Timeline for Being alive today: the most improbable coincidence?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
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| S Jun 16, 2020 at 6:08 | history | suggested | user8677 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Clarified what R_K means
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 0:36 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jun 16, 2020 at 6:08 | |||||
| Jun 22, 2018 at 16:00 | comment | added | Alexander |
the spotlight of time I'm not exactly sure about this analogy, but if I understand you correctly, you take the spotlight of time to be that portion of the timeline that you're conscious of? In that case, your existence is what defines the spotlight of time. The fact that your existence perfectly coincides with your idea of the spotlight of time is an absolute certainty, given that it is your existence that gives rise to the spotlight of time. Though I could be completely misunderstanding you, in which case, please correct me and elaborate :)
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| Jun 22, 2018 at 10:20 | comment | added | R_K | @Alexander - The thing is, if we existed in 1918, we wouldn't be alive today, obviously. Yet we are. I'm only saying (and questioning) that, IF time is a constantly moving "something", and the spotlight of time actually IS objective, instead of subjective, then it's still a fair to assume that it's a coincidence that we are alive exactly where the spotlight happens to be. Sure, someone in 1918, or 1818, would have said the same, back then, but he/she is not alive today... I understand the factor of probability 1 (I ask the question so I exist), but that's not really my point (or question). | |
| Jun 21, 2018 at 5:06 | comment | added | Alexander | @R_K If you existed 100 years ago in 1918, you would be asking why you exited in 1918 and not 2018. The same could be said about absolutely any time period. What would satisfy you? | |
| Jun 20, 2018 at 21:42 | comment | added | Faraz Masroor | This reminds me of the Boltzman brain idea: the reason why we see such strange things in the universe (paraphrased...) is because only when strange things happen do beings with the ability to notice strangeness exist. And when I say strangeness, I think it's supposed to mean entropy or something. | |
| Jun 19, 2018 at 7:15 | comment | added | kutschkem | Too add to Cloud's comment, it is estimated there have been ~108 billion humans so far. So the chance of a randomly picked human to live today is actually a lot bigger than one would expect (the ~7% he mentioned isn't really small imho). | |
| Jun 19, 2018 at 1:27 | comment | added | Challenger5 | Note that the probability is actually slightly less than 1 because there is some chance that R_K has passed away since posing the question. The actual conditional probability would be P(R_K is alive today | R_K asked a question yesterday). | |
| Jun 18, 2018 at 10:10 | comment | added | Ant | @BЈовић Nothing, that's the point. If you go to a movie, you will certainly see some license plate. A priori, it's unlikely that you will see exactly the licence plate 78893 (try going to the movies tonight and check if you see that one!). But you will see something. So a posteriori is not surprising that you saw that license plate, because you would have seen something anyway. Feynman made this point with a joke. As you can see that is the same problem the OP asked about; a priori it's unlikely, a posteriori is certain. | |
| Jun 18, 2018 at 10:01 | comment | added | BЈовић | @Ant I do not get it. What is so special about that license plate? | |
| Jun 18, 2018 at 8:46 | comment | added | Chris | @FooBar: Not sure if that is a deep philosophical question or just that you missed that the OP's name is R_K. ;-) | |
| Jun 18, 2018 at 8:32 | comment | added | FooBar | What's the meaning of R_K? | |
| Jun 18, 2018 at 7:27 | comment | added | Cloud | A note on this... 7% of humans (as we know them) to EVER exist are alive today | |
| Jun 18, 2018 at 0:59 | comment | added | Chelonian | Just to add to what's wrong with your analogy: the "spotlight" is coming from you. In a block theory of time, there is no objective spotlight. Every person sees their own parcel of time as "the special one" because that's the one they're in. So your question becomes, "What the chance that I'm alive during this special time that I am alive (aka, the spotlighted time)." Every person in history could ask that, and the answer is the chance is 100% for all of us. | |
| Jun 17, 2018 at 21:27 | comment | added | Stephan Kolassa | Well, note that your asking your questions necessitates the spotlight being on you. The relevant conditional probability now essentially is "what is the probability of my being in the spotlight, given that I am in the spotlight?" And again, the answer is necessarily 1. | |
| Jun 17, 2018 at 21:06 | comment | added | R_K | Interesting answer! :-) I do understand that the probability that I exist now is 1 because I ask the question myself. That's that - one could say. BUT, that doesn't really, 100% answer my question (if that's even possible, of course). Let's bring in the Moving Spotlight Theory; let's assume this is correct, and that time is a fixed "something", with the past and the present (and possibly the future) existing all together - just what we perceive as "now", is "highlighted" by the spotlight. What a coincidence then, that I am alive exactly now - at the time-span where the spotlight happens to be? | |
| Jun 17, 2018 at 19:21 | comment | added | Ant | +1 Right on point. There was also an anecdote from Feynman about this, saying something along the lines of "Tonight I was at the movies and I saw a car with license plate 78893. Unbelievable! What are the chances that, out of all the license plates in the world, I would see that one tonight?" | |
| Jun 17, 2018 at 12:56 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 17, 2018 at 13:05 | |||||
| Jun 17, 2018 at 12:54 | history | answered | Stephan Kolassa | CC BY-SA 4.0 |