really means?
Well, Rand hasn't actually defined his definition of Luck. He just keeps insisting that Life has nothing to do with Luck, and Chances are mostly Choices. Or something like that. Based on that criteria, everyone should demand a complete genome and family tree from their prospective procreator mates (including sperm or egg bank donors). Why leave something so important as the future of a child to matters of chance? And if one doesn't want to make babies, should all hetero sex partners come with an affidavit proving and guaranteeing their infertility?
I did. I said it was to do with random chance. I also said it was possible to improve your odds of events going either good or bad. You keep assigning luck to non-random events.
You mention bar room brawls. As you may remember my eye socket was smashed and nose broken by a complete stranger a few years ago. Was I unlucky? Superficially you may say so, but it wasn't luck - it was the malicious and criminal actions of another person.
Are there any random events?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Yes. But not everything is random.
How do you decide whether or not an event qualifies as "random"? Can you give an example of such an event?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Either earlier in this thread or another thread I suggested an event where nothing or nobody could reasonably control the outcome. EG an ordinairy person rolling unloaded dice in a normal technique is random. Rolling loaded dice, dropping normal ones, using certain techniques etc is not random.
What are the chances that the next newborn will be in someplace you wouldn't choose to live? Better than average is my guess.
Faith is Hope (see Loki's sig for details)
If hindsight is 20-20, why is it so often ignored?
On this thread I wanted to make a few comments.
Firstly, on randomness if you believe in free-will we can argue that to all outside oberservers because there is some choice in how exactly a dice gets tossed the outcome is random. And even due to a disconnect between the exact way we wish to roll the dice and our hand actually rolling it there the outcome would still be unknowable to the person choosing to the roll it that way (even if they tried to predict it beforehand). There are ways to roll dice to get a desired outcome let's bar that situation for the sake of argument (say the person doesn't know them/isn't using them).
Secondly even if you denounce choice there is still quantum randomness people may appeal to. Which suggest that many events, in fact all events, have a random component to them that falls on some probability distribution for their exact outcome. So in these cases we have "random events".
I'd like to add for a time I had trouble accepting true randomness, in highschool this perplexed me. How to create randomness it seemed structurally impossible. However, as I contemplated it more order or what I call patternized motion also seemed just as unnatural. Why should an object move if I push it? What dictates it to do so... and once we have an explanation, we ask why are those laws of nature like that? How do the laws make their effects/rules work. Events being determined makes no more sense than events being random. They both seem impossible.
Ask yourself how do i create the laws of nature such that two atoms pull on one another, without have first some sort of power/law/ability that allows me to do it, which is in reality the fundamental law for these other superficial laws.
Anyway long story short scientists currently accept randomness as existing in the world, as in our world is non-determinstic.
I had thoughts of course on how possibly can one construct free will, even if we can build randomnes or determinstic patterns how to create choice. I basically came to the conclusion that it's existence is possible but it's construction is not. Which suggested a permanence in some form of all objects containing the property of will. I dont' want to diverge to much.
Last comment did no one find my chess comment interesting, I find it very interesting listening to Kasparov, and Anand on chess theory and Magnus Carlsen, and Judit Polgar on the psychology of chess, playing to opponents weaknesses and strenghths. It made me appreciate the game in a different light, I guess I kind of always knew about it, I've played friends before and was fairly confident they would not see a certain line of moves, and when i'm doing that i'm already (playing a psychological game) as opposed to an "Objective Chess" game, I know my opponent too well.
Last edited by Lebanese Dragon; 01-08-2012 at 09:29 AM.
So what?
Someone can reach down and stop the dice. Is it still a random event?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Yes, I remember that horrible story.
Using your own definition of luck---there was nothing random about your choice to be in that bar or club, around people known to be drinking or drunk, knowing intoxication sometimes leads to fights or violence. You didn't do much to "improve your odds" of avoiding something possibly going bad. Instead, you were relying on some element of luck, believing that nothing bad would happen. (Partly why being victimized is such a traumatic emotional event...)
But you were "unlucky" to have been the one random person that complete stranger decided to punch out. He could just have easily punched some other random complete stranger, even the person standing next to you. That he 'chose' you to punch didn't make it a non-random event.
You were also "lucky" that he hadn't used a knife or gun, that he hadn't aimed just a few centimeters differently and exploded your eyeball, variables you'd have no way of 'improving'! And that you received quick and competent medical care!
Listen to me.. we have to be careful how we define luck. I think society would define you as being unlucky there Rand, it was an unprovoked attack (at least not reasonably provoked). It was outside your control, and it was partly his choice this undetermined factor. It fits under the definition of an uncontrallable event that occured. Influencable but not controllable.
It was 100% unprovoked, but I don't find it unlucky. I find it annoying (the socket still pains me in cold weather every winter where it broke) - but it was an act of criminality of someone else. I'm entirely prepared to put full responsibility to him and partial responsibility to societies lax laws. It was not an act of randomness and I find it belittles the seriousness of it to dismiss it as random. It is flippantly unlucky only.
Well, in that sense, there is no such thing as luck, or chance for that matter. Everything is the result of the events before it (well, as far as you can take determinism anyway, I'll ignore quantum fun for now).
However, earlier you said..
I think an issue here is maybe semantics, maybe a view of life, but you said several times in this thread that things that have happened were not chance, e.g. your parents meeting and you being born isn't chance (or luck), because it has already happened. I think that's the wrong way of looking at things, because if you bought a lottery ticket and actually won, would you not call that chance, or a gamle, or luck, because he won? I think not. Same could be said about your throwing dice, if you throw a six, you can look back, see that you have thrown a six, and there was no luck or chance involved (according to you anyway). So first of all I'd like to make clear I am looking at future events here, since hindsight is obvious. The reason you call throwing dice chance, is because at the moment of throwin you don't know what the result will be. And actually, the way you exactly hold and throw the dice, all the exact states of the surroundings, determine the outcome. So this is not chance either, it is you, deliberately manipulating the dice in such a way that you throw a certain number, albeit unknowingly. Again, I'm ignoring quantum physics here. So the main part of what I quoted above is 'reasonably ', and note that 'could control the outcome' implies that you're not looking at whether it happened or not, but whether you had control over the outcome before it happened.nothing or nobody could reasonably control the outcome
I hope I am clear so far
Anyway, to use your fight as an example, because it's already being used, you say it wasn't luck because the other person was at fault, knew what he was doing. So you are right, for him this was not chance that he had a fight, it was a deliberate choice (and very much under his control). However, for you it was chance that he attacked you. He could have attacked anyone, and if it weren't for the exact circumstances and the exact timing and the exact location of all people involved, it would not have happened to you. Was everything the result of actions taken by others? Sure. Did you have any reasonable control over the outcome in advance? Nope. I added in advance, because of course you had control over the outcome - had you not gone there, nothing would have happened to you. However, you could not reasonably have known this would happen (I mean, if you had gone any other place, something bad could have happened there just as well, we'll never know now). Since you did not reasonably control the outcome, and the outcome was therefore for you a matter of chance, and the outcome was bad for you, and the outcome was not likely to happen, so I call that bad luck.
So now we get more semantics: earlier you asked what good (or bad) luck is. To mean, it's the result of chance, in an unexpected way. So if you buy a lottery ticket, and you lose? No bad luck, it's to be expected. Buy a lottery ticket and win? Unlikely to happen, I call it good luck. Go into a bar, have nothing happen to you? Not good luck, it's to be expected. Go to a bar and get involved in a random unprovoked fight? Bad luck, it ended badly and it was not to be expected.
Finally, I will say that in the way I use my words here, you cannot possibly make your own luck. You can change the odds, in your advantage, but it's still down to chance in the end. For example, if you only have a little money, and spend it on the lottery, your odds are very bad. You can improve your odds by investing it in, say, education, or stock market, or whatever. You improved your odds a lot. You would probably call this making your own luck. However, you can still have bad luck that even with your good, self-improved odds, you still fail, or end up poor. Not everything is under your control. You could get hit by a car, the company you have your money invested in could go bankrupt in unforeseen and out of your control circumstances, etc.,etc., so even with your improved odds you can lose. That's probably why they call it the 'lottery' of life. You can't make your own luck in it, but you can improve your odds a lot by making the right choices. The starting odds are not the same for everybody (agree with it or not, but some people are born in a far better position than others), and what you do with it changes your odds.
For example, you were born because your parents met and had sex and the right sperm reached the egg at the right time. Then you were born, were raised, so far it's mostly out of your control and is pretty much your 'starting odds' of life. You then worked hard to where you are now, which has improved your odds by your own actions This is probably what you call making your own luck? Either way, you can still be unlucky - just because the odds are in your favour does not guarantee a good outcome, you could still have bad luck. Similarly, if someone who started in the same position as you made the wrong choices (say, didn't want to work or go to school). He'd probably be in a less good life than you right now, as a result of his actions, making his odds worse for him. However, if he was very lucky, he might have won the lottery, somehow landed a nice paying job, or becamse a criminal overlord. Just because his odds were not as good because of his choices, doesn't mean the chances of ending up rich are zero, he can still have good luck.
Never forget that some (if not most) things are at least somewhat out of your control - you can improve your odds, but you can always end up unlucky, because it's still odds. For example, using the weighed dice you mentioned earlier - they increase your chance of winning, the odds are in your favour, but you can still be unlucky and lose because you won't always throw your number, there is still an element of chance. You've only improved the odds in your favour.Hope that makes some sense.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
If I buy a lottery ticket that then wins, is it luck?
If I'm gifted a lottery ticket that has already won, is it luck?
First case, definitely. Second case? Probably. Depends. Did you and the giver know that? And why did he give it to you? Is it a random stranger? You're lucky. Inheritance from someone who jsut died, and had that lottery ticket? Unlucky someone you know died, lucky you got so much money. Did you point a gun in the face of someone you know won, and made him give up the ticket? Not so much luck this time (though I guess you could say you made your own luck this time).
It's honestly not so hard to grasp. Did you (reasonably) control the fact that that particular won and made its way into your hands? I don't quite get your issue with this. I think you're too stuck up on the timing thing, the issue is whether you control the events that lead up to said event.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Even the timing thing is bizarre. Luck is generally attributed retroactively, ie. In hindsight.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
It doesn't matter who controlled it, if somebody did then its not luck.First case, definitely. Second case? Probably. Depends. Did you and the giver know that? And why did he give it to you? Is it a random stranger? You're lucky. Inheritance from someone who jsut died, and had that lottery ticket? Unlucky someone you know died, lucky you got so much money. Did you point a gun in the face of someone you know won, and made him give up the ticket? Not so much luck this time (though I guess you could say you made your own luck this time
My parents chose to have that child, I am that child, there is no luck involved. It is just a consequence of their actions. Had they not taken those actions, I would never have been born. Since I don't believe in an immortal soul I do not believe my soul was lucky to get this body, I believe I am this body and what I am simply IS. The only way it is luck is if you believe in something like Buddhism etc where you believe we were destined to be born but who/what we were born into/as is variable. Although even Buddhists believe in actions having consequences leading to that, so not sure even that is correctly luck?
If an apple disconnects from a tree is it luck that makes it fall to the flaw? Newton says no, its gravity.
Is it lucky if it falls into my hand as I happen to pass underneath it looking for a McDonald's?
Let's not forget that your parents simply chose to have a child, not necessarily you. From their POV it's very lucky they got youI presume
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Since you've already forgotten the first part of this discussion, allow me to remind you of the differences between seeing luck as prescriptive and seeing it as descriptive.
While you go to great lengths to disavow religious beliefs, you do seem to have a strong belief in the magic force of motivation, ie. motivation as a mystic energy that springs up out of nothingness all on its own. Where do you think motivation comes from? How do you think motivation behaves?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
We're influenced by both nature and nurture no doubt, but I do believe we're complex enough to make our own choices within the environment we have.
Politics etc can help influence that environment and affect peoples motivations. That is why I consider my personal political philosophies to be both morally and ethically correct in re-enforcing that actions have consequences so that people are in an environment where they are encouraged to make the right decisions, while providing certain "safety nets" and securities. I believe the more you disconnect actions from the consequences they have, the more people will do the wrong actions.
I am a bit preplexed why you think it must be uncontrolled by anybody to be luck. Lest take this example, a drunk moron decided to pass time by droping rocks from a bridge overlapping the highway and hit your car. Now obviously the person droping the rocks is criminal and responsible. But why does it negate the fact that it was unlucky that it was you that got hit, the drunk was not trying to single you out, there are 100s of other bridges in the city and in fact there 1000s of cars that pass under that one yet it was you that got hit. Therefore you were unlucky, if you survived with out debilitating injuries when statisticly this is not the case for similar accidents then you were lucky.
It was only unlucky superficially. I blame the person who dropped the rocks - by the way, when I'm driving towards a bridge (especially one with kids on) I try to keep an eye on them and if possible change lanes to get away from them just in case of this.
Can an unintended consequence be considered luck?
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
I don't think so.
Thanks.
I could have had class. I could have been a contender.
I could have been somebody. Instead of a bum
Which is what I am
I aim at the stars
But sometimes I hit London
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