You're just describing probability, not 'luck'. When a 1000/1 shot wins it's not luck, it's simply that a certain set of unlikely circumstances has occured including those which were not considered (ie not forseen). Like with your bird analogy, you know the area of the sky over the pitch, the bird population density, the amount of time balls are usually in the air during a match... all entirely predictable even though that might work out as once in a 500 hundered years. Same with the penalty, observe 1000 games and you'll be able to derive a reasonable probability of slipping, boots coming off, being hit by a throw coin, fainting under pressure etc etc.Frogmella wrote: ↑Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:56 pmLuck does exist, it is when an unforseeable happenstance occurs, something that you could not reasonably calculate for. Like when a bird gets killed by a cricket ball or David Beckham's foot slips from under him just as he goes to take a penalty kick. or some unforseen equipment failure. While it is possible to calculate a mathematical probability if you have all possible information in advance the fact is, you can never have it all. Besides if everything were simply mathematically predicatable there would be no point in sport of any kind, no point in living either. This is why I am opposed to video ref's, refereeing mistakes are a part of the uncertainty (luck) of a game. If you reduce uncertainty then it becomes more likely that those with the most money to invest will win all. We are already seeing this as Peter has pointed out in his video about wage bills in the Premier League.ShaunWhite wrote: ↑Mon Feb 27, 2017 7:56 pmThere's no such thing as 'luck', only probability & odds.
Luck, or being lucky, would require some interaction between an indiviual and an event on which they had no bearing. If you consider yourself lucky it reduces your ability to assess risk, and if you consider yourself to be unlucky you will deny yourself opportunities which are otherwise potentially advantageous. Therefore, with no feasible positive outcome, the whole concept is as damaging as it is irrational.
I'm not saying that all probabilities, or even any, can be calculated with much degree of acurancy, most are just a best guess.
I think the issue here is that you're making a mental leap between something having a probabilty of occuring, and it being predictable, that's simply not the case. You can have a 1 in a hundered event not happening for a 10,000 attempts, then happening 100 times in a row, or it might happen for the first five in a row.
If you think probability and predictability are in anyway related you're mistaken....toss a coin 20 times, a pure irrefutable 50/50 outcome ? (ignore the tosses where it's hit by a bird, or lands on its edge, or it rolls down a drain) and I'lll wager you don't get 10 heads. Actually, what odds would you give me on it being 10 ?
Luck, magic and other notions like 'religious miracles' are just manifestations of the human brain being absolutely useless at handling either very small or very large numbers. We can't even understand a tiny numbers like a billion, that's why politicians try and impress us saying things like 'we're spending a billion pounds on education' and everyone cheers ...say it's 32p a week per head of population, and we understand, and it sounds pathetic.
We're just an 8 bit organism barely coping in a massively complex set of physics.
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