Luck & Chance - Community Discussion (Week 6)

safariblade

safariblade

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WEEK 6 LUCK & CHANCE

Sorry it has been so long... but now I am excited to start a new discussion this week.

Discuss Luck & Chance
Do you believe in someone having 'good luck' or 'bad luck'?
What are your opinions on fate, destiny, or chance?
When luck is discussed, the subject of superstitions is sometimes brought up. Do you think superstitions effect people's opinions of chance? What are your opinions on superstitions?
If you believe in luck & chance, then do you believe these fortunes can be predicted?
The words "Good luck" have become such a common & every-day phrase. Why has it become such a part of our culture?
And for a fun question... What is the best fortune cookie you've ever read?



Remember to follow all forum rules while discussing these topics.
That includes being kind and courteous to other members, even if their opinion doesn't match your own.
Have fun!

Feel free to PM me with discussion ideas.
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RE: Community Discussion (Week 6) - Luck & Chance

Let me answer this from a computer scientist's point of view and a casino's point of view (I worked as a dealer for a little bit). From a purely logical point of view, luck is purely superstitious. It is possible to calculate every single small event if you really care to (given the right information). I can calculate which cards come up and in which order based on shuffling. Those calculations are extremely difficult, and many people simply don't have the entire amount of information, so they will give it a name (luck). If we look at luck from a game theory-based perspective, luck is effectively randomness that is too difficult to predict. Anything that is difficult to accurately give a measurement on can be considered luck. Lucky things are often actions rather than nonactions, however. Is it lucky that my roof hasn't collapsed on me yet? Yeah I guess, but people don't often think about my roof staying where it is when they think about luck. They think about big things such as the bad luck of having your roof fall down. In that sense, luck can be defined as random actions that take place that are too difficult to calculate.

My casino that I work at has a very strict definition of luck. A person's luck is that person's winnings divided by their expected winnings. The closer the luck is to 1, the more neutral their luck is. The smaller the luck, the worse luck the person is perceived to have. Good luck can take place in many small wins, one big win, or somewhere in between. The more extreme a person's luck is, the more extreme actions they are going to take. The closer a person's luck is to 0 (awful luck), the more likely they're going to either leave or bet huge sums of money trying to instantly get better luck. Likewise, if a person is on a winning streak (really good luck), they're likely to take their money and leave, or continue betting large amounts of money because they are, afterall, lucky.


In summary, "luck" is really just a person's perception of the net good and bad things that happen to them. Everything "lucky" or "unlucky" has a perfectly reasonable explanation, but that explanation is really long and far too complex for the normal person to really care about. The concept of "luck" is a simplification of complex occurances that have a net positive or negative on a person's luck. when someone personally tells me "good luck" I'll typically respond "May the Force be with you". They have about the same meaning and one is infinitely more cool/nerdy than the other
 
RE: Community Discussion (Week 6) - Luck & Chance

Do you believe in someone having 'good luck' or 'bad luck'?
Yes; however, I think there's limits on how much luckiness somebody has. If one is blessed, its luck will help it out in times of great peril.

What are your opinions on fate, destiny, or chance?
I don't really know, but I don't think that fate is fulfilled immediately. The fated person may occasionally have several options, if any at all.

When luck is discussed, the subject of superstitions is sometimes brought up. Do you think superstitions effect people's opinions of chance? What are your opinions on superstitions?
To the first question, yes. To the second... Well, first of all, superstitions do exist, and I believe, if possible, they must be meant to block you from stepping forward. It's not as exactly as if I believe in them. Sadly, too few superstitions in the way, and you go greedy (or even berserk!), like a few others. I have currently few to none as of now... yikes, I better watch where I step. o_o;

If you believe in luck & chance, then do you believe these fortunes can be predicted?
Not always predictable. That's why I unintentionally tend to stay away from Chinese places.

The words "Good luck" have become such a common & every-day phrase. Why has it become such a part of our culture?
Look back to old times when the native people still roamed America... early settlers picked this phrase up from the Native Americans.

What is the best fortune cookie you've ever read?
I don't have a 'best' one. All of them always are about me being a person of kindness, and other cheerful stuff...
 
RE: Community Discussion (Week 6) - Luck & Chance

I think "Luck" is a word that is loosley(this looks misspelled) tossed around. I'm not sure if I believe in luck or not, but beating the odds I surely believe in.(Luck=Beating odds?) especially when it comes to landing Stone Edge on Volcarona and my opponent getting a crit that DOES matter.

Destiny... I personally believe eveything, good or bad, happens for a reason, good or bad. Lifechanging or moment changing, you really can't tell the difference at the moment. Like not getting to see a movie, it could've been you not seeing a movie or it could've been you meeting the love of your life at the movie. you never know.

As far as superstition goes, I think that "The power of suggestion" has great influence on it. If you think something will happen so much, you'll make it happen intentionally or not in a series of events.

This is sorta lucky: My friend found Skylanders in the target parking lot and his dad found a DS while jogging. Once, a guy at gamestop gave him a ~$30USD gift card since the man wanted cash but he already traded in his system.
 
RE: Community Discussion (Week 6) - Luck & Chance

I believe in luck; good luck is when something beneficial happening to you despite having an apparent low chance of probability.

Do I think luck can be manipulated? Perhaps with enough resources and information. If I generously tip a waiter, I see nothing, but that waiter sees good luck from that, because the chances of someone giving him a high tip isn't that great. However, I know what amount I was going to tip from the start, so I don't see luck at all. Yet I hold the fate of someone's "luck."

So luck is controlled, just not in ways you'd expect.
 
RE: Community Discussion (Week 6) - Luck & Chance

So you are saying that someone's perception of good or bad luck is often the result of someone else's actions? (Like generosity)
That's an angle of luck I've never thought of before. Pretty cool.
 
RE: Community Discussion (Week 6) - Luck & Chance

What are your opinions on fate, destiny, or chance?

The bedrock of our world is chiefly concerned with particle interactions, which for all intents and purposes are considered "unpredictable" on some level*. That is, if we perform a measurement on a particle, we cannot predict with absolute certainty beforehand what exactly that measurement will yield. We can be aware of the various possible states that the particle can accommodate, and even if some states are more likely than others, but we won't know for sure which state it will be in when we measure it. Here I would like to deviate from CodeMonkey's post and say that on the quantum level, apparent randomness is not the result of missing information preventing us from making the correct prediction. On the quantum level interactions are, genuinely, random.

In the strictest sense of the word, then, the material universe is inherently "random". We can apply generalisations to describe the nice patterns we see in nature ("If I throw a ball up in the air, it will always fall down"), but when we observe the universe in closer scrutiny, under the finest of microscopes, we unveil a world of chaos and disorder ("How fast, precisely, was the ball falling?"). These tiny microscopic things can stack up and change our universe in a macroscopic way, a field known as chaos theory. If the tiny things are inherently random, then, it follows that the big things that happen in the world are based upon random principles too.

Some aspects of fate could be considered non-random, i.e. true fate, but these would be aspects based firmly within a logical framework. If "Simon is born a male" and "males cannot bare children" are true statements, then it is determined from the outset that "Simon will not bare a child" is also a true statement. Similarly, as a human being, I am "destined" to one day die. But even these logical connections can be flawed, for determining the validity of these statements in the real world depends upon empirical observations which are therefore subject to the effects of a random universe (Maybe humans do live forever and we just haven't seen one yet? Maybe Simon will end up getting a flawless sex change?).

The one thing which I think is "immune" to the random bug would be logical statements isolated from any empirical validations. Mathematics, a self contained logical language, is not random. A mathematical statement is always true (if it is false, I would not call that mathematics as it would not be consistent with the rest of the mathematical framework, i.e. that which defines the incorrect statement as "false" to begin with). This is also why computers, whose functions are based in logical frameworks, cannot generate truly "randomised" outputs by virtue of their programming alone.

* This is how our current understanding of quantum theory operates. I can elaborate on this if anyone would like to know more.
 
Do you believe in someone having 'good luck' or 'bad luck'?
Yes I do think luck is real. Some days I feel like I have good luck and some days I don't.

I caught my first shiny pokemon ever on vba last week(Never played on a real gameboy but it's the next best thing!) I was looking for a shiny poochyena for a long time and gave up, the next patch of grass I walk into I find a shiny wurmple!!!

What are your opinions on fate, destiny, or chance?
I think everyone's got a place in life where they need to be, and we will all get there someday. If your given a chance of a great opportunity or to make a change, don't pass it up!!!

I have a wolf fetish(Not what you think it is but thanks to my native american heritage I sound strange;)) Fetish is a word used to describe the sculptures and symbols of animals that native americans think will bring things like good luck, strength, power, love, etc. This is called Fetishism. I made myself a necklace pendant out of wood so I can have a wolf all the time. The wolf is the pathfinder and brings Intelligence(Cool right?)

What is the best fortune cookie you've ever read?
The one that told me I will find true love, haven't found her yet(Haven't been in a good place to look:() but I know I will cuz dat cookie told me so!

Great thread safariblade!!!
 
Luck is a concept. We come up with a reason why something unlikely has happened and so we call it luck. I don't believe anyone has more luck than another. Rather, someone just happens to land a critical hit. Maybe the same will happen to them or not. It's life.

Maybe using a sequence of numbers to determine a critical hit percentage is not a good example, I'm sure it is possible to predict whenever a crit will land because it has been programmed a certain way, but you get my point.

I don't believe in luck in the same way I don't believe in love .

...that makes me sound...like a very specific type of person...
 
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