LogFAQs > #910739986

Zeus posted...

...and aging is a clear limit because there's no probability involved in aging.

There technically is, albeit we're talking about probability on a quantum level now, which is not what most reasonable people would call "luck" (since failing to age would be luck on the scale of tossing a deck of cards into the air and having it land in a perfectly assembled house of cards).

Zeus posted...

No, both can be true. No matter what, you're putting at least some effort in. Luck just means that your effort will always achieve better results.

OK, but that's not what you said earlier - you've basically been arguing things like being able to practice medicine purely on luck (before subsequently clarifying that you would need to actually know the material first).

This is basically what I've been arguing from the get-go - luck will improve your results, but it won't let you do things you don't already know how to do.

Zeus posted...

And the luckier you are, the longer you'd live. After all, I've known countless people over the years who didn't come close to hitting 78 before dying.

All well and good, but my point is the statistical definition of life expectancy is the mean age someone reaches before dying. You don't need to be fantastically lucky to reach 80 - you just have to be in the upper half of the population (and when you control for lifestyle choices like smoking or unhealthy diets, your odds improve even more).

Zeus posted...

Both, really. Are talking private island where it's just a handful of people? Or is it a hundred people? A thousand people?

A few hundred people (I think we have maybe 150 houses on the island). It's not a "private island" in the sense that anyone can buy property there, but - aside from some parks - all the land is privately owned.
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