Luck

[natedub]

I don't believe in Good or Bad Luck....I believe in Positive and Negative Variance.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

I think the "overwhelming" intuition preceding a lucky event is simply you noticing strong subconscious signals of something you are unfamiliar with, but would be noticeable to anyone familiar with the event.

If you think you can force a win by feeling good I don't think you should ridicule people who believe in a form of organized religion out of a sense of being powerless.

Humans are virtually incapable of dealing with the fact that an event can have absolutely no meaning. It's not pretty, it's not sexy, it's depressing, it's scary. People find any way to cope.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't believe in Good or Bad Luck....I believe in Positive and Negative Variance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Positive and Negative Variance become luck when you care which one you experience. If I move my wager between red and black on each of 100 spins of a roulette wheel -- and I lose every bet -- where's the variance?

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
Humans are virtually incapable of dealing with the fact that an event can have absolutely no meaning. It's not pretty, it's not sexy, it's depressing, it's scary. People find any way to cope.

[/ QUOTE ]

An event can have absolutely no meaning, and believing you have control may be a coping mechanism.

OTOH- Do you think it's possible some people may correctly sense an outcome, knowing they have no control over the outcome?

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Humans are virtually incapable of dealing with the fact that an event can have absolutely no meaning. It's not pretty, it's not sexy, it's depressing, it's scary. People find any way to cope.

[/ QUOTE ]

An event can have absolutely no meaning, and believing you have control may be a coping mechanism.

OTOH- Do you think it's possible some people may correctly sense an outcome, knowing they have no control over the outcome?

[/ QUOTE ]

Vegas seems to run on the fact that they can't.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
Vegas seems to run on the fact that they can't.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not stating they can -- but your statement doesn't hold up. Casinos can win based simply on knowing that most of them can't. And even if the mathematical expectation were perfect -- the distribution may be one group who were consistently 55% correct, and another group consistently 55% wrong. The premise has nothing to do with the mathematics of the game.

[Alex/Mugaaz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Vegas seems to run on the fact that they can't.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not stating they can -- but your statement doesn't hold up. Casinos can win based simply on knowing that most of them can't. And even if the mathematical expectation were perfect -- the distribution may be one group who were consistently 55% correct, and another group consistently 55% wrong. The premise has nothing to do with the mathematics of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess we must be talking about different things. I'm referring to knowing the result of a random event before it occurs, and being able to exploit it. In that case no, and I'm as certain as I can be with my reasoning facilities.

If you're referring to knowledge of the event before it happens, but cannot be exploited in anyway. Then I don't know, and am not very interested in the answer. I'd reason all supporting evidence for it can be categorized into: wishful thinking, coping mechanisms, skilled forecasting, and selective memory.

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm referring to knowing the result of a random event before it occurs, and being able to exploit it. In that case no, and I'm as certain as I can be with my reasoning facilities.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm referring to a proposed phenomena PSI researchers refer to as presentiment. It's not knowing -- but sensing, having a feeling. The "proof" would be in the subject consistently beating expectation. Of the research that's been done, the testing requires subjects to "sense" every trial/draw/event -- and then scores their results.

I'm preparing some background information for a research lab, which is how this came up. I share your reasoning -- if for no other reason than "success" would require knowledge of something that's unknown by anyone, which would preclude even telepathy. Without comment on the validity of telepathy, at least it doesn't require a predetermined future.

So, I look at what I've observed. Among the things I've noticed is that people who have "hunches" don't have them on every play, don't have them "at will", and only have feelings about events they're invested in. Included in my suggestions to the researchers is to look only at the subset of events the subjects select for scoring, and that the subject can actually win or lose something of value.

I couldn't research the subject because I'm too biased against. The researcher doing the experiment is probably too biased in favor of the proposition. I'm simply trying to define conditions that approximate a legitimate experiment.

[posnera]

The problem with winning when you have a "hunch" is that your memory is selective. You will remmeber more of the hunches that paid off than the ones that didn't. It's human nature. But unless you believe that your thought energy can influence the spin of the roulette wheel, you're just fooling yourself. Of course, that feeling when a hunch pays off is worth something, so it may be worthwhile even though it has no influence on the actual outcome of the game.

So, to answer the original question, no I don't believe in luck. However, I'm going to Vegas next week and I fully intend to win big at the tables. Wish me luck!

[SheetWise]

posnera --

I'll take that as a "qualified" no.

Selective memory is the curse of the gambler as well as the researcher. It's also an easy accusation which can be used either to support or debunk any position put forward by a proponent.

It's easy to dismiss all of this logically -- it's not as easy to disprove it empirically.