I've decided to put up something like a blog on this page. So this is the first post and I'm still thinking how to implement it all (I like to do things myself).

How lucky are we?

Not to long ago we had a discussion during coffee break at the university. It was about how lucky we are to live in a world wich we seem to understand up to a certain level. Afterall what is the chance of our universe being the one we live in, with all these possible universes to think of? Some thought of this coincidence to be a sign that God exists, but I don't want to get into that part of the discussion.

I was thinking about this observational 'luck'. Which, in my opinion, could be seen as an observation of a random variable. So how do we observe random variables? What if we did live in another universe? Would we feel lucky or unlucky with that alternate universe? Since we don't know another universe (one where we can imagine we could live in), there is no way of telling how we'd feel if we did live there. It is even more interesting when you realize that, indeed, there are infinite different worlds 'like ours' and if we weren't here to feel lucky, we probably would be 'somewhere out there' feeling just the same way. In a way, the fact that we are here to feel lucky, makes us feel lucky, and if we weren't lucky, we wouldn't be here to talk about it. So if the fact that we are able to say that we are lucky is a direct consequence of that luck, why would we talk about luck? It is a given, as a direct consequence to our existence!

Let us look at another observation of luck: What is the chance of winning poker? Suppose your playing poker with your friends and you decided not to play for money. You get a hand of 24 and your friend picks up Rockets/American Airlines (AA). Since there is no money at stake you go along and the board gives you a pair of deuces, but makes your friend a set: A2K. There is practically zero chance of you winning right? Or is there? The turn brings up a deuce. Half way there! And the river is another deuce! You win! So, were you lucky?

Beforehand, maybe, but after you have won I don't think you can call it luck. Suppose you would have played the game differently and all the cards were open for all players to see. You see you have 24 and there will be three deuces on the board, so obviously you will win this hand. No luck involved!

What I'm trying to say in the above is that, once something happened, the chance of it happening can be considered as 1. It did happen, didn't it? So one may feel lucky with something that happened, and you are very much allowed to feel good about it, but there is no real 'luck' involved anymore.