--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, "dunbar_dra" <h_dunbar@...> wrote: We all start with a piece of luck that in isolation seems impossible. Frank might turn this around and state that it's obviously likely, since there are over 6 billion living examples of it happening. It just depends how you want to look at it.
~FK: Well no I wasn't going to turn it around, at first I thought you were quoting me from my book. Here's an excerpt from chapter 2, subheading "Lighting Never Strikes a Slightly Pregnant Women Twice"----
This aspect of probability is all about perspective.
From the perspective of the person that an unlikely
event happens to, the event doesn't seem so
unlikely. It's been said by many that the miracle of
conception is almost inconceivably improbable
when you consider the elements involved. One
single sperm out of 500 million has to find the egg at just the perfect moment. Then that sperm's
genes combine with the genes of the mother's egg,
and after sorting through the 50 billion possible combinations of genetic traits, a child is formed.
Despite how ridiculously unlikely this one in several quadrillion event is, it has happened to all
of us. Just to be alive and reading this book right
now, you had to accomplish something so
improbably that it's roughly equivalent to hitting MegabucksTM four times in a row. Yet here you
are! It's true that one in several quadrillion is
unlikely, but one cycles through those
combinations during every conception, so getting
one result in one cycle isn't that improbable at all.
How things can be incredibly unlikely and
commonplace at the same time confuses the dickens out of some people and is the source of most
casino urban legend.
~Frank Kneeland, Author of The Secret World of Video Poker Progressives--A History and How-To of Video Poker Slot Teams in Las Vegas. www.progressivevp.com
