3 ms·

If I distribute standard, fair 6 sided dice to 10,000 people, and have them all roll their die in secret, would you be agnostic as to whether a 6 was rolled by

If I distribute standard, fair 6 sided dice to 10,000 people, and have them all roll their die in secret, would you be agnostic as to whether a 6 was rolled by at least two people?

seba_dos1 2y ago
Now distribute 10,000 sided dice to 6 people, which will be an example just as relevant. It sure makes sense to assume we're neither alone nor first, as until we actually prove it either way that's just what the odds are - but I'm tired of people acting like this means we're definitely not the first. If you gave 10,000 people a number between 1 and 10,000 in random order, the probability that any given person got number 1 is 1/10,000, and yet the probability that someone got 1 is 1. (though there's another problem at play: "first" may not necessarily be a well-defined term at these scales)
- grey-area 2y ago
  In this analogy the unknown is the number of sides on the dice (probability of life), we know there are an astonishingly large number of stars and planets that life could evolve on, so a very large number of throws, we just don’t know how hard it is for life to emerge. I agree with you the odds are strongly in favour of us not being first or unique. I didn’t say we must be first but find it very unlikely given the numbers.
  - seba_dos1 2y ago
    Yes, and if the probability of life turns out to be even more astonishingly small number, you may very well end up with six 10,000-sided dice :) My intuition tells me it's not like that, but it's nothing but intuition.
    - grey-area 2y ago
      10,000 sided dice over 10^25 throws has a high probability of success for any given no.
      - seba_dos1 2y ago
        But you've got six throws there. It's the proportion that matters, not absolute numbers.
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  The dice weren't supposed to be a parallel to the odds of other life in the universe, but just about finding if you had any limits to your agnosticism.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    The dice example is one where we can readily compute the probabilities. The problem with origin of life is we can't do that with the information we have. It's not that the probability is high or low, it's that it's unknown.

If I distribute standard, fair 6 sided dice to 10,000 people, and have them all roll their die in secret, would you be agnostic as to whether a 6 was rolled by at least two people?

seba_dos1 2y ago

Now distribute 10,000 sided dice to 6 people, which will be an example just as relevant. It sure makes sense to assume we're neither alone nor first, as until we actually prove it either way that's just what the odds are - but I'm tired of people acting like this means we're definitely not the first. If you gave 10,000 people a number between 1 and 10,000 in random order, the probability that any given person got number 1 is 1/10,000, and yet the probability that someone got 1 is 1. (though there's another problem at play: "first" may not necessarily be a well-defined term at these scales)

grey-area 2y ago
In this analogy the unknown is the number of sides on the dice (probability of life), we know there are an astonishingly large number of stars and planets that life could evolve on, so a very large number of throws, we just don’t know how hard it is for life to emerge. I agree with you the odds are strongly in favour of us not being first or unique. I didn’t say we must be first but find it very unlikely given the numbers.
- seba_dos1 2y ago
  Yes, and if the probability of life turns out to be even more astonishingly small number, you may very well end up with six 10,000-sided dice :) My intuition tells me it's not like that, but it's nothing but intuition.
  - grey-area 2y ago
    10,000 sided dice over 10^25 throws has a high probability of success for any given no.
    - seba_dos1 2y ago
      But you've got six throws there. It's the proportion that matters, not absolute numbers.
IncreasePosts 2y ago
The dice weren't supposed to be a parallel to the odds of other life in the universe, but just about finding if you had any limits to your agnosticism.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  The dice example is one where we can readily compute the probabilities. The problem with origin of life is we can't do that with the information we have. It's not that the probability is high or low, it's that it's unknown.