[MD] Choosing Chance

[Arlo Bensinger]

[John]
Will that *really* be your final comment Arlo?  I wouldn't even want 
to assign a number to *that* probability.

[Arlo]
Craig indicated he wished to bring our exchange to an "agree to 
disagree" closure. You appear to want to keep it going. So I respond...

[John]
The Laws of Probability don't control your choices.  You do.

[Arlo]
When did I say that anything "controls" you choices. Of course, YOU 
do. Duh. But for anything to be a real choice, the chance that you 
could choose among all options MUST exist; hence some probability 
must exist for all possible options you "choose" among.

So for a choice between A and B to exist, for you to be free to 
choose one or the other, some probability must exist for your 
choosing either option. If there was ZERO probability that you would 
choose B, then you have not evidenced a choice, you merely responded 
with machinistic response.

[John]
The laws of probability only describes the choices you might 
make.  It gives you no guidance or values with which to choose.

[Arlo]
Probability is the result of value. Something that is valued is more 
probable. But it is never certain.

[John]
Choice is fundamental, probability is just a way of describing and 
predicting -  inexact sciences.

[Arlo]
Choice depends on probability. No probability = No choice. "Choice", 
I'd say, is a value realization in a sea of probability. Before you 
make your choice, there are only probabilities. You act of choice is 
a value response of that moment to that sea of probability. "Static 
patterns" are "stable patterns of preference", or said another way, 
"stable patterns of choice". They are patterns of probability. And 
that probability is based on a freedom (DQ) that ensures nothing is certain.

[John]
To clarify my own position, Choice is fundamental to self,  but self 
is also a system and any system that doesn't account for randomness 
is doomed to fail.

[Arlo]
"Choice" is a value response to freedom/chance. Probability is the 
formation of stable patterns of preferences out of immediate 
experiences localized in a sea of uncertainty.