[MD] Choosing Chance

[Ham Priday]

Hi Mark --


> I've been following this and thought I'd jump in since
> the chances of my not doing so decreased with time.

Didn't you jump in because the chances of your NOT doing so INCREASED with
time?  (Anyway, that's why I decided to jump in.)

> Chance can be a useful concept to describe how one sees
> the universe. The issue when discussing it, is that you
> can't point to it. Where does chance reside, is it under a
> rock someplace? In the same way, where does chance
> begin and where does it end? If we can predict, does that
> mean that chance is not involved? Is it a matter of how
> well we can predict? The chances of us dying are pretty
> high based on statistics, does that mean that chance
> is taken out of that situation?

Chance is what we call any event that we cannot predict with empirical
evidence.  Thus, combustion, pregnancy, measles, ganguarine, genetic
predisposition, heavier-than-air flight, ocean tides, and solar eclipses 
were all
"chance events" at one time in human history.

> The chances of a coin toss landing heads or tails can
> be calculated, but to do so requires the tosser to not
> have influence on its toss. That removal of the
> observer from the situation is impossible. Quantum
> mechanics would say that by observing something
> we influence it, so chance is taken out of everything
> we observe. If I toss a coin, where does chance
> come in?

You can say that the chance of a coin landing on its head is one in two, but 
you can't predict the result of a particular toss.  So chance is still 
involved.  The question of how much the observer affects the outcome of an 
event (Bohr's Complimentarily) is an intriguing one for philosophy.

I like to think there are some things we can learn to control or predict as 
cognizant beings.  Such events become part of our human culture.  Other 
things are beyond our power to master, and these events represent the 
"otherness" of our existence.  They serve to remind us that value-experience 
and intellect are not entirely subjective, but are influenced by a cosmic 
order that transcends subjectivity.  The nature of this order is not 
localized and sequential as experience represents it, but absolute and 
unconditional as the transcendent source must be.

> In my opinion, chance exists in every moment of
> everything, or it does not exist at all.  I prefer the
> former. So where does free will come in? The free
> will comes in on how we view the situation, what our
> attitude is as observer. It is that area of free will
> which then drives the direction of the experience
> of Chance.

How we view a situation and our attitude about it is a measure of our 
value-sensibility.  The "free will" comes in when we make valuistic choices 
that affect our being-in-the-world.  These have to do with how we respond to 
existential events, such as life's tragedies, health problems, human 
relations, career opportunities, moral decisions, philosophical choices, and 
leaving the world a better (or worse) place than we found it.  In all of 
these endeavors we overrule chance as the choice-makers of our reality.

Essentially speaking,
Ham