On 18/11/2007, Vladimir Nesov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes, but there's no point in 'wondering' after winning the lottery > either. 'Wondering' is a technique to update probability of winning > after you experienced winning, but it's only applicable when this > probability is unknown and you can gain enough experience with both > kinds of outcomes. So, if you first expected some event to be very > unlikely, and then you experience that event, you probably should > increase your assessment of its probability.
That's a different question, I think. If someone keeps winning the lottery, then there is reason to speculate that he is cheating in some way. But if the lottery is perfectly fair, and every participant is equally unlikely to win, someone still has to win. That person can then look back and say that his win was unlikely at the time he bought the ticket. It might sound as if this is the same as saying it is unlikely that he should find himself a winner rather than a loser, but there is a difference. If he is a winner then *of course* he is a winner; it was the becoming a winner that was unlikely. There is no equivalent process of becoming a human that can be pointed to as unlikely. > Here confusion is similar: you experience an event (being born on > Earth), and based on that you try to update probability of being born > on Earth. But data is insufficient, so you can't do that. Would it make any difference if you had data for how many inhabited planets there are in the Universe? -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---