Do you believe in luck?

[remm]

I possess the "luck" that is noticing things others miss, like money on the ground.

Thats just because other people tend to be stupid and unobservant, in my eyes at least...
Like there'll be someone almost trip and fall over, but nobody else even turns their head.
One day I picked up $20 that was at the main entrance to the university library. So many people must've walked past it before I picked it up

[Zer0]

Who knows? People say that Black Cats are bad luck, (my dad hates shedding cats) but I was lucky that I got to keep my cat, and guess what? Black fur. So I do not beleve in good or bad luck.

[SlappyMcGee]

Who knows? People say that Black Cats are bad luck, (my dad hates shedding cats) but I was lucky that I got to keep my cat, and guess what? Black fur. So I do not beleve in good or bad luck.

What a helpful and informative post. This should be the model that you base your future with the community on.

[乳头的早餐谷物]

Who knows? People say that Black Cats are bad luck, (my dad hates shedding cats) but I was lucky that I got to keep my cat, and guess what? Black fur. So I do not beleve in good or bad luck.

That is a great answer. Are you a philosopher?

[Tunco]

Who knows? People say that Black Cats are bad luck, (my dad hates shedding cats) but I was lucky that I got to keep my cat, and guess what? Black fur. So I do not beleve in good or bad luck.

Your philosophy is amazing, you're just the person our forum needs.

[Zer0]

Bah? Am I seeing Admins and Mods NOT flaming me?

Are you a philosopher?

No, I am not.

[otters~1]

Bah? Am I seeing Admins and Mods NOT flaming me?

Don't forget us normal users. We can flame you too, and with much less hypocrisy.

[SlappyMcGee]

Bah? Am I seeing Admins and Mods NOT flaming me?

Don't forget us normal users. We can flame you too, and with much less hypocrisy.

Also, I was being genuine. :(

[epigone]

There is no such thing as pure "luck" per se. However, you can increase your chances of being "lucky" if you stick to doing things that are probabilistically more likely to happen.

[Tunco]

Luck is a term or something that is abstract or intangible.

Let's say you have a computer that knows every circumstance of /everything/ (everywhere/ anywhere) in the world. This includes air, sound, electricity, heat, light, pressure, physiological state of the every living thing, thoughts, magnetism, angle (curve), etc.

So, all of these conditions are everywhere, all around us, and these effect what will happen. If you know all of these for every moment, then you can predict, and know the exact future. Because events happen due to the event happened before it, which affected by the events happened before that event, consequently. And these events happen consequently, and they just don't happen randomly, they are affected by these conditions.

I'm a determinist person, speaking of myself. Nothing happens randomly. Luck is just something we think that it exists because a very small probability happens, due to the conditions in (specific) (the) (a) event(s). Luck doesn't exists. It can't exist, everything has a scientific explanation.

[Luminaflare]

Luck is a term or something that is abstract or intangible.

Let's say you have a computer that knows every circumstance of /everything/ (everywhere/ anywhere) in the world. This includes air, sound, electricity, heat, light, pressure, physiological state of the every living thing, thoughts, magnetism, angle (curve), etc.

So, all of these conditions are everywhere, all around us, and these effect what will happen. If you know all of these for every moment, then you can predict, and know the exact future. Because events happen due to the event happened before it, which affected by the events happened before that event, consequently. And these events happen consequently, and they just don't happen randomly, they are affected by these conditions.

I'm a determinist person, speaking of myself. Nothing happens randomly. Luck is just something we think that it exists because a very small probability happens, due to the conditions in (specific) (the) (a) event(s). Luck doesn't exists. It can't exist, everything has a scientific explanation.

Your argument is flawed, animals are unpredictable, especially the human species. You could change an entire weather system with one bomb test. Now you could argue the computer knew that test was going to take place but someone could change their mind and decide it's a bad idea. It can't predict someone randomly deciding fuck it and killing themselves or others. Predicting the future is essentially impossible due to the random nature of animals.

Also Luck (Good or bad) is just a label people give to something not likely to happen. When a car just misses someone you don't say "The chance of you being hit was high and you weren't hit" you just say they're lucky. Luck isn't something tangible or even real it's just a word people use for description and well wishing.

[Tunco]

Luck is a term or something that is abstract or intangible.

Let's say you have a computer that knows every circumstance of /everything/ (everywhere/ anywhere) in the world. This includes air, sound, electricity, heat, light, pressure, physiological state of the every living thing, thoughts, magnetism, angle (curve), etc.

So, all of these conditions are everywhere, all around us, and these effect what will happen. If you know all of these for every moment, then you can predict, and know the exact future. Because events happen due to the event happened before it, which affected by the events happened before that event, consequently. And these events happen consequently, and they just don't happen randomly, they are affected by these conditions.

I'm a determinist person, speaking of myself. Nothing happens randomly. Luck is just something we think that it exists because a very small probability happens, due to the conditions in (specific) (the) (a) event(s). Luck doesn't exists. It can't exist, everything has a scientific explanation.

Your argument is flawed, animals are unpredictable, especially the human species. You could change an entire weather system with one bomb test. Now you could argue the computer knew that test was going to take place but someone could change their mind and decide it's a bad idea. It can't predict someone randomly deciding fuck it and killing themselves or others. Predicting the future is essentially impossible due to the random nature of animals.

Why not? I'm speaking of a computer which knows all of these factors (the thoughts going through their mind, and our minds) and animals (and the human species) are not that quite unpredictable in this circumstances. I think you're approaching the argument from a completely different perspective. You argument is quite puzzling for me, but I practically understood the point you're trying to point out.

Now, I think you didn't get the idea I'm trying to say. I know all of those factors are quite predictable or possible to know with a lot of calculation and stuff, and I think you're saying that because it's essentially impossible to know thoughts and feeling of animals and human species, it's impossible to know the future. And what I'm saying here is this; suppose that the computer knows all of these factors, no exceptions, these and all the factors science or physics can offer us. Okay? Good.

Let me explain it this way; you have a pencil, you will drop this pencil from 10 meters to ground, the pencil weights 10 grams, gravity is constant, the wind is slightly blowing to east, it's cold, you can hear traffic and people noises, and sure, there are some tons of other factors you can't know at the moment. Now, suppose that I/ we/ the person knew all of these factors and dropped the pencil. The pencil will leave a mark on the ground. Now, tell me, is it impossible to know where the exact place pencil will leave the mark on? No. Yes, I know it's essentially impossible to know the future when it (the factors) includes human and animal thoughts, fellings, etc. because it's impossible to know all these factors at once. (I'm talking with present tense) If your argument is about that, you're right. If not, I'm right about it too. But what my point is if you know all of these for a moment, being sure, then you could predict the next moment, or what will happen, the future, in other words.

I don't want to change the topic or anything, I think we both agree about luck doesn't exist. I don't want to look like backseat moderating but if you wan't to debate on this more, I think we/ you/ I should make a topic about it and debate about it in that topic.

E: I agree how you described luck. That was what I was trying to say, but you explained it clearly, and better. ;D

[Luminaflare]

E: I agree how you described luck. That was what I was trying to say, but you explained it clearly, and better. ;D

*high fives Tunco*

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Your argument is flawed, animals are unpredictable, especially the human species.

I disagree with you in terms of both practice and physics. But practice is irrelevant here, so I'll just talk about physics.
The choices we make are based on our experience, and our experienced is stored in our brains. Our brains happen to have this property that they're made of matter, and so they are constrained by natural laws just like everything else. All that is you is nothing more than an extremely specific arrangement of a chemical soup.
Our experiences are stored in our brains as neural pathways, which are formed, strengthened, or weakened and broken based on how much they're reinforced. They in turn contribute to your perception of new experiences and your response to them. If you had had different past experiences, it is likely that you would have a different response to a new experience. All the same, all of this information is stored as synaptic connections in your brain.
If Tunco's machine knows the state of everything, then it knows the state of your brain when you have a given new experience. If everything about the circumstances is known, then you could theoretically measure the exact amount of every wavelength of light that hits your retina, exactly the signal that sends to your striate cortex, every single branch that signal crosses on its round trip to the temporal and prefrontal cortices, every nanoVolt by which that signal differs based on your feelings and current state of being, and every step of your prefrontal's crunching out of a decision, down to the momentum and torque of every neurotransmitter that is ever released or absorbed because of your perception. If you follow the steps made by that deterministic machine, then you will discover exactly how you will react to a stimulus. If the state of your brain is fully known, then you are no less predictable than a falling stone.
And how selfish of you to think that you are.

The obvious exception is if you believe that something outside of the natural universe has an influence on the choices you make. But if you're in the habit of holding as true what cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated, then you have no business in a conversation amongst reasonable people.


While I did surprise myself with how much I agreed with Tunco's deterministic view of the universe, I disagree with his and your definition of luck. If such a thing as Tunco's machine exists (which I'll it maintain can, but only theoretically), then there is no such thing as a "low probability" or even a "high probability" -- there is only the probability of 1 that a known event will happen and the probability of 0 that anything else will happen. Luck cannot be based on "unlikely events" because in a deterministic universe, there is no such thing as likelihood, but only what will happen and what won't.
For that reason, I say that luck exists only in human perception. It exists only in the same limited minds that don't possess the capabilities of Tunco's machine. If you are staring at an extremely complicated piece of machinery with millions of knobs and buttons, there is no practical way for you to find a pattern in the way it works, and so it's just easier to say that the machine produces random output. This is pretty much how people unconsciously view their own minds. Our brains are so horribly complicated that even gaining a general understanding of them has proven to be a tremendous undertaking, and because we will never in practice know the exact electrochemical state of our brains just prior to making a choice, we will always perceive ourselves as making choices with no connection to underlying hardware, to how our personality and thought processes are implemented by our neurons, which means that we will always think of our choices as spontaneous. Hence, the illusion of Free Will. And this extends to our perception of the universe: since our understanding of the state of the universe is extremely imprecise, we can naturally go with the notion that events in life are effectively random, or happenstance. Those events that don't happen to us frequently, we call luck.
The distinction I'm trying to make is that luck is something entirely in our perception, and that does not exist as some natural force, or even as some objective probabilistic description of the universe.

[Luminaflare]

That's what I was trying to say luck is, a human perception. Also I feel kind of confused about my own actions now.

[Neil_Bryan]

The belief in luck depends on what perspective you look at it. I look at it as true.

Well, I don't believe in some traditions of good luck and bad luck, though.

[otters]

But if you're in the habit of holding as true what cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated, then you have no business in a conversation amongst reasonable people.

Sounds a bit extreme.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

But if you're in the habit of holding as true what cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated, then you have no business in a conversation amongst reasonable people.

Sounds a bit extreme.

I consider it as more of a minimum requirement. Are you telling me that someone who believes things to be true that cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated does belong in a conversation amongst reasonable people?
I understand if your objection is that people might be in the habit of holding as true something that has arguments for its truth value that aren't universally accepted, or something which they believe has been demonstrated but unfortunately cannot prove. But that's not what I said.

[yahoozy]

But if you're in the habit of holding as true what cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated, then you have no business in a conversation amongst reasonable people.

Sounds a bit extreme.

I consider it as more of a minimum requirement. Are you telling me that someone who believes things to be true that cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated does belong in a conversation amongst reasonable people?

You're disregarding incluye's theism here.

That said, no, they do not.

[otters~1]

I consider it as more of a minimum requirement. Are you telling me that someone who believes things to be true that cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated does belong in a conversation amongst reasonable people?

You're disregarding incluye's theism here.

Suki's being deliberately provocative. And he's correct, of course. No one wants to waste their time trying to talk to people that unreasonable. Just like no one wants to debate theology with hardcore Christians. It's like walking around in circles in the Sahara.

[yahoozy]

I consider it as more of a minimum requirement. Are you telling me that someone who believes things to be true that cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated does belong in a conversation amongst reasonable people?

You're disregarding incluye's theism here.

Suki's being deliberately provocative. And he's correct, of course. No one wants to waste their time trying to talk to people that unreasonable. Just like no one wants to debate theology with hardcore Christians. It's like walking around in circles in the Sahara.

Jesus, my post was two lines long. Were you really too lazy to read the next six words after the first five?

[otters~1]

Suki's being deliberately provocative. And he's correct, of course. No one wants to waste their time trying to talk to people that unreasonable. Just like no one wants to debate theology with hardcore Christians. It's like walking around in circles in the Sahara.

Jesus, my post was two lines long. Were you really too lazy to read the next six words after the first five?

I read your two sentences as separate thoughts. Because, ya know, there was a line break.

[otters]

But if you're in the habit of holding as true what cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated, then you have no business in a conversation amongst reasonable people.

Sounds a bit extreme.

I consider it as more of a minimum requirement. Are you telling me that someone who believes things to be true that cannot be remotely tested or demonstrated does belong in a conversation amongst reasonable people?

Well, possibly not. It just struck me as extreme at the time. Would you refuse to knowingly converse with such people?

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Well, possibly not. It just struck me as extreme at the time. Would you refuse to knowingly converse with such people?

Well, it depends on the circumstances. In a social setting, I'd probably make small talk but excuse myself if they tried talking about anything important/serious/intelligent. In other circumstances, I don't have any reservations of going just short of coldly ignoring them. I just did it to a tard not an hour and a half ago, as a matter of fact, when he tried to interrupt my last-minute midterm cramming with his nonsense. And of course, in other cases, I might humor them if I'm bored and/or intoxicated, or if she's really hot.

[ENT474]

Luck is what unlucky people believe successful people have :) . I don't believe in superstition, but sometimes I do it "just in case". I believe that everyone will get their share of good and bad luck. And bad luck could cause good luck, or give knowledge to become successful, hence good luck.