So I’m not a mathematician but we note the outcomes of chance events all the time probably thousands to tens of thousands of times in your life depending on how much gaming you do. Given about 1000 low-likelihood events per person over their lifetime (which I’m basically making up, but I think its conservative) 1 in 100 million should experience 1 in 100 billion events, right? So basically there might be two other people with stories like yours living in the US. It is definitely a neat story, but I don’t think its the kind of thing we should never have expected to happen. Its not like the quantum tunneling of macroscopic objects or anything.
1000 is extremely conservative. Every time you play any game with an element of chance—risk, backgammon, poker, scrabble, blackjack, or even just flipping a coin—the odds against you getting the exact sequence of outcomes you do get will be astronomical. So the limiting factor on how many unbelievable outcomes you perceive in a lifetime is how good you are at recognizing patterns as “unusual”. Somebody who studied numerology or had “lucky numbers” or paid attention to “lucky streaks” would see them all the time.
In the case at hand, that same series of rolls would be just as unlikely if it had happened at the beginning of the game or in the middle or spread throughout the match and hadn’t determined the outcome. Unless there was something special about this particular game that made its outcome matter—perhaps it was being televised, there was a million dollars bet on it, or it was otherwise your last chance to achieve some important outcome—the main thing that makes that sequence of rolls more noteworthy than any other sequence of rolls of equivalent length is selection bias, not degree of unlikeliness.
“the odds against you getting the exact sequence of outcomes you do get will be astronomical”
People notice and remember things they care about. Usually people care whether they win or lose, not the exact sequence of moves that produced the result. For an event to register as unusual a person must care about the outcome and recognize that the outcome is rare. The Risk game was special because I cared enough about the outcome to notice that I was losing, because the outcome (of losing) with 26 vs. 1 armies was incredibly unlikely, and because I could calculate the odds against such an outcome occurring due to chance.
During an eighth grade science class in Oklahoma, my older sister was watching as her teacher gave a slide presentation of his former job as a forest ranger. One of the first slides was a picture of the Yellow Stone National Park entrance sign. Four young children were climbing on the sign and parked next to the sign was a green Ford Mercury. My sister jumped out of her chair yelling, “That’s us.” Sure enough that picture had captured a chance encounter years ago, far away, before my sister and her teacher had ever met. (A couple of years later I took the same class and saw the same slide. I would never have noticed our family climbing on that sign if I hadn’t remembered my sister describing her classroom experience at the dinner table.)
So very unlikely events do occur. However people are seldom in a position to both notice the event and calculate just how rare the event really is.
“So basically there might be two other people with stories like yours living in the US.”
Yes. The event has significance to me only because it happened to me. I would significantly discount the event if I heard about it second hand.
The event has significance to me only because it happened to me. I would significantly discount the event if I heard about it second hand.
Why in the world should who the event happens to make a difference? This is anthropic bias. The fact if these things happen at all they’re going to happen to someone. That fact that it was you isn’t significant in any way.
“Why in the world should who the event happens to make a difference?”
I question the surface view of the world and the universe. E.g., I wouldn’t be greatly surprised to discover that “I” am a character in a game. To the extent that I understand reality, my “evidence model” is centered on myself and diminishes as the distance from that center increases.
In the center I have my own memories combined with my direct sensory perception of my immediate environment. I also have my internal mental model of myself. This model helps me evaluate the reliability of my memories and thoughts. E.g., I know that my memory is less consistent than information that I store on my computer and then directly access with my senses. I also observe myself making typing errors, spelling errors, and reasoning errors. Hence, I only moderately trust what my own mind thinks and recalls. (On science topics my internal beliefs are fairly consistent with information I receive from outside myself. On religious and political topics, not so much.)
Friends, family, and co-workers fill the next ring. I would treat second hand evidence from them as slightly less reliable and slightly less meaningful. Next would be friends of friends. Then US citizens. Then humans. The importance I place on events and evidence decreases as my connection to the person decreases. Some humans are in small, important sets, while others are in very large, unimportant sets. That some human won the lottery isn’t unusual. That I won the lottery is. Of course to some guy in India, my winning the lottery wouldn’t be special because he has no special connection to me.
If I won a 1-in-100 million lottery I would adjust my beliefs as to the nature of reality somewhat. I would decrease my belief that reality is mundane and increase my belief that reality is strange.
So I’m not a mathematician but we note the outcomes of chance events all the time probably thousands to tens of thousands of times in your life depending on how much gaming you do. Given about 1000 low-likelihood events per person over their lifetime (which I’m basically making up, but I think its conservative) 1 in 100 million should experience 1 in 100 billion events, right? So basically there might be two other people with stories like yours living in the US. It is definitely a neat story, but I don’t think its the kind of thing we should never have expected to happen. Its not like the quantum tunneling of macroscopic objects or anything.
1000 is extremely conservative. Every time you play any game with an element of chance—risk, backgammon, poker, scrabble, blackjack, or even just flipping a coin—the odds against you getting the exact sequence of outcomes you do get will be astronomical. So the limiting factor on how many unbelievable outcomes you perceive in a lifetime is how good you are at recognizing patterns as “unusual”. Somebody who studied numerology or had “lucky numbers” or paid attention to “lucky streaks” would see them all the time.
In the case at hand, that same series of rolls would be just as unlikely if it had happened at the beginning of the game or in the middle or spread throughout the match and hadn’t determined the outcome. Unless there was something special about this particular game that made its outcome matter—perhaps it was being televised, there was a million dollars bet on it, or it was otherwise your last chance to achieve some important outcome—the main thing that makes that sequence of rolls more noteworthy than any other sequence of rolls of equivalent length is selection bias, not degree of unlikeliness.
“the odds against you getting the exact sequence of outcomes you do get will be astronomical”
People notice and remember things they care about. Usually people care whether they win or lose, not the exact sequence of moves that produced the result. For an event to register as unusual a person must care about the outcome and recognize that the outcome is rare. The Risk game was special because I cared enough about the outcome to notice that I was losing, because the outcome (of losing) with 26 vs. 1 armies was incredibly unlikely, and because I could calculate the odds against such an outcome occurring due to chance.
re: Recognizing low probability events.
During an eighth grade science class in Oklahoma, my older sister was watching as her teacher gave a slide presentation of his former job as a forest ranger. One of the first slides was a picture of the Yellow Stone National Park entrance sign. Four young children were climbing on the sign and parked next to the sign was a green Ford Mercury. My sister jumped out of her chair yelling, “That’s us.” Sure enough that picture had captured a chance encounter years ago, far away, before my sister and her teacher had ever met. (A couple of years later I took the same class and saw the same slide. I would never have noticed our family climbing on that sign if I hadn’t remembered my sister describing her classroom experience at the dinner table.)
So very unlikely events do occur. However people are seldom in a position to both notice the event and calculate just how rare the event really is.
“So basically there might be two other people with stories like yours living in the US.”
Yes. The event has significance to me only because it happened to me. I would significantly discount the event if I heard about it second hand.
Why in the world should who the event happens to make a difference? This is anthropic bias. The fact if these things happen at all they’re going to happen to someone. That fact that it was you isn’t significant in any way.
“Why in the world should who the event happens to make a difference?”
I question the surface view of the world and the universe. E.g., I wouldn’t be greatly surprised to discover that “I” am a character in a game. To the extent that I understand reality, my “evidence model” is centered on myself and diminishes as the distance from that center increases.
In the center I have my own memories combined with my direct sensory perception of my immediate environment. I also have my internal mental model of myself. This model helps me evaluate the reliability of my memories and thoughts. E.g., I know that my memory is less consistent than information that I store on my computer and then directly access with my senses. I also observe myself making typing errors, spelling errors, and reasoning errors. Hence, I only moderately trust what my own mind thinks and recalls. (On science topics my internal beliefs are fairly consistent with information I receive from outside myself. On religious and political topics, not so much.)
Friends, family, and co-workers fill the next ring. I would treat second hand evidence from them as slightly less reliable and slightly less meaningful. Next would be friends of friends. Then US citizens. Then humans. The importance I place on events and evidence decreases as my connection to the person decreases. Some humans are in small, important sets, while others are in very large, unimportant sets. That some human won the lottery isn’t unusual. That I won the lottery is. Of course to some guy in India, my winning the lottery wouldn’t be special because he has no special connection to me.
If I won a 1-in-100 million lottery I would adjust my beliefs as to the nature of reality somewhat. I would decrease my belief that reality is mundane and increase my belief that reality is strange.