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[Edit] As jodrellblank replied that would mean a person for which the laws of probability/statistics do not apply. [/Edit]
opter - n. A person(or agent) who is good at seeking opportunities and is able to take advantage of them.
Parcel up the same message as positive thinking, cosmic ordering, the law of attraction or subjective reality, and the same types trip over themselves to be the first to ridicule it.
And it does seem to be the same core message.
I am thinking of the words opters and non-opters to describe such people. Lucky/unlucky would mean they have better odds at games with random elements such as roulette, or better chance of walking over money on the street or so on. [Edit] As jodrellblank replied that would mean a person for which the laws of probability/statistics do not apply. [/Edit] opter - n. A person(or agent) who is good at seeking opportunitie…
If you define 'lucky' as someone for whom physics/statistics do not apply then you make it a pretty meaningless term for the real world.
or better chance of finding money on the street or so on.
This is what the article is talking about - the chance of money being on the street stays the same, the 'lucky' person is more likely to spot it.
I am thinking of the words opters and non-opters to describe such people. Lucky/unlucky would mean they have better odds at games with random elements such as roulette, or better chance of walking over money on the street or so on. [Edit] As jodrellblank replied that would mean a person for which the laws of probability/statistics do not apply. [/Edit] opter - n. A person(or agent) who is good at seeking opportunitie…
Lucky/unlucky would mean they have better odds at games with random elements such as roulette If you define 'lucky' as someone for whom physics/statistics do not apply then you make it a pretty meaningless term for the real world. or better chance of finding money on the street or so on. This is what the article is talking about - the chance of money being on the street stays the same, the 'lucky' person is more like…
Sorry, I was not clear. I meant that the there will be money in the street. Not that they will find them. I will edit my post.
Now as an atheist, I've come to accept and indeed appreciate the role of pure, random chance in our lives. What happens to is is not determined solely by us, but but rather by our response to our situations, over which we have not control.
Thought experiment: Let's say that there is someone with whom you would be a perfect romantic match-your values align, etc. But let's say that on the day you meet them, they happened not to eat breakfast. They were so hungry, that just a minute before you saw them, they had to eat a biscuit, leaving residue in their teeth. "Ewww!", you say, in ignorance.
Thing like this happen Every.Single.Day. There are probably thousands of Einsteins who will die in poverty and obscurity. That's life. Failure to realize this is part of what causes Fundamental Attribution Error.
And there is a huge body of scientific work about bird behavior EXCEPT that now it turns out the birds studied, trapped, tagged, etc, would have been a self selecting group of atypical super curious risk takers.
And all of this science is now suspected to be skewed.
And the fact that there are BOTH lucky and unlucky birds and people tells us that there's more than one way to optimize fitness.
Curiosity, optimism, luck work some times, and other times get you killed.
Now in the modern industrialized world, you're probably better of being open and optimistic and all the rest. But then again we've had an unprecedented multi-decade period of peace stability and economic growth.
If we are heading into a new great depression this might change.
Or imagine you're in some kind of accident or disaster, perhaps a building fire, and being a pessimist and super focused you bail at the first hint of smoke and single mindedly make it down the stairs as fast as possible and you're out and alive. Still a worried unlucky pessimist but alive. The lucky optimist on the other hand might have tried the elevator, when the heat expended both the elevator and the shaft, it got stuck, and the lucky optimists got cooked.
Just saying.
> 'For fun, I placed a second large message
> halfway through the newspaper: "Stop
> counting. Tell the experimenter you have
> seen this and win £250." Again, the unlucky
> people missed the opportunity because they
> were still too busy...
Or, was the offer of £250 not actually ever made?
The article reaks of a kind of manufacturable 'luck' that it nevertheless did not mention.
This reminds me of a recent study in bird personalities. It turns out there are very big differences from bird to bird in terms of curiosity and risk taking and other things. And there is a huge body of scientific work about bird behavior EXCEPT that now it turns out the birds studied, trapped, tagged, etc, would have been a self selecting group of atypical super curious risk takers. And all of this science is now su…
The unlucky pessimist will stand in line while the lucky optimist will notice that what she needs is easily obtained out of the line.
I read an article about this once. Here's the gist of it: if you want to be lucky, you should gamble, etc. only when the entropy levels are higher than usual.
What? No. Maybe you should read this article. Perhaps you can interchange "Luck" with "Fortune", but it contains a few principles that could benefit you in the future.