[Okay, Charles: I'm going to blame you if I get into trouble for this
post :-) ].
About people's 'foolish' desire to gamble because what they get out
of it is a dream of riches, and the dream itself gives them pleasure...
It may also be the case that some people (for whatever reason) believe
that the universe is structured in such a way that they can influence
the outcome of random events. Hey, it conflicts with known physics,
sure, but they have limited knowledge of known physics, so within the
knowledge that they do have, they might be making a reasonable judgement
about the boundaries between known and unknown.
[This is the bit that is going to get me into trouble. Be forewarned:
I write this only for your amusement, so nobody get on my case about it,
okay....]
What happens, though, if the person has experience of situations that
seem like good *evidence* that they can influence the odds, or get
information about things that should be unknown? Very tricky. I am
cursed/blessed with what looks like an ability to make things happen a
little bit more often than they should, which is somewhat disconcerting
for a hard scientist. For example: having a very striking sequence of
coincidences happen in quick succession (five in two days), then being
asked by my spouse "What do suppose it all means?" and me replying
spontaneously, and half-jokingly, with the comment "It means X is going
to happen", where X was an unusual and very unlikely (but also very
desirable) event. What then happened was that the event X really did
occur .... two minutes (literally) after I made the statement.
I know some people get irrationally upset and angry when they hear
anecdotes like this, so, as I say, take it only as an interesting story
to lighten your day, nothing more.
Changing the subject slightly: the optimal use of probabilities is NOT
always the best foundation for action.
I say this because of a news report I heard a few months back (on NPR:
sorry, I can't remember the reference), about a math student who was
very bright, and whose professor decided to play a trick on him, because
he was fed up with the student doing his assignements in no time flat.
The professor quietly inserted an 'impossible' math problem in the guy's
next assignment. The problem was 'impossible' because it had been
attacked repeatedly by many brilliant mathematicians, for (IIRC)
centuries, with little or no progress. The student then took an
extraordinary length of time to complete the assigment, but handed it in
eventually, with comments about the "trouble he had with problem 6".
As you might have guessed, he solved the problem. His comment
afterwards was that he was glad that his professor did not tell him
about the reputation that this problem had, because if he had known, he
would never have believed in himself enough to try to solve it.
In this case, better knowledge of the probability of success would
(probably) have been detrimental to his goal.
Just a thought.
Richard Loosemore.
Charles D Hixson wrote:
That's not what I meant. I don't think that people really operate on
the basis of probabilistic calculations, but rather on short-range
attractors. What I see them being motivated by is the "dream of
riches", which feels closer when they take steps, even unlikely ones, to
achieve it.
I said that too strongly, as there are definitely other patterns of
behavior also acting. But my guess is that most habitual gamblers
AREN'T thinking about probabilities. They are feeling their dreams. I
may feel that they are acting in a very foolish way to realize their
dreams, but when you examine what's happening, most of those dreams are,
actually, impossible. So they are acting in a way that they allow
themselves to feel will bring their dreams closer, not having any actual
way to realize those dreams. (Note that I assert that "Winning the
Jackpot" would *not* realize their dreams. It would, in fact, puncture
them...but so few will ever win that this hazard is not a problem.)
I definitely don't think that people do well at calculating odds. In
fact, I feel that they generally don't do so at all, but rather rely on
chains of habits associated with goal states. (Naturally this is a
gross oversimplification. Other mechanisms are also present.) But if
people were probabilistic calculators, schools would be run in a totally
different manner (to pick only one example). What people have are lots
and lots of state transition rules based around their experience, and
internal mental state is definitely a part of the experience. And, of
course, goal states that rise and fall in priority, small amounts of
logic, etc. One of the virtues of language is that it facilitates the
transmission of "state transition rules" in the form of stories.
These, of course, aren't as precise as arithmetic, which generally
requires LOTS of repetition to learn with sufficient precision. It's no
accident that logic doesn't start getting taught as such (algebra,
geometry, etc.) until after several years of arithmetic. And symbolic
logic even later. (Well, Lewis Carroll [Professor Charles Dodgson]
attempted to create a form of logic suitable for learning at an earlier
age, but it met with...minimal acceptance.)
Note that in NONE of these is probability mentioned. Stories often have
a contrafactual premise, e.g., "If you should have a goose that lays
golden eggs..." so that you won't try to apply them directly, with the
understood implication that these are rules to use in an analogous
situation. Well, possibly not consciously understood...but when you
here someone say "That's killing the goose that lays the golden eggs!"
you never thing that a real goose is under discussion.
All that said, there is SOME probabilistic calculation done by people
who are skilled in any particular situation. Most people that I'm aware
do it with some sort of internal calculation that appears to involve a
mental model of weights being lifted by both the left and right hands
and "hefted" (not quite juggled). Needless to say this doesn't come up
with a very precise answer, but it's generally "good enough" to use when
the other approaches fail. (And, yes, professional gambling games are
especially designed to render this kind of judgment useless.)
-----
This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email
To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to:
http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
