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Wafflesquad
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Wafflesquad
170 posts
Peasant

What is chance? How is it represented in mathematics? Why does it exist? If chance is capable of creating the universe (according to atheists, who claim to be intellectuals, and therefore know more than I do), then why doesn't everyone win the lottery?

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jroyster22
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jroyster22
755 posts
Peasant

Well I am not exactly sure how your question about the lottery is relevant to why chance exists? You cant apply chance to the lottery like that. I mean technically everyone could win the lottery if we all picked the same number and and they were the winning number. Im kind of confused about what you are really asking.

Kasic
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Kasic
5,552 posts
Jester

then why doesn't everyone win the lottery?


Statistically, if you played enough times you would win. I don't know what odds are to winning the lottery though.

What is chance? How is it represented in mathematics?


I assume you're talking about probability. If you have 4 red marbles and 4 blue marbles, you've got a 50% chance to pick a blue marble from the bag.

Why does it exist?


It doesn't if you had a choice. Say there were 4 blue marbles lying on the ground and 4 reds ones, and you wanted a red one. You'd simply reach down and pick up a red one. Chance only works if it's random.

If chance is capable of creating the universe


I honestly have no idea where you got the idea that chance created the universe. The only thing I can think of what you're trying to say is when we say that there's so many planets in the universe it's statisticly miniscule of a chance that we are the only life out there.
qwerty1011
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qwerty1011
554 posts
Peasant

chance is theoretical. In theory rolling a dice 6000 times should get 1000 of each number but it won't in real life. Also how does being an atheist make you an intellectual and how did chance create the universe. You might be refering to the infinite universe theory but thats not chance

0ShimZ0
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0ShimZ0
116 posts
Nomad

The word chance in philosophy means a complex of causes that produces an indeterministic process with indeterministic effects, therefore not-necessary, not-deterministic. The ancient concept of chance as not existences of causes is nowadays obsolete and yet not able to be proposed. In the 20th century subatomic physics, cosmology and biology studied and pointed out many case of indeterministic process concerning the birth of universe, its phenomenology, subatomic particles behaviour, genetic mutation and so on.
according to wikipedia

a. The unknown and unpredictable element in happenings that seems to have no assignable cause.
b. A force assumed to cause events that cannot be foreseen or controlled; luck: Chance will determine the outcome.
by the free dictionary

so in short luck isn't some kind of voodoo or magic element. and can't be expressed in math because it's a general name for "unkhown factors" which we still have to discover(like we did with land, continents, planets and so on)
Wafflesquad
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Wafflesquad
170 posts
Peasant

So chance is what we don't know, doing something? Couldn't we find out what it is based on its effect?

harryoconnor
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harryoconnor
77 posts
Peasant

There is no such thing as chance in real life it is only a mathematically way of expressing the unknown. There is only one possible outcome of everything due to how the atoms where arranged at the start of the universe. This lead to everything else, even the chemically reactions in your brain that make choices for you in life would always be the same as long as there where the same atoms at the start of the universe.
We use chance as we do not know all the factors that affect something. If you flip a coin there is not a 50% chance but a 100% chance it will land heads or tails. If you know the force, weight, air resistance, etc you could work it out. But you will never know every factor so we call it 50%.

jets99
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jets99
599 posts
Nomad

chance is the red card you pick up when you play monopoly lol

grimml
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grimml
879 posts
Nomad

In theory rolling a dice 6000 times should get 1000 of each number


Wrong. You can get 6000 times a 6, the probability is just very low, to be a bit more accurate: (1/6)^(6000)=1.24*10^(-4669). You have a high probability to get every number about 1000 times, but it doesn't need to be exactly 1000 times.
If you look at another example: the coin toss. You can make a graph with the probabilty of every outcoming event and you'll get a Gaussian distribution. It looks about like that:

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~keita6/bell.curve.gif

There is no such thing as chance in real life it is only a mathematically way of expressing the unknown.


I don't think that this is true. Just look at the radioactive decay.
iMogwai
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iMogwai
2,027 posts
Peasant

So chance is what we don't know, doing something? Couldn't we find out what it is based on its effect?


Right, scientists will do that, right after they figure out how to look into the future.

You can use mathematics to figure out the probability that something happens, but you can never say for sure, unless the probability is 100%.

You can get 6000 times a 6, the probability is just very low, to be a bit more accurate: (1/6)^(6000)=1.24*10^(-4669). You have a high probability to get every number about 1000 times, but it doesn't need to be exactly 1000 times.


That's exactly what he meant. If the probability was completely accurate, you'd get 1000 of each, but because it is random, it's not very likely that the results are exactly as predicted.

I don't think that this is true. Just look at the radioactive decay.


I don't quite get your point here.

If chance is capable of creating the universe


Chance itself did not create the universe, something else did, and it was just chance that it did occur. IMO, chance is not a thing itself, it's just something we use to describe random occurrences.
grimml
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grimml
879 posts
Nomad

That's exactly what he meant. If the probability was completely accurate, you'd get 1000 of each, but because it is random, it's not very likely that the results are exactly as predicted.


Again: That is wrong (if I understand you correctly). If you have a dice with a probability of EXACTLY 1/6 to get any number, you (probably) still won't get every number 1000 times if you roll the dice 6000 times. You can calculate the chances of every outcoming event. The event that every number appears 1000 times just has the highest probability. But the chance that you won't get every number 1000 times is still higher than the chance that you get it.

I don't quite get your point here.


Quantummechanics is very important to describe the radioactive decay. Particles are decribed as waves with a probability to be somewhere. What I mean with that is, that you can't know the exact impetus (or energy) and the exact place of any particle. That's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. So you will only get probabilities for the radioactive decay. For example: iodine (131) has a half-life of 8 days. In 8 days half of the iodine will decay. But you can't say every second so and so many iodine will decay. You can only describe it with probabilities. And as far as we know it's not because we don't have some special factors, it's just how the nature is working.
iMogwai
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iMogwai
2,027 posts
Peasant

If you have a dice with a probability of EXACTLY 1/6 to get any number, you (probably) still won't get every number 1000 times if you roll the dice 6000 times. You can calculate the chances of every outcoming event. The event that every number appears 1000 times just has the highest probability. But the chance that you won't get every number 1000 times is still higher than the chance that you get it.


Okay, I think I get what you mean. The chances of not getting that exact combination is higher than the chance of getting it. That's true. I'll rephrase that.

With a 1/6 chance to get one specific value on the dice, if probability was precise you should get at least one if you throw the dice six times, but because of chance, such an estimation is impossible to make.

And about your radioactive decay explanation, I guess I can see how it's relevant to the subject, but I don't see the connection between it and the quote. But then again, it's very late here, maybe it'll make more sense tomorrow.
grimml
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grimml
879 posts
Nomad

With a 1/6 chance to get one specific value on the dice, if probability was precise you should get at least one if you throw the dice six times, but because of chance, such an estimation is impossible to make.


Again: No^^ You have a a probabilitity of (5/6)^6=0.335 of not getting any 6 (for example) when rolling the dice 6 times. So the chance that you get a 6 at least one time is about 66% (although you have a probability of 1/6 for a 6)

And about your radioactive decay explanation, I guess I can see how it's relevant to the subject, but I don't see the connection between it and the quote. But then again, it's very late here, maybe it'll make more sense tomorrow.


I just wanted to say that probabilities are very important in quantumphysics. And not only because we don't know all factors that lead to an event, but because we can't know all factors with an accuracy of 100% (Heisenberg uncertainty principle).
iMogwai
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iMogwai
2,027 posts
Peasant

Again: No^^


You missed my point.

--->IF<--- probability was precise you should get at least one if you throw the dice six times


In other words, if a 1/6 probability actually meant one out of six results would be the value we want. What our point here has been is that you cannot figure out exactly what will happen when chance is involved.

It's sort of a reply to the insane reasoning in the OP.

If chance is capable of creating the universe (according to atheists, who claim to be intellectuals, and therefore know more than I do), then why doesn't everyone win the lottery?


We're saying that everyone doesn't win the lottery because there's no way to look into the future when chance is involved. If chance is involved, an exact prediction is impossible.
qwerty1011
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qwerty1011
554 posts
Peasant

Basically probability isn't real and in most cases the probability of what should be probable working are less than the probability of them not working

goumas13
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goumas13
4,752 posts
Grand Duke

In theory rolling a dice 6000 times should get 1000 of each number but it won't in real life.

Actually no.
Important differences can be caused by biological variability and experimental imprecision. A non-perfect dice has some particular and unique proprieties, it has an idiosyncrasy (e.g. a dice -ceteris paribus- does not have everywhere the same density). Due to said idiosyncrasy, the probabilities (i.e. p1= "1", p2="2", p3="3", etc.) are not equal (i.e p1=p2=p3=...=p6), better the dice is closer they are. Nevertheless, some results are more probable than others to some extent.
Plus, the "how" you roll the dice influences the experiment, every time the dice will roll in a slightly different way.
Now, lets hypothesize a perfect dice, with virtually no anomalies and a machine that rolls the dice exactly the same way every single time, will the result be, if we roll the dice 6000 times, 1000 of each value?
No, not obligatory. What will happen is that the more we repeat the experiment the more the probabilities will tend to 1/6. And, after an infinite amount of tests all the probabilites will be belike 1/6.
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