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## Archive for the ‘Lottery’ Category

May 19th, 2007 by Sean Randomness Doesn’t Exist - Part 1

I will explain my ideas on why I believe randomness doesn’t truly exist. I believe I can win the lottery using these ideas.

The first thing to understand is what society’s current beliefs are about randomness.

One of the first things you might think about, is that when you play video games on your computer, there is obviously some random stuff going on. Sometimes an enemy turns left, sometimes he turns right - completely random. You might even know some things about programming, and know of functions to call when you want a random number.

All these random numbers on computers aren’t truly random though - they are pseudo-random numbers. What that means is that usually some number is taken from the outside world - for example, the time it takes you to click on the “New Game” button in milliseconds - or the time of day you run the program in milliseconds - and that number is treated as the “seed”. From this seed number, the computer can generate a sequence of numbers that appear to be random. All it does is perform some math on the seed number, and spit out the result for you. Then change the seed number (according to a formula), so the next time you want a random number, it has a new result.

You don’t have to understand the exact formulas. If you’re curious you can do some more research on pseudo-random numbers, and random number generation. It’s a large field in computer science. The important part to understand is that these “random” numbers on computers aren’t actually random. They are calculated from some seed, based on formulas. Not random.

So randomness doesn’t exist on a computer. But surely randomness exists in reality?! You might argue, for example, what about flipping a coin? What about rolling dice? These events are truly random.

Well, on the surface they sure do seem like it. After all - how many of us can predict 100 dice rolls in a row? No one. So it does seem like that is a random system. However, there is a problem.

The problem comes in when we research how many people have won the lottery twice. Google, Video, Couple, Family, PA, NY Deli, etc, etc…

Now of course there are skeptics on the issue, claiming that with so many people playing, surely there will be some people who win twice. For those with some common sense, reading the skeptic side of things is actually pretty hilarious - they claim: “the odds of someone winning the lottery twice to be something like 1 in 30 for a four month period and better than even odds over a seven year period. Why? Because players don’t buy one ticket for each of two lotteries, they buy multiple tickets every week” - wow. Then how come everyone doesn’t win twice? All they have to do is play 40 times ;-). An absolutely ridiculous article, especially for those that understand statistics and probability at a high-school level.

The truth is that our current understanding of reality can NOT explain how people win the lottery twice.

So, we have to do what’s right. We have to be honest with ourselves. Probability and statistics are models for reality. The models work pretty good most of the time, but when we look at people who win the lottery twice, we notice that our model is incorrect. If our model is mostly correct, but has some incorrect moments, then what do we do? Modify the model. Clearly our model isn’t completely accurate. So we modify it. We DO NOT spatter off nonsense to try and convince ourselves that our model must be correct, and that reality is just being rude for not following our laws. We take an honest and humble look at it and say: Well gee, we’re a little bit off, how can we make a more accurate model?

Think about it. Study probability and statistics a little bit. Try to digest the odds of someone winning twice. In this article we’re told the odds are 419 million to one. That would mean the winner would have to play the lottery every minute - for 796 years - to accomplish this using our current model. Now you see how impossible this really is with our current model.

Think about it. I’ll post more on it later.

Posted in Lottery, Philosophy, Science | 20 Comments »

May 15th, 2007 by Sean Lottery

I’ve become convinced I can win the lottery :-).

My obsession started at the beginning of March. I had heard on the news that the MegaMillions jackpot was at a record $390 million. I was visiting my father in Georgia, and he asked me what I would do if I won that much money. I’m sure his question was just an innocent way to talk about something for a little bit. I think I may have taken the question a little too seriously :-).

I started to really think about what I would do with that much money. What would I really do. It dominated my thoughts for quite a while.

Then I remembered talking to my friend about the lottery, a few months prior to my Georgia visit. We were talking about how reality is not some machine, and that modern science doesn’t give it enough credit. I had told him about a news article I had read, where a lady won the lottery twice. I tried to get my friend to understand that this simply should NEVER REALISTICALLY HAPPEN - according to statistics and probability. The fact that it has happened is evidence that things aren’t what they seem.

Thinking about the lady winning twice, and thinking about the question of what I would do with $390 million dollars… I became convinced that if someone else can do it - then so can I. I started playing MegaMillions, and made a goal to figure out how others have won, and how I could win myself.

All this thinking led me to a realization. I realized that randomness doesn’t truly exist. I may post on this idea later, but the general idea is that nothing in this world is truly random. Where the modern worlds sees random occurrences, what they’re really witnessing is a subconscious choice - but they can’t figure it out, so they just simplify it to this idea of “random”, so they don’t have to think about it.

Once I had made this realization, the next time I played the lottery I won. $3 to be exact (odds 1 in 141). I was pretty happy, and I kept thinking about this idea of randomness - and won again the next drawing. $7 this time (odds 1 in 306). Back to back, the “odds” of winning twice is 1 in 43,146. You may disagree with the math, but the fact still remains that I had only played 5 tickets at that point, and 2 of them had been winners.

That sealed the deal.

Since then, I’ve continued to play the lottery, but haven’t won yet. I’m convinced that I can win. If someone can win twice, I can win once. And if I can win once, I can win a hundred times.

It’s very interesting to me. I’ll post on it later :-).

Posted in Lottery, Subconscious | 18 Comments »

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