I've put this in a format so people can follow the discussion better. New replies in-line after "FRANK REPLY".
Frank Wrote: What I believe you are alluding to is related to how people fail to account for
the role chance plays in our lives and general over-reliance on the past as a predictor of the future. It is further linked to the science of heuristics, which explains the shortcuts humans use to make decisions with imperfect information.
Where problems arise is when people make those quick and dirty choices without realizing just how risky their decisions are, and how tenuous the information they base them on really is. This is never more prevalent than it is in gambling, where fluctuation dominates the entire time scale people can hold
safely within their heads. Only by looking at meticulous long term large sample records can the truth be revealed.
I to was dubious of all things gambling related, until I had access to our old team records and got to see things from the POV of massive multi-million hand samples.
TOM REPLY: Maybe computer generated samples like that would help people with gambling addiction. I don't think it's very hard to show that gambling results aren't as chaotic as you say some people see them as.
FRANK REPLY: What night be helpful is long term real records of actual people. I don't think anything computer generated would be well received. The problem is that as a first step to addiction treatment GA tries to convince people that it's impossible to make money gambling, so the records of professional gamblers would not be something they would want distributed. It's never been tried. Convincing people to keep accurate daily records themselves is a treatment modality in some places, but again since total abstinence is the primary goal in treatment these days, from the time people enter treatment this is no longer possible.
Frank Wrote: Try to remember Tom that most people don't have access to that kind or quality of information. Put yourself in their shoes. Their whole lives aren't an adequate sample to know what you and I take for granted. They are basing their opinions on personal experience without being privy to just how much experience lies.
TOM REPLY: The appeal of religion may be in how it plays the same role to life in general as computer programs that show exact expected value play in gambling.
FRANK REPLY: I believe vpFREE has a no religion topic rule, so I'll abstain from commenting.
Frank Wrote: One can disagree, but one can hardly blame them for making decisions based on their own lifetime of experience.
~FK
FRANK WROTE: P.S. For anyone interested in "how much experience lies" and "how little a lifetime means", there are two standout books I've read recently: The Believing Brain by ~Michael Shermer...and The Drunkard's Walk by ~Leonard Mlodinow
I have read others, but those were the best.
TOM REPLY: Do they discuss the subject of the difficulty with which people overcome beliefs that they only held because most people believed them?
FRANK REPLY: Yes, in detail. The primary premise of "The Believing Brain" is that belief come first and then people look only for confirmatory evidence to support what they already believe, while discarding anything dis-confirmatory. Michael Shermer calls this, "Belief Dependant Realism". Most people adopt a mind set where it is quite literally impossible for their opinions to ever change, even in the face of new information.
One simple method by which this is achieved is to accept as true things you want to believe and to see anything that disagrees with your preexisting opinions as deception and lies. The reality is that people on both sides of arguments deceive and lie and one cannot judge a statement as truth merely because it agrees with what you want and expect.
