You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!
I just asked irb to generate me a random string of decimals, and it gave me "95307035382862516268483317510515387284259666415834482486542336". Jesus, the odds of that happening are like a gazillion to one!
The probability that something happens, in a vacuum, is pretty meaningless. It's just a number that changes based on evidence you have. For example, if you knew nothing at all about the universe, the probability that the sun would go up tomorrow could be extremely low. The probability of the sun going up tomorrow given our knowledge of the world is much more meaningful.
A perfect example of how this is significant is the very first assumption: while your dad may have met 20,000 women, the probability that he would date and then marry your mother given his qualities and preferences in women is most likely much higher than 1/20,000.
Another example: let's say we have a loaded die. If we don't know anything about it, the probability of getting a 6 is 1/6. If we know it's loaded, the probability is something else. Which value is correct? If it's the latter, then wouldn't the probability of your being born really be something like the probability of your being born given a bunch of environmental factors and the like?
Basically, the number presented here is mostly devoid of value. That said, the visualization is very good and gets its point across both succinctly and clearly.
I have always looked at this sort of stuff from a Bayesian probability point of view. What is the probability I exist? 1.0, 100% because I am bothering to ask the question, and the probability of my existence given my existence is 1.
Now comes the nasty part. What is the probability of your existence given my existence? Most of that info graphic does not come into question, as anything that went into making me can be assumed true. So it is higher then zero, but it is certainly not bigger then the initial 1 in 400 quadrillion number.
Doing probability backwards like this is not useful and leads to fallacious conclusions and magical thinking. How is this any different from people running around misapplying quantum terminology for feel-good conclusions?
The odds that I exist, per my definition ("cogito ergo sum"), are 100%.
It's a cute idea, but it doesn't really make sense. It's like asking, what are the odds that this pile of sand is structured exactly the way it is now?
While this is technically true, it's one hell of a selection bias. Clearly, my ancestors all existed and got together. If they didn't, I wouldn't be reading that poster.
So, I don't really see the point of it...
What is the possibility that ANY OF US exist AT ALL?
I think it's fair to believe that we are the only intelligent beings in all the universe.
What are the odds that some form of life evolved the same way we did over billions of years to form something as complicated as human beings? Probably Zero.
I guess the odds would have to be the same that there are also beings FAR MORE intelligent than us as well.
Great way to show such large numbers using a visualization. The problem with large numbers is that it's usually hard to relate to them at all - which this graphic overcomes to a large degree.
Please. Excuse me while I estimate the probability that all the hair follicles on my arm would be arranged in the way that they are now. Life is just so full of miracles.
The first line says that he meets 10,000 women, then the next line says there's a 1 in 2000 chance that he has kids with a woman he meets... that means he had 5 wives?
