@@NomenNominandum Thanks. I feel ill-qualified to make an interesting comment, but my intuition is that the Mel Robbins probability is hopelessly large, while the HuffPost (Binazir) probability seems more realistic though I think even they overestimate the probability given that they don't seemed to have accounted for the randomness of when the underwater turtle eventually pokes its head out of the water. I wonder if a Zero-One law is relevant here - I don't know. If I had the wherewithal perhaps I'd try to poke a probabilist e.g. @nntaleb (being a famous, though not necessarily the best?, one) into engaging with the question. (Sorry, a very weak, almost fatuous, reply).
This is a nonsense statement. The odds of being born a human being, or another organism (that is equally possible, mind you) are 100%. There is no such thing as 'proto-being' or being in some sort of 'state' before being born. Only human beings or other organisms that are (or were) actually alive count. Sperm cells and egg cells do not constitute anything on their own and are meaningless in this discussion. What remains are all the organisms that are or were alive, and those odds are 1 to 1! It puzzles me why many educated people - even evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins - don't see this. The real interesting question should be what the odds are of being born a human being instead of another organism!
![The Disturbing But Surprising Wisdom of Ecclesiastes [Animated Explainer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VeUiuSK81-0/mqdefault.jpg)
That number is not 400 trillion. Thats 400 billion. This is 400 trillion: 400,000,000,000,000
The probability does not matter at all if the die is cast.
Wow man. Something to think abt..
another interesting clip N.N. although I am really curious as to your motivation for posting it
Because in the article under
www.huffpost.com/entry/probability-being-born_b_877853
the author alluded to this part of the TED talk.
@@NomenNominandum Thanks. I feel ill-qualified to make an interesting comment, but my intuition is that the Mel Robbins probability is hopelessly large, while the HuffPost (Binazir) probability seems more realistic though I think even they overestimate the probability given that they don't seemed to have accounted for the randomness of when the underwater turtle eventually pokes its head out of the water. I wonder if a Zero-One law is relevant here - I don't know. If I had the wherewithal perhaps I'd try to poke a probabilist e.g. @nntaleb (being a famous, though not necessarily the best?, one) into engaging with the question. (Sorry, a very weak, almost fatuous, reply).
This is a nonsense statement. The odds of being born a human being, or another organism (that is equally possible, mind you) are 100%. There is no such thing as 'proto-being' or being in some sort of 'state' before being born. Only human beings or other organisms that are (or were) actually alive count. Sperm cells and egg cells do not constitute anything on their own and are meaningless in this discussion. What remains are all the organisms that are or were alive, and those odds are 1 to 1! It puzzles me why many educated people - even evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins - don't see this. The real interesting question should be what the odds are of being born a human being instead of another organism!
Gotta be a lot slimmer than 400 Trillion. the odds that one sperm and one egg come together with any given parents is probably one in 400 Trillion...
Even if i managed to hit that 1/4*10^12 chance of being born i still cant hit the 5/100 chance 50 times in a row in rng games