Wrath of Dagon

Probability theory is definitely not just about predicting what is going to happen. A quick google of the term "Probability theory" demonstrates this. An awful lot of it is analyzing random phenomenon that has already occurred. If something has already occurred, it has probability of one, but whatever, I don't want to argue about definitions. State the axiom. With a source please. An extremely low probabilty of an event makes the event functionally impossible, the source is myself. But it can be any one of a million individuals, not a specific individual. So? This is a red herring. The winning individual is within the subset of all other individuals. This winner had a probability of winning. What was it? It's not a red herring, it's the central point which you may or may not understand. Before he won, it was whatever the odds of the lottery are. After he won, it became one. The event that happened was not that a pre-determined individual won, it's that one of the entire pool of people playing won. And the odds of that are quite reasonable. You can't escape that point no matter how often you repeat yourself.

You mean an example? Which one, I don't remember any from you.

Because this notion of "pre-determined" is misleading. Unless you're just stating that the odds of predicting a winner are very low. This does not preclude the event itself from actually happening, or refute that very unlikely events can occur. Probability theory is about predicting what's going to happen, so yes, the chances of predicting a winner are very low. You then have to ask yourself whether with chances being that low, what are your expectations on being able to pick a winner? Do you think you can ever do that in your lifetime? From this point I think we're just going around in circles, since you're trying to disprove an axiom, while I'm trying to give you an intuitive feel for why the axiom is true, since an axiom can not be proven. But it can be any one of a million individuals, not a specific individual.

Fine, pick your favorite example and I'll show to you why it's bogus, if I haven't already.

That's odd, I'm fairly sure there's been numerous examples posted. Numerous bogus examples.

@Thorton Impossible for all practical purposes, like saying something will happen once every trillion years is the same as saying it will never happen, unless you're planning on living for a trillion years. Dagon, the incorrect assumption you're making is that the odds of "some person" winning is wholly independent of a "unique person" winning. In order for "some person" to win, a "unique person" must win. You have already conceded that it's not impossible for "some person" to win, but it's impossible for a "pre-determined" person to win. This "some person" is an individual. Are you claiming that this individual's chances of winning were somehow lower than a "pre-determined" person's chances of winning? Now you're just confusing me. Why not just use terms "some person" and "pre-determined person", why do you have to indroduce "individual" as opposed to "pre-determined" I'm saying a pre-detemined person (you in the last example) will not win, while "some person" has a good chance of winning. Edit: And by "some person" I mean any one of the people playing the lottery, before you ask.

That's all I was saying in that particular discussion, not in the entire thread. They're not impossible (since there's a finite probability) but for all practical purposes they will never occur. This should be axiomatic and obvious, but if it's not, then I guess it's a matter of your belief system. The only way to disprove it is to show an extremely unlikely event that actually occurred, and except for the woman winning 4 times, I'm not aware of any.

Think of it this way, you have a lot less chance of winning a lottery than that someone somewhere is going to win the lottery. That's all I'm saying.

By unique I mean pre-selected before he's won anything.

Actually octomom may have been a bad example, since I think they actually implanted 8 embryos. As far as normal women without any conditions, and if the law really holds for octuplets (like I said, I don't think it's been proven), than I'd never expect to see a normal woman have octuplets.

Try not to go off the subject, identical twins happen when a fertalized egg splits, what's so unlikely about that? Fine, two twins a bit common for you (lol)? What about octuplets. A 1 in 25 quadrillion chance (as per Hellin's Law). Are they impossible? Has anyone proved it to be true? That could hold for a woman with no unusual medical conditions, but there could be women who are more susceptible. It's known that fertility drugs greatly increase the chances (like octomom), some women may have natural conditions which do the same. The law could still hold for smaller litters, but a few women in the world with unusual conditions would greatly skew the chances at very low probabilities.

@Nightshade Because if a billion people are playing the lottery the chance of one of them winning is much greater than if a single individual is playing.

Try not to go off the subject, identical twins happen when a fertalized egg splits, what's so unlikely about that? OK, forget it. Either restate what you're trying to prove, or which exact stament of mine you're disputing and why. I'm not sure what we're arguing about right now. For my part I'll just restate that the odds of some person in the world winning a lottery are much better than the odds of a specific preselected person winning the lottery.

Elaborate. How am I not picking a unique individual? You are picking a unique individual, Chuck. What you have to be talking about is some person in the world who plays the lottery.

Actually, that's pretty much EXACTLY what you have said multiple times in this thread. E.g.: No, what I said was the odds of a specific person winning are impossible, not the odds of someone in the world winning.

Indeed? But if that is indeed what I did (I didn't, but let's pretend that I did) then the probability my calculation returned should have been considerably smaller than the correct number, which you are still insisting is 1 in 100 trillion, correct? Because the odds of specific person winning must be considerably smaller than the odds for anyone winning. Right? So, are there any other criticism of the methodology? (Let's leave your assumption that I calculated incorrectly for later. That's easy to deal with.) Your odds are smaller because you applied the binomial theorem incorrectly, as I've already stated. And again, I can't critisize your methodology until you show me your exact calculation.

It's really simple, Every pregnancy is a result of a 1/200 million (best odds) of a race/lottery. Actually longer if you include natural relationships rather than just a pitri dish version from a single coupling. No, getting a particular sperm would be those odds. Getting one of them is actually quite good, like 1 in 10, otherwise no one would ever be born.

Yes, and that's the point. And actually why I liked you picking the square root of 1 million because it saved me time. Since the odds of winning this lottery is 1/1000. You admit that it is possible for someone to win a lottery at 1/1000. Since winning a lottery is an independent event, the chances of someone winning a lottery that has already won one is also 1/1000. Since 1/1000 is an acceptable probability that you concede is possible, therefore it is possible for someone to have already won the lottery, to win it again. This is because the odds of winning a second lottery, having already won the first lottery, is still 1/1000. The odds of any individual winning 2 lotteries is, as you state, 1 in a million (1/1000 * 1/1000). However, since you definitively state that winning something with 1/1000000 odds is impossible, you then paradoxically must be concluding that the odds of someone winning a second lottery having already won 1 lottery MUST be 0. Not 1/1000. In your world, since winning two lotteries of these odds is impossible, you must believe that anyone that has already won the lottery has a 0% chance of winning another lottery. 0 != 0.001 I said 1/1000 is a reasonable probabilty, 1 in 1 million is not. Don't confuse a probability not being reasonable with it being 0. I'm not saying the odds of someone winning two lotteries are impossible, I'm saying the odds of a pre-determined person winning two lotteries are impossible. Until you understand the difference, we're not going to get anywhere.

I didn't understand any of that except that Calax likes to talk about sperm. Don't read it if you don't like it.

If you're claiming I'm under a misconception, you better state why or shut up.

It is directed at me since I made the statements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alia_Sabur Anyway, back to probability! Pidesco's right: we wouldn't want to knock the thread off topic. It's not that you know her, it's that you know of her. You could use the binomial theorem, but you'd have to apply it correctly. The biggest problem with what you're trying to do is you're trying to calculate odds for a specific person winning, instead of the odds of someone in the world winning. And when, exactly, did I do that? When you called my posts asinine. You're right, I am. He has a probably of doing so at 1/1000. This is an event that you yourself agree is possible. Since it's possible for him to achieve this event, I'm not assuming that anything impossible has happened. My reason for doing so is that you stated definitively that it is impossible. I'm demonstrating that it is, in fact, possible. The only way winning subsequent lotteries would be impossible would be if the chances of you winning a lottery was dependent on whether or not you won a previous lottery. It is not. You have to multiply the chances of winning the lotteries though, so the chance of him winning 2 lotteries would be 1000x1000 i.e. 1 million, do you disagree with that?

You started ad hominem attacks, remember? And I never do it unless I'm answering one.

Sure you do.

Well, I am capable of understanding Fourier analysis. Have you ever considered the possibilty that it's you who's not understanding anything, possibly due to your drug habit, and thus whatever I say seems incomprehensible to you, just like a particle physicist trying to explain something to a 5th grader, in other words someone like you, would be completely incomprehensible?