No such thing as luck?

[H3LL]

I used the phrase "there is no such thing as luck" in response to someone and then got to thinking....always dangerous.

To illustrate: Assuming I have a 1 in 40,000,000 chance of winning a weekly lottery jackpot, that chance will stay the same for any week, but this week I was the winner (I'm not BTW...It's a story).

How do I describe, with a simple word, that this week I was the winner.

I cannot say "I was lucky", as luck had nothing to do with it, only probability, and I have had and will always have the same probability of winning provided I purchase a valid ticket. I am no more lucky this week as a winner than any other week before or in the future. My probability of winning with a valid ticket remains static.

The probability is looking at 40,000,000 chances and not at me.

How do we personalise the 1 and not the 40,000,000 and replace "I was lucky" with something more sensible?

 

[Dustin Kesselberg]

Saying you were "lucky" is the way to do it.

It means that you were simply "lucky" and won by chance,even though the chances were against you.

To gain success or something desirable by chance: lucked into a good apartment; lucked out in finding that rare book.


I think most people mistake "luck" as having better chance to win.No,You still have the same chance to win the lottery even if you win 5 times in a row. You STILL have the same chance of winning the 6th time that you had the first time.You are just lucky because you DID win,Not lucky because you have a better chance OF winning.

 

[chance]

You are being chased buy a Lion, she is gaining on you at a very rapid rate, you only have moments to live. Then – the Lion trips and breaks it’s leg, luckily for you!

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

But in a sense to have "luck" is the same as to have certain amount of probability of X. Both denotate that we honestly don't know anything about the why.

Now, the real point here is that there is not a why, there is no explanation on why anyone wins the lottery. It will happen or not, nothing causal about it.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Now, the real point here is that there is not a why, there is no explanation on why anyone wins the lottery. It will happen or not, nothing causal about it.

You decided to buy a ticket. Maybe the flap of the ticket in the wind walking home caused the lottery balls to be nudged to be favorably selected a few days later.

 

[Kiless]

I once worked at a place (as a teacher) where the rules actually stated that the notion of 'luck' was considered against the rulings of the church that the school was a part of.

This included the teaching of probability.

Naturally, the Math teachers rolled their eyes and got down to the business of teaching kids correctly, including the teaching of what probability was, the way casinos stack the odds, et al.

And everything got kind of awkward when the Archbishop turned up for the final years graduation ceremony and wished them all a hearty 'good luck!' as the finale for his speech.

 

[Beady]

One of my old sigs was a quote from Lady Barbara Hornblower that runs something like, "The fortunate man is the one who knows how much he can safely leave to chance."

Personally, I figure the odds of something happening to me are about 50-50, either it will or it won't. I try to influence those odds by paying attention to what I'm doing. So far, it seems to be working, and Lady Barbara seems to be correct.

 

[jesper]

This is really a weird discussion - which i have pondered upon many a times, especially concerning football.
And why football you ask (well actually - for you americans concerned, I am talking about what you call soccer) I have been a fan of the same team for many years - and after a while you tend to get rather concerned about what makes your team win - do I have something to do with it or what. In this present season my team has won virtually every match, except 3. At which I was present - I have not been present at the other matches. The question is - do I stay away now or what. You see, what if something I do the day of a specific match, have any effect on a player from my team (like talking to him), that makes him play differently, from what he would have done if I had not talked with him.
I know about the butterfly effect - but this is really nagging me.
Two of my friends have actually told me to stay the f..k away from the stadium.

 

[Iconoclast]

Assuming I have a 1 in 40,000,000 chance of winning a weekly lottery jackpot, that chance will stay the same for any week, but this week I was the winner (I'm not BTW...It's a story).

How do I describe, with a simple word, that this week I was the winner.

I cannot say "I was lucky", as luck had nothing to do with it, only probability, and I have had and will always have the same probability of winning provided I purchase a valid ticket. I am no more lucky this week as a winner than any other week before or in the future.

Sure you are. "Luck" could be defined as how far the result of some specific trial or set of trials deviates from the mean of the probability curve for the trials. So, if you won the lottery, your result was about eight standard deviations to the right of the mean, and you could call that "extremely lucky".

Similarly, if we calculate some probability distribution of the distance that the average lightning bolt strikes the earth from you (say the mean is 8000 metres, if you ever actually get hit by a bolt of lightning, your result for that trial was a dozen or so standard deviations to the left of the mean, and you could call this "bloody unlucky".

So I guess the notion of "Luck" does have certain utility when discussed post priori.

 

[Iconoclast]

In this present season my team has won virtually every match, except 3. At which I was present - I have not been present at the other matches. The question is - do I stay away now or what. You see, what if something I do the day of a specific match, have any effect on a player from my team...

Surely that's a description of superstition, not luck.

 

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

As I said, the problem with the concept of "luck" is that some like to ascribe it as a causal factor. Thats all the problem.

 

[thatguywhojuggles]

When I was training at Circomedia, and getting ready for my final, I would drop sometimes. I remember my juggling instructor told me, "In juggling there is no luck. You either do it right, or you drop."

 

[jesper]

Surely that's a description of superstition, not luck.

Sorry - I first noticed it the day after. But on the other hand it also concerns the luck of the team and my mates. But then again - maybe theres no such thing as luck, only coincidence. arghh this is all so subjective. Can you term luck as something objective in it self.

 

[Jyera]

Someone some where said this...

"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity".

I thought it made great sense.
You won simply because you DID went out to buy that lottery ticket. (That is "preparation")

Everyone have equal Opportunity. But some have better preparation and thus better luck.

And perhaps it is time to change the dictionary definition of luck from it's current wooish definition to "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity"

 

[Just thinking]

How do we personalise the 1 and not the 40,000,000 and replace "I was lucky" with something more sensible?

Oh, what the heck, let me poke my nose in here as well ...

First off, I belive that there is no such thing as "luck", except for the bad variety. You could simply say ... "How very fortunate that I am the holder of the matching lottery ticket to the drawn numbers." Now, some of you are going to jump in and argue, hey -- "fortunate" is just another word for "luck", or "lucky". Well, it could be, and would even work as a replacement word(s) in the above sentence. But I am using the word fortunate to mean "beneficial" to the winning ticket holder. You can even replace the word "fortunate" with "beneficial" and say that sentence.

So to answer your initial question, try saying either of the two optional sentences and see if you agree better with my phrasing as opposed to using "lucky".

PS: If there was such a thing as luck, please describe an experiment that would expose this enigma and somehow quantify it. And then please collect your $1,000,000 prize money.

 

[Mrick]

I used the phrase "there is no such thing as luck" in response to someone and then got to thinking....always dangerous.

To illustrate: Assuming I have a 1 in 40,000,000 chance of winning a weekly lottery jackpot, that chance will stay the same for any week, but this week I was the winner (I'm not BTW...It's a story).

How do I describe, with a simple word, that this week I was the winner.

... and replace "I was lucky" with something more sensible?

The term is variance. Should you continue to play the lottery over a sufficiently large number of trials your results will dwarf the current variance in such a manner that it will become statistically insignificant. If the game is a net loser, you will become a net loser. Not trusting to luck, I advise that you quit playing.

As to the person handicapping the soccer match, only if your actions are likely to have an effect should you consider your visit in your handicapping. Your friend sounds superstitious.

For example, I would not change my wager based on your visit nor on your conversation. However, if Nicole Kidman made a pre-game visit and announced she was in a frisky mood and desired extended pleasure with the Most Valuable Player, I might alter my bet based on her conversation. I would consider that in my handicapping.

imho,
Mrick

 

[FramerDave]

The best definition of "luck" I have ever heard is "Opportunity met with preparation."

The lion chasing you breaks a leg? You have an opportunity to get away, assuming you're prepared, which is to sayin good shape and can run fast.

Win the lottery? You wouldn't have been able to win if you hadn't bought a ticket.

 

[Fontwell]

As is often the case in these discussions, I think it all comes down to needing a pedantic look at the words use and meaning.

Lucky: I like the idea mentioned already of using standard deviation from the mean. Also, as mentioned before, It implies benefit. But note that it is an adjective (describing word). Thus to describe a person as lucky is only saying that they benefited from an event that was statisticly rare. This is not calling any other-worldliness into being, it is just a convenient short word to cover that type of person/event i.e. beneficial and statistically rare.

Luck as a noun (a thing): Now any sceptic would unlikely to accept that luck is a thing, I mean realy a thing like cheese, heat or gravity. Thus any term like "My luck has ran out." is strictly speaking wrong.

Luck as metaphor/turn of phase: This is where we pretend that there is such a substance as luck and that it causes one to lucky. This is done for artistic effect "The luck drained from his life like a slow puncture that leaves you stranded on a dessert highway" or just as a matter of convention "I seem to get a lot of luck every time you stay for the weekend" . Note that this is just another way of saying "I seem to be lucky every time you stay for the weekend". So as long as we understand that "luck" is just a quirk of language and not a real substance every thing is OK.

To go back to the original post "There is no such thing as luck" is, in my terms strictly true. However, there are lucky outcomes, which is what the phrase realy means. To say there is no such thing as luck BTW is in fact wrong in any case. Any beneficial outcome that occurs but which is statistically more likely not to occur and in which we have no direct influence is lucky by definition.

The only way that there is no luck is if you take a deterministic view of the universe and are talking at that level. But I would say that being lucky is a macro level emergent apparent property.

 

[Metullus]

One of my old sigs was a quote from Lady Barbara Hornblower that runs something like, "The fortunate man is the one who knows how much he can safely leave to chance."

Personally, I figure the odds of something happening to me are about 50-50, either it will or it won't. I try to influence those odds by paying attention to what I'm doing. So far, it seems to be working, and Lady Barbara seems to be correct.

Horatio was one lucky guy!

 

[FreeChile]

If luck exists, then anything we do on our parts (e.g. play the numbers) is irrelevant. Luck would simply find us where we stand when it, luck, felt like it--pretty much like God.