{"id":10676,"date":"2012-07-12T22:21:01","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T21:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=10676"},"modified":"2012-07-12T22:27:30","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T21:27:30","slug":"gambling-with-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=10676","title":{"rendered":"Gambling With Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Sita Rama das<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn Bhagavada Gita 10.36, Lord Krishna describes gambing as the greatest form of cheating. In modern terms, this cheating is described as the “gamblers fallacy”. The gamblers fallacy can be proven false with simple mathematics; so it is interesting that scientist’s, who have advanced degrees in mathematics, develop theories which contain this same gamblers fallacy. Although they may be intelligent in other areas, gamblers are deluded due to their lust to win the jackpot and scientists are deluded by their desire to discover the winning theory of how the world arose from chance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe false belief in chance can be described as follows.  Belief in a 50\/50 chance of heads or tails in a coin toss is justified because massive trials of coin tosses show that the likelihood of heads or tails is essentially equal. However, many gamblers believe that after two flips of heads the chance for the next one landing on tails has increased. This is purely imagination. The chance of the coin landing on heads or tails remains equal. There is no force that remembers the past flips and dictates that landing on one side is more or less likely because of the previous sequence. This is clear to an honest, intelligent, person, but those who have a personal desire to see chance as a force which acts in accordance with their personal desire are unable to see that their belief is objectively wrong. Thus, being blind to the facts they are cheated and they cheat others by propagating their erroneous ideas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t Let’s look at why the gamblers fallacy is objectively wrong. With two flips of a coin there are four possible sequences, heads\/heads, heads\/tails, tails\/tails, and tails\/heads. If the first flip is heads; what are the chances for heads in the next flip? The chance of a head\/head\/ sequence is ¼; and the chance of a heads\/tails sequence is also ¼.  Each sequence is equally probable; therefore, after heads on the first flip the chances of either heads or tails on the second flip is equal. It is a mathematical fact that the chance of heads and tails remains equal regardless of how long the sequence is or how the coin has landed in the past.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tStill not convinced?  Let’s look at the example of lottery tickets. If there are a million tickets with each one having an equal chance of winning, and I buy one ticket, my chance is 1\/million. Now it is a fact that if I buy 10 tickets my chance increases to 10\/million. But I can buy a ticket from a separate<\/em> lottery everyday for 40 years and my chances of winning a particular lottery has not increased.  Another way of looking at it is if I have participated in 999,999 lotteries it does not mean that my chance of winning on my millionth try is 100%. The chances are 1\/million every time I buy one out of a million tickets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThe above facts are taught in Statistics 101 at any University. Yet physicists have developed a theory called the “Multiverse” which contains the gamblers fallacy. Although there are several versions of this still controversial theory, there are elements within it that we can address. The Mutliverse Theory attempts to explain how the “anthropic principle” could arise from chance. The word, “anthropic” denotes humans, and this term is commonly used by physicists when they refer to several factors that seem to indicate that physical forces were fine tuned to facilitate the development of humankind. A widely quoted description of anthropic principals is given by the late John Wheeler, the famous Princeton Theoretical Physicist who coined the term “black hole”:[1]\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\tIt is not only that man is adapted to the universe. The universe is adapted to man. Imagine a universe in which one or another of the fundamental dimensionless constants of physics is altered by a few percent one way or the other. Man could never come into being in such a universe. That is the central point of the anthropic principle. According to this principle, a life-giving factor lies at the center of the whole machinery and design of the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tIn Scientific American<\/em>, the well known scientist George Ellis refers to three other well known scientists:[2]  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t  A remarkable fact about our universe is that physical constants have just the right values needed to allow for complex structures, including living things. Steven Weinberg, Martin Rees, Leonard Susskind and others contend that an exotic multiverse <\/strong>provides a tidy explanation for this apparent coincidence: if all possible values occur in a large enough collection of universes, then viable ones for life will surely be found somewhere.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t Another leading scientist regarding the theory; Benard Carr states:[3]\n

\n\t\t\tA multiverse with varied physical properties is certainly one possible explanation for finetunings: an infinite set of universes allows all possibilities and combinations to occur, so somewhere – just by chance – things will work out right for life.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBy dissecting the ideas underlined in the Multiverse Theory we find three assertions:<\/strong> A. There is an infinitely small possibility of anthropic constants coming about by chance. B.  There are infinite universes so every possible situation, in terms of physics constants, exists. C. We happen to be in the separate<\/em> universe where the constants are, by chance, anthropic. But we can see that: 1. these premises are not logically connected; 2. the illusion that they are connected is due to the gambler’s fallacy.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBefore describing how the gamblers fallacy exists in the Multiverse theory we want to make a few other points. An infinite number of universes do not necessitate an infinite variety of constants. Even if an infinite number of universes with different constants was<\/em> observable it would still be a leap to say that infinite varieties of constants exist.  Basically, even if we accept that there are infinite universes, we have to accept the possibility that any number of variations of constants is as likely as infinite variations. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tBeyond that, even if an infinite number of universes, with an infinite number of variations exist, an anthropic universe resulting from random chance is not a logical necessity.  Infinite does not mean complete. For completeness we need a finite set of possibilities. For example, if I have the set of whole numbers from 1 to 50 and I guess a different number each time, the chance I will get it right in 50 tries is 100% because I have chosen the whole set of possibilities. In contrast if I am looking for a number from an infinite set, that means there are infinite wrong guesses and I can go on forever without getting the right one.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTrying to explain the anthropic principal with the multiverse theory is based on the gamblers fallacy because the result is the same as with coin tosses. The chances involved in a particular event are not affected by the number of times the event takes place. It does not matter if an infinite number of separate universes exist or not, the chances of the anthropic principal arising at random in this separate universe remains infinitely small(or to give it a number we might call it less than 1\/ trillion). That means the likelihood the universe was created by an Intelligent Designer remains, greater than a trillion to 1.  <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo scientists claim they have a reasonable doubt, and the Mutliverse Theory removes the necessity for a Creator. This means we must consider a less than 1 in a trillion chance a reasonable doubt. Even if we stretch our idea of reasonable doubt to fit this criteria there are other reasons that make not seeking God unreasonable.  According to the scientists’ own paradigm, they cannot actually prove how the universe came into existence. However; if God does exist, it is possible for Him to reveal Himself to an individual and thus one can have absolute proof of how things happen.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tSo if we look at the chances, devoid of the gamblers fallacy, there is an infinitely small likelihood that the world came about by chance. There is much to be gained from knowing God, and the science of Krishna Consciousness gives the chance for absolute knowledge; therefore, doubting God and focusing exclusively on improvable material research (that at most can give a theory<\/em> with infinitely small odds), is not, in any sense of the word, reasonable. It could be called blind doubt, but not reasonable doubt.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tWhen I was initiated I was told that the prohibition against gambling also included mental speculation. From the Multiverse theory we can see how gambling and mental speculation are connected. So, among other reasons, we avoid gambling because it invariable magnifies the gamblers fallacy, and then, contrary to experience and reason, we begin to imagine that chance has characteristics that are not logically connected to it. Imagining chance to have qualities it does not can reduce ones rational conviction that God must exist.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t Lord Krishna says in Bhagavada Gita 9.2:<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tThis knowledge is the king of education, the most secret of all secrets. It is the purest knowledge, and because it gives direct perception of the self by realization, it is the perfection of religion. It is everlasting, and it is joyfully performed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tHere Krishna says devotional service is the perfection of religion because it gives direct perception of the truth. Srila Prabhupada added, in many places, that it is also the perfect science; it is thus distinct from mundane science which cannot be perfect because it relies exclusively on imperfect material sense perception.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t1. John Wheeler Wheeler, J. A., “Foreword” in J. D. Barrow and F. J. Tipler. The Anthropic Cosmic Principle. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Cited in http:\/\/quake.stanford.edu\/~bai\/ch11.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t2. Does the Multiverse Really Exist? Ellis, George F. R., Scientific American <\/em>August 2011, Vol. 305.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t3. Astronomy and Geophysics.<\/em> April 1, 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Sita Rama das<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Bhagavada Gita 10.36, Lord Krishna describes gambing as the greatest form of cheating. In modern terms, this cheating is described as the \u201cgamblers fallacy\u201d. The gamblers fallacy can be proven false with simple mathematics; so it is interesting that scientist\u2019s, who have advanced degrees in mathematics, develop theories which contain this same gamblers fallacy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}