bodner088

As some of the more advanced members of our growing Braintenance crowd might have guessed based upon enhanced telepathic powers (or by having read the title), this is indeed a post on probability and uncertainty , and on chaos and complexity . All of these are nouns representing ideas or theories based upon observed behaviors, and upon the inherent limitations of observations . Probability is the likelihood of a given outcome based upon observed experience over an expanse of time. We know that the likelihood or probability of a coin landing with the 'heads' side up is .50 or 50%. And we also know that each toss of a coin is an independent event . Despite this statistical logic, if we toss ten coins and they all turn up 'heads' -- we start to develop an " experiential probability bias ," and we start to think (despite ourselves, and despite what we know to be the truth) that the next coin toss is more than 50% likely to result in a 'tails' outcome...

Several observations -- and do not look at your watch because you will be wasting valuable, irreplaceable time by the act of tracking it! Since you've been kind enough to stay with me for this length of time, I will attempt to add some "party conversation starting quotation" value to this post, with a quote from my closest associate, Mr. Douglas E. Castle : "Prepare for the future, because the present moment becomes history all too quickly." More Quotes follow, invoking paradoxes or infinitely self-recursive statements which provoke deeper and more expansive thought. The Human Mind, when challenged by a concept that warrants analysis (actually "validation" or acceptable analogy). "You cannot make up for lost time. No matter how expediently and ambitiously you accelerate the pace of your work, the unproductive present moment is permanently gone, except for its persistence in memory." "You cannot change the speed of the passage of time ...