TheOtherDave comments on The Strangest Thing An AI Could Tell You - Less Wrong

81 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 July 2009 02:27AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 31 January 2011 08:28:01PM 11 points [-]

I sort of believe the "luck" thing already.

I don't know of anyone who's luckier than average in a strict test (rolling a die), but there is such a thing as the vague ability to have things go well for you no matter what, even when there's no obvious skill or merit driving it. People call that being a "golden boy" or "living a charmed life." I think that this is really a matter of some subtle, unnamed skill or instinct for leaning towards good outcomes and away from bad ones, something so hard to pinpoint that it doesn't even look like a skill. I suspect it's a personal quality, not just a result of arbitrary circumstances; but sometimes people are "lucky" in a way that seems unexplainable by personal characteristics alone.

I am one of those lucky people, to an eerie degree. I once believed in Divine Providence because it seemed so obvious in my own, preternaturally golden, life. (One example of many: I am unusually healthy, immune to injury, and pain-free, to a degree that has astonished people I know. I have recovered fully from a 104-degree fever in four hours. I had my first headache at the age of 22.) If an AI told me there was a systematic explanation for my luck I would believe it. I also have an acquaintance who's lucky in a different way: he has an uncanny record of surviving near death experiences.

Comment author: TheOtherDave 31 January 2011 08:38:49PM 3 points [-]

One might argue that failing to have 104-degree fevers or near-death experiences in the first place reflects an even greater degree of luck, even though they don't feel nearly as eerie.

Comment author: [deleted] 31 January 2011 08:42:17PM 1 point [-]

right; but there's also all the things that never happened to me but happened to most people.

This isn't too serious an observation -- it's edging towards the world of magical thinking -- but I have literally never met anyone I'd judge as luckier than myself.

Comment author: Strange7 31 January 2011 10:03:46PM 0 points [-]

Ever broken a bone?

Comment author: [deleted] 31 January 2011 11:37:50PM *  1 point [-]

nope. Also no bee stings.

Comment author: SilasBarta 31 January 2011 11:34:11PM 0 points [-]

Aha! So you're the one who keeps sabatoging train engines to find someone with unbreakable bones!

Comment author: gwern 31 January 2011 11:39:28PM 2 points [-]

I thought it was obvious that Sarah is an ancestor of Teela Brown.