Eukara Vox
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That was just Luck, you schmuck.
By Elnaith
Well, St. Patricks day's around the corner, a day I have only celebrated once in my life (Due to the fact they don't celebrate it where I come from). But that time I did celebrate it, I had to admit I was slightly confused. First off, where I happened to be wasn't Ireland, nor was there a noteworthy amount of people of Irish descent. Second off, the 'celebration' to me seemed a lot of definitely non-Irish people wearing Green Hats and Badges with texts such as "Kiss me, I'm Irish." Which was a blatant lie. The 'grown-ups' seemed to spend their time drinking Guinness. Now while I have nothing against that notion, to make a particular day for it seemed slightly odd to me. So then we come to another part of the celebration, the celebration of Luck.
Luck, the funny old word that everybody knows, yet few seem to have any real definition for it. Really, if you ask a dozen people on the street to define what luck is, you get maybe as many answers (Save some who'll tell you it doesn't exist, while carefully avoiding the black cat), it's right up there in the list with 'Wisdom' and 'Government promises'; words you hear a lot, but somehow often don't mean what you think they do. So in an effort to understand why people celebrate it, I'll try to form my definition of it by looking at other's, and comment on the pros and cons I see in it. So how do I get these other definitions? Say hi to the "Random people on street" gang! I asked around and it appears they aren't well-known on the street itself, which just proves how random these people are!
First, off we start with good old: "Luck doesn't exist." Mr. Random Guy 1 was quick to say this, smirking at me thinking he got the cleverest answer off it all. So why do so many people celebrate it then? You aren't helping me here Mr. Random Guy 1. While I won't dismiss your viewpoint immediately, the question still remains what the people who do think it exists define it as. Because by your definition it might as well be scrapped from the dictionary.
So off to the next opinion by Ms. Unselective Die. "Luck are things that you can't alter, but affect you. Good luck is if said thing is in favour, bad luck if said thing isn't." Ms. Die? Yes, thanks for your cooperation, but do you want to say that luck took a part in the fact that I am talking to you now? Because I can hardly control you. You however can control yourself (I presume), and you got asked questions by me by chance. Is that luck too? If so, wouldn't the fact that we both had Luck influencing our paths make it kind of paradoxical? For both of us had clear paths, to ourselves, yet were affected by the other. So the Luck came to exist out of two things that weren't luck.
To add to that: Even a Die roll can be calculated, sure even modern computers might have a hard time doing it, but if you know all facts (The side the die started up with, before the shaking, the number of shakes and the energy in them, the exacts dimension of one's fist, the power of the throw, how solid the table thrown upon is etc.) you can calculate how the die would land. Sure it's a lot of factors, but in the end you can do it (And get banned out of all Casinos, if you manage to do it very quickly in your head). This is just one example out of many, if you know all the variables, you can calculate the result, if you got the wrong result, in all likelihood you missed some facts.
Well, off to another one: Mr. Irregular standard Deviation. (Seriously, you'd think these people were chosen to walk here today) His theory is: "Luck's the thing that builds up, at one point in life you get a lot of good luck, and another point of life you get more bad, in the end it's all around the middle. That's the Sigma belief." This is an interesting idea, but it also raises some questions. For if this is so, what's the real point of trying to gain good luck? Because sooner or later Bad Luck will just smack you down. Also, this insinuates that there is always at least one variable you can't see, let's call it the 'Sigma-factor'. Note that this belief doesn't necessarily go against my former paragraph, for if the 'Sigma-factor' is known, one can still calculate the result. But this idea is very much rooted in belief, saying Luck is something humanity can't control, and in fact controls us. I'm not saying this is incorrect, but it's not what I'm searching for.
So off to our last random street person. Mrs. Erratic Fickle. Her definition is: "Luck's something that happens, which at first seemed unlikely, and falls in either your favour, or not." At first glance this seems a valid point: If a cow suddenly drops out of the air, landing on a crossbow bolt that suddenly sprang out of the ground and was likely going to kill you, you'd sure think your luck must've been running wild. However, the cow must've got there somewhere, and so did the crossbow bolt. The cow didn't just suddenly exists in mid-fall. (Would solve the Hunger problems.) And if you research the chain of events, you'll likely find a farmer standing near a Catapult with a mad glint in his eye, accompanied by an guy with a crossbow, who has quite a lot of dirt all over him: however unlikely it seems, there must've ben some explanation, else it's not only unlikely, but even non-existent.
Another part of the argument is that according to Mathematics, unlikely things are bound to happen. Even things with a chance of 0.00000001%, at one point could happen. And with enough of those chances available, Mathematics tells us that's it would be highly unlikely that those unlikely things didn't happen.
All in all, I still say that luck's a rather hard word to understand, but what I make of it now, is a mix of all those above me: Luck, as a pure random thing doesn't exist: Everything can be explained, but what we call Luck is our inability to calculate and know a lot of different factors in a blink of an eye, so by chance choosing the right amount of force on a die toss, can hand you crowns. While unconsciously hitting the ball 0.2 mm to the right can mean the difference between goal and post for a Football player. The fact those unknown factors turn out to be in your favour is 'Luck'. Yet you can't rely on it: Mathematics tells you that the same chance had you missing.
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