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Re: Luck [Re: pineninja]
    #26125217 -

pineninja said:
Quad post.its good to be back :trollmove:




we're all lucky we survived that

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Re: Luck [Re: pineninja]
    #26125469 -

pineninja said:
Or maybe instead of being upset everytime he hit the rim and it bounced out he had small micro learnings that lead to an improved accuracy...no matter how many variables involved.



I don't think so.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: PocketLady]
    #26125473 -

PocketLady said:
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?


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 :lol:



:thumbup:


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26126001 -

DividedQuantum said:
laughingdog said:
Not just casinos, also insurance companies, use the mathematics of probability, to outfox, luck or randomness, and obtain a predictable result: profit, form what seems to be inscrutable.

Computerized stock trading is another example, of applying math, to what is too complex for humans to fathom.


Of course, it would be very bad luck for an insurance company if someone required a rare cancer treatment, that is covered, that ends up costing millions of  dollars. It all depends on how one frames it.


Nope-- both insurance companies and casinos continue to earn big profits, in spite of occasional big payouts, while the majority of gamblers lose. And those at the slot machines are the most telling example, as the slots are mathematically and psychologically (reinforcement theory) programed to beat those who believe in luck--and in this case no skill what so ever is involved. Millions are earned this way, on a regular basis, all over America.
.....Likewise with computer trading- Goldman Sacks, and other such institutions which use mathematical algorithms, make huge profits but don't roll dice, to pick stocks.
......Much probability is counter intuitive, and the math complex, and unemotional; whereas buying a lottery ticket is simple and emotional, hence millions buy tickets while few learn higher math.
......They also go to palm readers, and look at "their" horoscopes in newspapers. It would seem believers in luck & fate are actually generally at a disadvantage in life. It is only a short step from astrology & palm readers, to superstition and religion, and then an entire nation that ignores scientific truths, and begins to underfund science and fall behind other nations.

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Re: Luck [Re: laughingdog]
    #26126191 -

I think we are using different definitions of luck. You are addressing points I never made and positions I don't take. Every example you listed is deterministic, and therefore everything is accounted for. In a golf shot, while in some sense everything may be deterministic, but possibly not, ultimately, we still do not have any idea about all the different variables, and therefore, if the ball bounces off of a rock, fifty feet into the air, and then lands in the hole, we can safely say that this was luck. I'm having trouble seeing why this is an unacceptable position to take.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26126248 -

It's an emotional stamp on a random fluctuation within a soup of randomness.

Luck is framed and needed in this sense by an objective of getting a small ball in a pointless hole.

Luck needs an objective or outcome for it to be based upon.
Otherwise it is just an is as I believe it to be.


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Just a fool on the hill.

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Re: Luck [Re: pineninja]
    #26126692 -

Yes I think that's right.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: pineninja]
    #26126704 -

Why bother questioning the existence of luck to begin with? The laws that govern the universe will be the same regardless of either scenario.

I think that it’s more practical for a person to live in whatever way they find to be meaningful. This should be paired with making wise and sensible decisions. In this way if some fortuitous circumstance appears then its only an added bonus to the life.

One of the social implications of the idea of luck is that people become envious of others who seem to be living, relatively, better than they are, and so they claim the other person’s good fortune to be governed by chance. That’s an issue of perception.

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Re: Luck [Re: Dream-Time]
    #26126742 -

I simply came across that Emerson quote, and thought it might be a good topic for discussion. It does raise interesting questions regarding causality vs. chance, fundamental vs. emergent phenomena, aspects of superstition, etc.

And, regarding your final point, fortune and well-being are often heavily dependent upon chance. They often aren't. We're a one-or-the-other culture, and it's tiresome to me. All of the above is more often correct.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26126798 -

Luck to me is an expression, just a saying.

Chance is a lot more obvious.

But some peoples religious upbringing makes them careful ablut what words they use.  So they don't lose the magic essence of their prayers.


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"in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur"

In filth it will be found in dung it will be found

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Re: Luck [Re: Morel Guy]
    #26126800 -

Fortune is a good term to use for luck.  It's the amount of luck.  The end sum of luck.


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"in sterquiliniis invenitur in stercore invenitur"

In filth it will be found in dung it will be found

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Re: Luck [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26126939 -

DividedQuantum said:
I think we are using different definitions of luck. You are addressing points I never made and positions I don't take. Every example you listed is deterministic, and therefore everything is accounted for. In a golf shot, while in some sense everything may be deterministic, but possibly not, ultimately, we still do not have any idea about all the different variables, and therefore, if the ball bounces off of a rock, fifty feet into the air, and then lands in the hole, we can safely say that this was luck. I'm having trouble seeing why this is an unacceptable position to take.


"Every example you listed is deterministic" - I don't agree.
If the slots were deterministic, it would be false advertising.
If it was known you were going to break your leg, no one would sell you insurance, etc.

Like wise the universe is all one, so the same laws apply everywhere.

Same with lottery tickets - precisely not deterministic - in any measurable or predictable  way, although still following the laws of physics at levels beyond our understanding, and also beyond our ability to influence.
So what is 'random' at one level is 'deterministic' at another level.

Like wise the universe is following the laws of physics at levels beyond our understanding, but also beyond our ability to influence. This is what makes science possible. If we could influence the laws that would be 'magic', not science. So I think 'luck' is just a term for a result we happen to like, but don't understand fully how & why it happened, with the result that we can't use such events to gain data we can use to control future events.

an old, (often quoted) story:

"Good Luck Bad Luck!

There is a Chinese story of a farmer who used an old horse to till his fields. One day, the horse escaped into the hills and when the farmer's neighbors sympathized with the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?" A week later, the horse returned with a herd of horses from the hills and this time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, "Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?"

Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, "Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?"

Some weeks later, the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied youth they found there. When they saw the farmer's son with his broken leg, they let him off. Now was that good luck or bad luck?

Who knows?

Everything that seems on the surface to be an evil may be a good in disguise. And everything that seems good on the surface may really be an evil. "

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Re: Luck [Re: laughingdog]
    #26127091 -

laughingdog said:
Like wise the universe is following the laws of physics at levels beyond our understanding, but also beyond our ability to influence. This is what makes science possible. If we could influence the laws that would be 'magic', not science. So I think 'luck' is just a term for a result we happen to like, but don't understand fully how & why it happened, with the result that we can't use such events to gain data we can use to control future events.




I think this is an excellent point, and this is the essence of how I have been using the word. It seems that several people in this thread are using several different conceptualizations of "luck," and so I think there has been some confusion. Your point above is a good elucidation of the perspective I have implicitly taken.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26127150 -

…Yes here are some further subtleties, (& some possible additional considerations, many may already be familiar with) of what ‘we happen to like’.

….At the human level, most of our behavior is actually unconscious.
No one can explain how they walk, or talk, or digest, etc. Even ’thinking’ is largely unconscious - as a textbook on ‘Abnormal’ Psychology, or a review of the 12 Defense Mechanisms (of Freud) quickly makes clear. Every hypnotist knows this, and everyone in advertising  (or propaganda, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, for example) knows this also.
….So in some ways we are mysteries to ourselves, or seemingly out of control, which may even take the paradoxical form of compulsive behavior (or being too predictable) and habits (also deterministic) that are hard to break.
….then again, we don’t want a totally predictable life. We want spontaneity, surprise, and laughter. So we don’t really want total control; (that seems a mistake many dictators have fallen into).
….So strangely it may be lucky, to be out of control. They even say this is why some CEOs go to a dominatrix, after business hours.
….I guess the magic balance point is what is called the “flow state”, which usually happens within the context of a time, event, and place, such as a tennis game. They say that in this state, one feels 'at one with the activity', as if one can do no wrong, as if one is 'lucky'. But of course it also involves a surrender. All desire to do anything else must be surrendered, while the flow state is being maintained. No wandering attention to look at pretty girls.
..."Samadhi" may refer to something similar, but I don't feel qualified, to comment further on it.

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Re: Luck [Re: laughingdog]
    #26129729 -

lucky people seem to be more in tune with things, this is about openness, general awareness, and a good sense of timing.

unlucky people are the ones who invented the term "luck" and some of them have (wrong) magical ideas about why they are not lucky enough.

bear in mind that even people born to poverty can be lucky and happy bastards, while many born to wealth are miserable unlucky sods.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Luck [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26129824 -

And there we have two different meanings or tiers of the concept of luck. Someone who just landed a good job may consider himself lucky, but really, there was no "luck" involved as the person was qualified and interviewed well. In this sense, it's more of a superstition.

I think of luck as laughingdog described above -- one's being the unwitting beneficiary of some phenomenal result arising from processes that cannot be controlled or duplicated. Sort of like a football team winning the opening toss, or someone whose very unreliable car made it on a thousand mile road trip. Examples are legion.

In your comments, rgv, you talk more about the former. People may consider themselves to be lucky in general, and this is more of a magical worldview or personal philosophy than anything. In that sense, it may be a bit of a fabrication. Like you say, people born into extreme poverty may obsess about their bad luck, but really it is the result of simple and inevitable cause and effect. Their sense of luck is more along the lines of magic or fate.

As you also say, this notion of subjective luck can be found in a positive sense in very disadvantaged people, and fucked up, depressed rich folks may subconsciously consider themselves very unlucky. There are different ways to think about luck.


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Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici

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Re: Luck [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26129870 -

Paradoxically the more one is in the flow state, the less particular self, there is.
In the flow state often the activity sort of seems to do itself.
...So, while in the state there are no thoughts of: 'how lucky I am' or 'how great I am'.
Seems it is only afterwards, when the performer, takes a bow, or says silly things to interviewers, (as social conventions dictate), that these notions occur.
...Or perhaps later, they recount a story, in which they portray themselves, as more in control and separate, than they actually felt, while merging with their experiencing.
...I think part of Zen and Samurai training, was to become fearless, thru dropping self while in the flow state.
...The flow state is the closest, phenomenon, for which there is real evidence, that I know of, that may approximate what is sometimes meant by 'luck'.
...And it would seem to function to the degree, that self is released. So if one managed to live in this state, there would be no one to be lucky, and that would be the best luck.

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Re: Luck [Re: laughingdog]
    #26131839 -

good summaries.
that flow "state" sounds lucky, but may not be a state as much as a practice.

states are static, flow suggests change, this new age term verges on magical skewing of views as does luck.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Luck [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26132544 -

redgreenvines said:
good summaries.
that flow "state" sounds lucky, but may not be a state as much as a practice.

states are static, flow suggests change, this new age term verges on magical skewing of views as does luck.


I agree "flow" sounds like a new age term, especially because of all the books that use the term in their titles, to cash in - but that seems not to be the case - for example:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=science%2C+flow+state&atb=v167-1&ia=web
and of course both Zen and Samurai training, etc.,
are centuries old.
You are of course right, that "Flow state" is a nominalization; just as 'life' is a nominalization of 'living; our silly noun based language does this all the time. Apparently there are verb based languages:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=verb+based+languages&atb=v167-1&ia=web

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Re: Luck [Re: laughingdog]
    #26132896 -

State of flow was not part of the dharma, but the practice of zazen is

easy enough to resume the relaxing open practice and continue after a distraction like believing you are in the state o flow.

anyway I do think it is a lucky thing to be able to talk about it.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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