Higher than "chance"

[Interesting Ian]

Although I recognise that I can not convince you, regardless of what I say, I will reply nonetheless. I originally replied to your very first post in this thread:








Your response to Bodhi Dharma Zen demonstrated that you don't have even a rudimentary grasp of the concept of chance. After I read several more of your posts in which your comprehension of the world at large slipped farther and farther into the Twilight Zone, I edited my reply.

When I say that something couldn't occur by chance, I mean we can effectlvely dismiss this possibility. Yes?? Think about the car vanishing and reappearing on the other side of the wall example. If you want to be pedantic it could happen, . .it's jsut that we can guarantee it won't. You see??

You still owe PixyMisa a quarter.

I owe him nothing.

I will not post in this thread again.

Another person outargued

 

[Dr Adequate]

Yes, if you'd asked me a completely different question I'd have given you a completely different answer. In particular, if you'd asked me for the probability of any particular thing with probability zero happenning, I'd have replied "zero". Do you see?

Similar reasoning makes the chance of me being born so incredibly close to zero probability, that effectively it could not have occurred. Yet here I am. Therefore I cannot be simply the product of a sperm and egg.

Wow, we're going to need a whole new philosophical concept to deal with this one.

Hey, let's call it "The Weak Ianthropic Principle".

 

[Suezoled]

Back to the cards briefly:

Maybe Trish was playing with me. She never had before, she never did afterward.
Somehow, 48 out of 52 cards came out for me. But I was only 11, so who knows?
In 17 years, I have not been able to reproduce that conclusion.
But it's fun to think about, anyway.

Oh, and Ian, you're such a prat.

 

[ducklord]

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I think the odds of picking 48 correct colors out of a 52 card deck, while improbable, aren't freakishly out-of-this world...

For ease of computation, let's assume zero feedback during the guesses, and that Suezoled intelligently makes 26 red guesses and 26 black guesses...

Now, the 26 red cards can be arranged in the deck C(52,26) different ways...that's 495,918,532,948,104 combinations. So, if someone ever correctly picks all 26 reds out of a 52 card deck, they've nailed a 1 in 500 trillion chance, which is pretty darned impressive.

But what are the odds of getting one red guess wrong, resulting in two "total" misses? That, I think (I didn't apply any deep statistcal knowledge to this, I just reduced the problem decks of 4, 6, 8, and 10 cards, and derived formulas), is should be 26^2 out of that 500 trillion, or about 1 in 733 billion. Still darned bad odds.

But what of Suezoled's situation, in which 2 wrong reds (along with two wrong blacks) were picked? In this case (again, extrapolating from reduction...my Stat 103 class has long faded from memory), it seems that it comes out to sum(1,(26 - 1))^2 ways of getting two wrong red cards and two wrong blacks. That's 105,625 ways out of those 500 trillion, for odds of 1 in 4,695,086,702

Okay, so it turns out to 1 in 4.7 billion odds...still ugly, but earthbound.

Someone check my math,
Mike.

 

[TheBoyPaj]

In 17 years, I have not been able to reproduce that conclusion.

I can

The fact that it was 48 cards correct and not 49 adds to the chance that this was a trick. Are you saying that Trish never did magic tricks?

Oh, and Ian, you're such a prat.

Well, that's a given.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Hey, let's call it "The Weak Ianthropic Principle".
[/B]

If anyone has any half decent argument showing my conclusion is flawed, I'd be delighted to hear it.

2 possible responses:

a) If I hadn't have been born, then anyone else "born in my place" would also think "wow, I've come into existence, but this is such an unlikely event that I therefore cannot be simply the product of a unique egg and unique sperm". Since whoever is born would think this, then it is as invalid to conclude that *I* can't come from a unique egg and sperm, as anyone else thinking this who might have been born instead of me.

This is an argument that many people in the other thread raised. Anyone who puts forward this argument is as stupid as 2 short planks. It simply fails to get to grips with the problem whatsoever.

b) If I hadn't have been born then I wouldn't be here to think "wow, I've come into existence". I can only think such a thing in the incredibly unlikely circumstances where I am born. Therefore I could only possibly experience the wonder of being born; and conversely if I hadn't have been born, I couldn't dwell on the fact, not having come into existence in the first place.

This argument is much much better. But again it doesn't work as illustrated in my story in the other thread regarding a loony who kidnaps me. Another example would be someone arguing that we have absolutely no evidence that "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) between the USA and former Soviet Union prevented a nuclear conflagration, because if such a nuclear conflagration had of occurred we wouldn't be here to ponder the fact.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Back to the cards briefly:

Maybe Trish was playing with me. She never had before, she never did afterward.
Somehow, 48 out of 52 cards came out for me. But I was only 11, so who knows?
In 17 years, I have not been able to reproduce that conclusion.
But it's fun to think about, anyway.

Oh, and Ian, you're such a prat.

It seems to be a certain playfulness of the mind which facilitates PSI. Laughter, and having fun, and not taking things too seriously, and almost having an expectation it will work, all facilitate PSI. When I was a kid it happened to me loads of times. It never does now. I now analyse things too much -- take things too seriously.

But if you're really hostile to a PSI "explanation", what about subliminal perception? Your friend holds up the cards. If they were cheap cards then the light from the window might enable your subconscious to discern an ever so slight difference which would be sufficient for you to make your correct guesses.

 

[Interesting Ian]

I can

The fact that it was 48 cards correct and not 49 adds to the chance that this was a trick.

The fact that it was 48 cards correct and not 47 substracts to the chance that this was a trick.

 

[Suezoled]

I can

The fact that it was 48 cards correct and not 49 adds to the chance that this was a trick. Are you saying that Trish never did magic tricks?



Well, that's a given.

Why would that be?

 

[TheBoyPaj]

Nope. The fact that it is not 47 also makes it more likely that it was a trick. 48 is a special number, for reasons I am not allowed to explain.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Nope. The fact that it is not 47 also makes it more likely that it was a trick. 48 is a special number, for reasons I am not allowed to explain.

And why, might I ask, are you not allowed to explain??

 

[jmercer]

Because giving away conjuror's tricks in these forums is forbidden, Ian.

(Edited to remove sarcasm, because we all sometimes overlook the obvious. )

 

[Jocce]

Similar reasoning makes the chance of me being born so incredibly close to zero probability, that effectively it could not have occurred. Yet here I am. Therefore I cannot be simply the product of a sperm and egg. You see?

"Effectively", or "for all pratical purposes" is not a fixed number. When it can be considered close enough to 0 must necessarily vary with the subject discussed so your thinking is flawed.

And similar reasoning applies to bridge hands. It is true that any bridge hand is as likely as any other. But this misunderstands the point when I say that each hand consisting of an entire suit is so vanishingly small that effectively it couldn't really happen.

Which then proves that Bridge does not exist since no hand ever could be dealt? Same error in thinking as above but I admit I would prefer Bridge to vanish. Silly game I never could learn.

One thing is clear though, you really make me think Darwin was wrong after all. We'll see in a few years I guess.

 

[SpaceFluffer]

I understand what you're saying, Ian. There are many of us here hoping that someday you will get a clue, but the probability of that happening seems to be vanishingly small.

Go study some basic probability and high school math then perhaps you might start making some semblence of sense.

 

[Interesting Ian]

Because giving away conjuror's tricks in these forums is forbidden, Ian.

(Edited to remove sarcasm, because we all sometimes overlook the obvious. )

WOW! Against the rules. Better not give any their pathetic secrets away then

{farts contemptuously}

 

[sackett]

. . . .{farts contemptuously}

Isn't he charming, folks? Let's give him a big hand.

 

[TheBoyPaj]

If there's one thing that annoys Ian, it's the realisation that he doesn't understand a topic. Normally he can just brush it off and pretend that he actually knows better than anyone else, but not this one.

And to think, for about eight pounds he could know it too.

 

[TheBoyPaj]

Actually, I really hope Ian doesn't take up magic. I can imagine he would be a blabbermouth.

 

[jmercer]

WOW! Against the rules. Better not give any their pathetic secrets away then

{farts contemptuously}

Ok, I'll put back in the sarcasm.

"Not that you would understand it, even if TBP was willing to waste his time explaining it in monosyllabic terms." And if their secrets are so "pathetic", why don't you know it? Hmm?

(edited to correct grammatical error)

 

[TLN]

If you're to dumb to understand simple English sentences, this explains much.

Ummm... he is. This has been proven beyond any doubt dozens and dozens of times.