I think it is perfectly logical to think that the odds of rolling the same number over and over again are low... I don't understand people who use double negatives =P.
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I'm pretty sure that's called "progressive betting", and doesn't have much to do with what number you pick. You can do it on roulette, too. Pick, say, 36 red, bet $5, lose, bet $10, lose, bet $20, etc, etc, bet $1280, WIN.
In those cases you have to check what the actual probability is of hitting the bet limit before hitting your number, and then compare that to the payoff of winning and how much money you actually have to risk, and do the math. You really don't even need to stay on the same number for it to work, so long as the odds remain the same. Go with 1 black instead on turn two. No difference.
Probably the best way to walk away from a casino richer if you do it right, but I'm not sure it's going to be tolerated for long if you're very successful at it.
Oh yeah, that could actually work... though if it went wrong then it'd go very wrong.
Yes, the probability of getting say a 3 ten times in a row on a dice are 1 in 60466716, before you start. But the probability of getting a 3 each roll is still 1 in 6. If you roll nine 3s, by the time you get to the last throw, the chance of you getting another 3 isn't 1 in 60466716, it's 1 in 6.Quote:
I think it is perfectly logical to think that the odds of rolling the same number over and over again are low... I don't understand people who use double negatives =P.
It's really not that hard to understand... :undecided:
Lol you act like I don't understand :roll:
The point I'm trying to make is that once you decide on a number, the odds aren't in favor of that number...
1 in 6 if you decide 5 right?...
Well there is a 5 in 6 chance of it not being 5. Essentially whatever number it is it is more likely that a number other than that one will come up.
What you need to mention so that people understand is that the odds of rolling a 1,3,4,2,6,3,5,3,2,6 (in that order) are also 1 in 60466716, before you start.
Rolling all threes is something we ascribe special significance to, but any other string of numbers is just as unlikely to occur.
The fallacy thing I'm describing involves describing that a string is significant after it occurs.
Respond to my proper post, you. :P
Yeah, that was my main strategy. Just double my bet each time until my number comes up. Because once it does, you've overcame your losses of all the previous bets and made a profit. The minimum bet was $2, and I always started there. A few times I got up to $64 bets and started to worry, but I was never unlucky enough.
My reasoning for always betting on the same number, is I figured it has to come up eventually, even if the odds are 1:4 each time.
Well if you guys are done arguing over gambler's fallacy... :rolleyes:
From what I can tell after much reading, the examples you give are types of the fallacy "argumentum ad ignorantiam" ("appeal to ignorance").
For example, the second example states that the chances of Earth being suitable for life are so incredibly small that it is impossible. Well, who is the judge of that? Apparently the speaker. So what this is more precisely saying is, "The chances of Earth being suitable for life are so incredibly small that I cannot personally accept them - therefore it is impossible." When stated this way, it becomes clear that this is a logical fallacy.
It's important to note that this fallacy is not limited to arguments concerning probability, although it nevertheless can easily apply to such arguments (as it does in this case).
For further reading, here are a couple of the relevant web pages that I read.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA100.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
Also, the two links that skysaw posted much earlier in the thread are a good read. Here they are reposted.
http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/05...le-is-not.html
http://goodmath.blogspot.com/2006/05...ble-redux.html
Just explain why they're wrong. Otherwise, simply stating a fallacy name is almost an argument to authority, no? You'll have to explain it anyway. I guess it's nice to know the proper name...
"It's really improbable for the current time to intersect with my life span, so reincarnation might be true"
The first example you gave wasn't an argument really. "Might" implies the speaker's awareness of his ignorance, so it's not overly difficult to say he hasn't made a valid argument, as within it is an inherent acceptance of the poor nature of the argument itself.
Assuming, however, that the "might" is dropped, I couldn't answer your question since the first argument is so vague as to be hard to understand. I would need a fuller argument to point to the actual fallacy. It's clear that it's incorrect, at least based on current knowledge, but the means of arriving at that conclusion aren't fully known. Audiatur et Altera Pars would be the proper one for such a situation, as the premises aren't explicit; non-sequitur would be another proper one, as the conclusion isn't explained.
Unless that is the complete argument, in which case you can cite the author for having used an unvalidated premise ("it is improbable..."). In general, that argument is just a lot of unknowns and unknown unknowns, so it's hard to really "prove" anything in terms of religion, save to prove that one really can't know much at all.
"It's really improbable for the earth to be perfectly suited to life, therefore God did it"
Again, this one rests on an unvalidated premise, specifically that the Earth isn't suited to life. There is no real scientific consensus on what a "life-suitable" planet is, as we don't even know what other massive bodies in our own solar system have or do not have life, or have had or have not had life. Again, I would need to hear a fuller argument, and see why they came to that conclusion, before naming the actual fallacy. It falls into the same two fallacies I mentioned for the previous argument.
If the argument is literally "perfectly" suited for life (I dropped it since it was such an absurd argument with the word included), then obviously one can disprove it as simple probabilities would dictate that a planet only 50% suited for life (whatever that means) would eventually form life, given enough such planets and enough time (whatever the interval is). I'm not sure that's a specific fallacy, or at least what the name is.
I think both of your arguments, as stated, are strawmen of whatever arguments they represent. Granted, on the internet, one sentence arguments are common, but they generally reflect fuller positions that come out piecemeal. If those are the full arguments, then I doubt naming fallacies is going to do much (if that was your intention), as the level of intellectual ability on the part of the authors is extremely low, no offense (to them, if they're reading).
Yes if you take the time out to read this thread you'll find I did expand on it. In no way was it a strawman, considering I was speculating in a philosophical thread and not actually arguing with anybody. If you look back to my post, I was actually talking about our ignorance of how time works and that reincarnation is one solution to that particular statistical problem, although we know so little about the nature of consciousness and reality that it's really impossible to draw any hard conclusions. I've yet to see the actual problem explained mathematically.
That's not why it's wrong at all. It's wrong because the OP was applying the probability of a planet being hospitable, which are indeed small and not an argument from ignorance (look at the percentage that are hospitable in our solar system; this isn't a disputed fact) to this planet alone, as if we could only have ever been on Earth. That's why it's wrong. It is indeed improbable that any single planet is habitable, but you have to bear in mind that the planet you end up on, on which there are millions of hospitable ones to choose from, must definitely be hospitable by definition. And that's the fallacy we're looking for.Quote:
From what I can tell after much reading, the examples you give are types of the fallacy "argumentum ad ignorantiam" ("appeal to ignorance").
For example, the second example states that the chances of Earth being suitable for life are so incredibly small that it is impossible. Well, who is the judge of that? Apparently the speaker. So what this is more precisely saying is, "The chances of Earth being suitable for life are so incredibly small that I cannot personally accept them - therefore it is impossible." When stated this way, it becomes clear that this is a logical fallacy.
Our understanding of what is habitable has changed dramatically in the past five or ten years with the discovery of some extremophiles here on Earth already living in conditions previously assumed to be inhospitable to life. These include areas of extreme heat, extreme cold and extremes of pressure.
The number of planets and moons in our solar system that we know could technically support some form of life has also increased as we discover more about the moons of Jupiter and Saturn especially. I saw a fantastic science program on National Geographic channel that showed 6 places in our solar system other than Earth that could support some form of life. On the lower end of probability was Mars, and on the higher end were Europa and Titan, if I remember correctly.
Not really planets... but yes, I know, in fact I believe there may well be life on Europa. I know all about hydrothermal vents. It's still a minority though, I don't think we could invisage life on planets as cold as Neptune or hot as Venus, or on the gas giants, or without liquid, etcetera. That wasn't the point I was making though, of course, what I was talking about was what kind of fallacy it is. Which isn't a fallacy from ignorance. Oh, and we should probably be talking about intelligent life really. I'm not sure if that could inhabit a hydrothermal vent, although that's a much vaguer area of course.
The actual 'winning' strategy here is the doubling your bet part, but even still that fails quite a lot and drastically. In theory, with enough money, you can use that strategy and never lose. Unfortunately, most people who use it end up doubling down until all their money is gone.
I actually wrote a rather long post on the odds, etc, and deleted it for being off topic, but here goes:
Assuming the table minimum is $5, and the max is $5000, your odds of really screwing yourself over can be minimal, and don't require a major stash of cash for security. If you're betting roulette, and betting single numbers, then the odds are against you. If the payout is 35:1 or so, then you can easily burn through $100,000 without a payoff with progressive betting. On the other hand, if you're betting table thirds, then it would take 12 consecutive misses before losing money at $5K per bet. The odds of that happening are less than 1%. Sooo... as long as you have enough money on hand, you should be probably safe. Having $20K should cover it (two rounds of 12 misses). Of course, you could always then move up to a table with a higher limit, but that just gets more dangerous. I'd start over.
You lose 1 in 100 attempts, but if you can gain, on average $300 from each round (about 6 tries), then you'll more than make up for those lost rounds (you'll make out doubling overall). The actual probabilities and overall payoffs aren't clear to me since I don't want to compute it all, but I think what is clear is that even one payoff at try 11 for $15000 per 100 tries makes up for the one try in 100 that loses you $10000.
Assuming you're unlucky enough to have that 1 in 100 be your first try, you would need to have the second one hit in about the next 30 tries, assuming you didn't get any big payoffs, which is extremely unlikely, so your odds of totally lucking out are less than a third of a percent. Remember that the longer you go, the more you make, until you hit your limit. You actually want bad luck streaks, they pay more.
And if you're betting red/black or table halves, then the odds of missing 12 consecutive times in a row is 1 in 10,000. Certainly that happens, but it's extremely rare. I'd say it's more likely you'll take a major stock hit...
But I assume the dealers, etc, are trained to spot progressive betting, and you'll probably end up getting the boot for doing it at some point. Not sure if they let you keep your money in those circumstances.
First off, sorry to be digging up such an old topic. :P
I recently read a book chapter which dealt pretty directly with the topic in the OP (although it doesn't touch on religious/philosophical applications), and I thought that thegnome and maybe a few others would be interested in reading it, so I figured I would post it here. It's an 11-page (not including references) psych literature review, and the author has made it publicly available via his website. So without further ado:
Twisted Pair: Counterfactual Thinking and the Hindsight Bias (pdf)
:cheers:
Great link, thanks!
The fallacy I'm talking about seems to be an example of subjectively easily created counterfactuals biasing people away from the effects of hindsight bias, and making the current situation seem far less likely than it may be. The fallacy then lies in falsely linking the ease with which counterfactuals are imagined to their actual likelihood. Just because you can imagine a million different ways the universe "could have been" doesn't mean that any of these were likely outcomes. It's the whole "imaginable = possible" thing gone horribly wrong.
Guys, Martingale is not a good idea. If the events you are betting on are independent, and each bet has a negative expected value (roulette is an example), then it doesn't matter how much you bet or when, as long as your bankroll is finite, your total expected value is still going to be negative.