DividedQuantum said:

I sympathize with everything you've said. Everything is connected. However, you're not giving any room for contingency, only necessity. Contingency is every bit as much a part of Nature as necessity is. I don't think Kawhi Leonard's shot was ordained from the beginning. Even if it were, it can still be lucky. Contingency is real and necessary, just as necessity can be contingent.

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I'm not saying that absolutely everything is deterministic.  There are a whole host of factors which go into an event like that happening, all of which constitute a cause. Free will still exists to a certain extent. But to say it's pure luck, completely free of influence, which is basically what you stated previously...I guess that's the bit that doesn't make sense to me I agree that they can both exist together though.

DividedQuantum said:

Well, maybe I haven't been clear. I'm not trying to make sweeping ontological statements when I address the subject of luck. There can be clear causes for something happening, for anything and everything, but it doesn't mean the factors involved have to be strictly orderly or meaningfully destined to happen. Nature is not a bunch of billiard-balls banging around, anyway.

I don't think lucky events are free of influence at all. The laws of physics are perfectly adequate influences. And I think events that were unintended (by an individual, a group, a system or a universe) but beneficial can crop up, and do all the time, even though of course this doesn't happen in a vacuum.

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DividedQuantum said:

Do you intuitively feel that chance is not a real phenomenon? Attributing luck to chance would be an easy solution. On the other hand, I can see a scenario in which, if we treat luck as a purely emergent conceptual phenomenon, even in a chance-free universe you could describe certain events as "lucky."

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PocketLady said:

DividedQuantum said:

Do you intuitively feel that chance is not a real phenomenon? Attributing luck to chance would be an easy solution. On the other hand, I can see a scenario in which, if we treat luck as a purely emergent conceptual phenomenon, even in a chance-free universe you could describe certain events as "lucky."

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In its purest form, yes I guess I do feel that chance is not what it appears to be on the surface. I don't think everything is predetermined, but I do think that perhaps there are hidden factors such as the subconscious and unconscious mind which influence reality as we perceive it, and prevent anything from being truly random. I also think that if we can gain access to the hidden parts of the mind that are influencing our lives, then maybe we have the ability to change what we perceive to be luck.

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DividedQuantum said:

I agree with everything you have said. Imo, even if nature is inherently orderly, Leonard's make was still lucky. Why not? Let me ask you this: In what way was it not lucky? What coherent force would you posit that would determine one way or the other how that shot went? And if there was no coherent force that made the shot go in... how was it not lucky?

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Sure, it was lucky. Like I said, I don’t think luck and cause and effect are mutually exclusive. They both exist at the same time, one being a facet of the other. When you search in the physical world for some kind of coherent force and can’t find one, it appears as luck. When you expand that perspective to go beyond the purely physical/rational/conscious world, causal connections can be seen. They are both ultimately the same thing. It’s just a matter of perspective.

Anyway I feel like I may just be repeating myself now. This is why I don’t post in PS&P much these days. It makes my brain hurt