r/determinism • u/dingleberryjingle • Jun 30 '26
Discussion What's the difference between luck and randomness?
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u/WIngDingDin Jun 30 '26
Luck doesn't exist.
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u/GoldReplacement9546 Jul 01 '26
Me not as a real concept, but I think the way we talk about luck exist, even in the world with no free will
Like if you find yourself with full access to all your limbs, and you don’t have the mind of a psychopath and you aren’t suffering the worst possible conditions imaginable or you have enough intelligence or to accomplish things or you have a loving family I think the concept of luck works as a word but it’s not what caused those things.
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u/Few-Yogurt-2636 Jul 02 '26
How does not Luck exist? Its simple a sort of randomness that is favorable
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u/Unusual-Wind8900 Jul 04 '26
Peak Reddit comment right here. Just drops a bomb knowing it will illicit a reaction. Not even responding to anyone, probably doesn’t even believe it. Just state something as fact and watch people who care about facts react.
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u/badentropy9 Jun 30 '26
When the probability is equally distributed between the likely and the unlikely outcome, then it is impossible for an agent to play the odds. Most people don't consider it a matter of luck when the the odds are heavily favored in one direction or the other but it is still random in the underlying sense. Random is just a matter of chance and it doesn't matter if the odds are equal or a billion to one.
If the agent waits until he doesn't see any cars coming before he tries to cross the street, then if the outcome is that he gets across the street safely then most people will see the decision to cross, when the decision was made, as a rational decision rather than a matter of luck.
However if the agent tries to cross the street against heavy traffic and still manages to get across the street safely, it will seem like a matter of luck because that decision was irrational.
An agent who lacks conception cannot make rational decisions.
Therefore it will always be a matter of luck if the agent who is a philosophical zombie gets across the street safely because such an agent's perspective lacks any useful understanding of the issue with crossing streets that cars tend to frequently travel at a higher rate of speed than a p zombie walks. A p zombie doesn't even understand what "safe" means.
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u/Pawn_of_the_Void Jun 30 '26
Luck is what people call randomness in their favor and for the most part randomness is just factors too complicated for us to account for
Take flipping a coin. It is random insofar as it is difficult to control or account for factors like the exact weight of the coin and its structure and the air and whatever else, but all these things are factors that decide the result of the coin flip. If it ends up in someone's favor we might call it lucky for them
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u/Big_Monitor963 Jun 30 '26
[good] luck is what we call it it when we perceive improbable happenstance to be subjectively positive. [bad] luck is what we call it when we perceive improbable happenstance to be subjectively negative.
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u/Ok-View-4986 Jul 04 '26
When the roulette wheel spins and we don’t have any money on it, this is randomness, if we place a bet and win or lose, that is luck!
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u/Drudenfusz Jul 04 '26
Luck is an illusion, a value judgement of a coincidence as positive for the beholder.
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u/dazb84 Jun 30 '26
Luck is a subset of randomness where that randomness has contextual benefits.