--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "jackessiebabe" <jackessiebabe@y...>
wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Hi Rock,
I usually agree with a lot of your posts, but I really think
you're
off the mark with this one. I don't think that there is anything
about believing in "luck" that precludes someone from also
believing
in science/math etc. I also don't think that luck has anything to
do with superstitious mumbo-jumbo. I truly believe that some
people
are luckier than others, in gambling and in life.
I'm afraid that this is a notion that, while widely held, is
irrational and leads to people making all sorts of bad decisions.
If you say that "luck" exists, I have to challenge you to define it.
The way that most people think of it is that it's some kind of
mysterious "force", like gravity or magnetism, that causes a person
to experience fortunate events. A person who is "lucky" has managed,
knowingly or unknowingly, to harness this force for a certain time.
Now, let's ignore the apparent absurdity of this premise, and take
it at face value. We have a lottery with ten million entrants, and
one winning ticket will be drawn. One person does indeed win. Was
that person "lucky"? In other words, did he have more of the "mojo",
the "force", the "luck", than any other entrant, and this
supernatural force guided the computer selecting the winning entry,
or the hand of the bejeweled babe reaching into the glass bowl or
manipulating the blower or whatever, and FORCED the selection of
the "lucky" person's entry? This is the "luck"-based explanation of
why the "lucky" winner won.
OK, sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it? But that's precisely what you
believe in if you believe in "luck". A supernatural force that:
1. Attaches itself to s person for some indeterminate period of time
2. During that time, manipulates events so that things like random
events, cards dealt, falling safes pushed aside, etc. occur to the
benefit of the "lucky" one
3. Said force is indeed both prescient and omniscient enough to know
that the fortunate events caused are indeed fortunate in the long run
It's like when I win three or four pots in a row at hold'em.
Everybody pulls into a shell and is afraid of me for the next
several hands. They ACTUALLY BELIEVE that the "luck spirit" (WHO
OBVIOUSLY KNOWS THE RULES OF HOLD'EM POKER) is manipulating the deck
so that I get better cards!
Isn't this a stupid way to think? Doesn't this smack of witchcraft
and alchemy and voodoo and superstition? We pride ourselves on being
rational in our daily lives and decisions. We send our kid to Honor
Student Academy even though we have a STRONG feeling that Homer T.
Freed Memorial School down on Martin Luther King Blvd. would
be "luckier". We blow our paychecks on groceries and rent when the
lottery is RIGHT THERE next to the Slim Jims. Yet we still speak
of "luck" AS IF WERE A REAL PHENOMENON.
The reason that guy won the lottery is that SOMEONE HAD TO. Let's
use an example I've used in the past:
We have a game where 100 people each put $1 in a pot and sit in
chairs numbered 1-100. A corresponding number is drawn out of a bowl
and the person sitting in that chair wins $100. Now, if we play this
game 100 times, there will be several people who don't win at all;
there will also be several people who win twice or more. We will say
that the losers were "unlucky" and that the winners were "lucky".
Does this have any real meaning? Was the "luck force" moving from
the "lucky" chair or person and manipulating the outcome of the
drawing? If #24 was drawn four times, does that mean that the "luck"
fairy or spirit or force was dragging the hand of the picker toward
the number 24 in the bowl? Or could it simply be that it's extremely
unlikely that everyone playing would win EXACTLY ONCE, and therefore
if someone wins twice or three times, it's because someone HAD to?
If we can all drop the idea that "some people are luckier than
others", we can assess events more rationally. In reality a lifetime
is an insufficient sample size to determine whether someone has good
or bad "luck". We say the lottery winner was "lucky". But how do we
know whether his mother died when he was ten, his cat just got run
over by a truck, and for that matter one week after he cashes the
check he'll get struck and killed by lightning?
If you believe that someone is indeed "luckier" or "unluckier" than
others, then you say that the force or influence or spirit you
call "luck" has found favor with that person and alters events so
that they occur to that person's benefit. This "luck" thing would
have to be pretty all-powerful and all-knowing, wouldn't it? No
wonder humans have spent so much time and effort trying to
propitiate it!
Perhaps the logical error is to assume that an unexpected result is
CAUSED by someone or something. In reality, most of the time strange
things just happen. Why? Because they do!
Now, this is an unsatisfying explanation in the extreme. It goes
against our instinctual nature, which is to observe events closely
and to try and perceive PATTERNS. Our ancestral ape-brains needed to
be able to do this in order to survive on the savannah. The devotees
in the racebooks poring over the meaningless statistics in the
Racing Form, looking for some tendency to take advantage of, are no
different than the proto-human squatting high in a tree, observing
the movement of the game animals. Nonetheless, for some phenomena
there IS no apparent correlation; why was there flood this year and
drought the next?. This, as noted before, is deeply unsatisfying,
and led man to create gods and the supernatural as a means of
supplying an explanation.
The reason, therefore, that you believe in "luck", (and that people
believe in "God", or the numerous variations thereof), is that your
brain is hardwired to seek explanations; to perceive patterns. In
reality, much of life IS truly random, and no pattern can be
perceived because no true pattern exists.
I play perfect VP and lose for eight straight days; a clueless LOL
sits down next to me, holds a single 10, and gets a royal. It's
tempting to ascribe this to some supernatural force ("luck!"). In
fact, because of the way your brain is wired, it's almost
irresistable to do so. But it's a snare and a delusion.
we would all probably be a lot more at peace with the world if we
could discard the concept of "luck" (we would also be a lot more at
peace with the world if we discarded the related concept of "God",
but I won't go there); it's a pity that our hominid root-brains so
fiercely resist the idea.
If this isn't luck, I guess I don't what luck is.
However, the element of luck (certainly in the
short-term, which is what interests me the most) plays a large
part in determining whether or not I leave the casino with a (O: or
a O: on any given day.
Nope. Mathematics are what determines that. You lost $350 today
because that was one of the possible results of playing .25 VP for
four hours. You weren't "lucky" OR "unlucky". Sometime during the
sum of your lifetime playing sessions, this result HAD to occur. The
fact that it occured on this particular day is simply an expression
of randomness, NOT because the "luck" force or spirit or fairy
abandoned you that day.
Resist the urge to believe in the unreal, the irrational and the
supernatural!
...