Conquer Club

''Losing that roll was 1 in a 1.000.000'' haven't we all heard that on the forums waaaay to many times ??

Well, today I was reminded by some of those topics by a video I saw on youtube. It's a great video, where a genius man explains the universe and everything. (and nothing )

Here is the video for people that are interested, you don't need much knowledge of physics and cosmology to understand it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8P ... ture=share

If you're not interested in the full video, I fully understand, because it has little to do with this topic or Conquer Club

There were just a couple of lines that reminded me of ConquerClub to be honest !
And it was about infinity, it reminded me of conquer club because the endless discussion about random are actually also about infinity. Because simple said, random evens out at infinity, anyway, this is what he said:

One of the most important morals of infinity can be explained by quoting Richard Feynman. He used to get to people and say:

You won't believe what happened to me today !
People said, well, tell me ?
And then he said: Absolutely nothing !

The moral is... We humans believe that everything that happens to us is special and significant.
But we should think twice. Because the probabilities anything would happen to anybody are 1 to infinite. Simply because of all the factors in life are just enourmous. Every second on this planet, there are billions of people that make choices and decision, little decision, big decision, every single second ! The chance that the world is at it is after 1000 years of decision making by every people on the planet is infinite large.

Realise this, for you to be here on Conquer Club reading this post, your mother and father must have met each other witch is a very small chance in a world with billions of people, they must have been some place on the same time, saw each other, talked to each other, made the effort to meet again, fell in love witch each other, and eventually 1 out of 500 million sperm cells won the race, what leaded to me. But before all this could happen, your grandmother and grandfather from your mother and father who don't even know each other must have done the same earlier in time. And their parents must have done the same... and you can go on and go on. If just one of those persons had decided 1 tiny thing, like go to work walking or with the train, or heck, the choose of a simple t shirt. That could have leaded to me not being born.

This leads to a conclusion that you, me and everybody around you had a 1 to 999999999999999999999999999999999999^99999999999999999999999999999999999999999 chance to be born, or let's just say, a 1 to infinite chance.

But it still happened.
So next time when you lose that 20 vs 4, realise that when you say it's impossible with random dice, you are actually saying it is impossible for you to live in on this planet in the first place.

What this topic actually is about
Sorry for the long post.

Post something that had such a small chance of happening, but was essencial to the life you live right now. CC related, or RL related, or just do both, so that everybody can see that losing a ''one in a million role'' is not that bad odds at all

Hm, I like this topic. It surprised me. I went into the topic expecting...well, not this!

In regards to something that had a small chance of happening, but essential to the life I am living right now...I think stumbling across Conquer Club is pretty high up there!

I remember it was back in 2006. Some friends and I just finished playing RISK and Axis and Allies over a weekend, and I wanted to get in another game but we didn't have the time, we had to get back to our usual routine. So I hopped onto Google Search, typed in something like "free online risk" and Conquer Club was the first result I remember looking at. From there...things just snowballed from being a regular user who posted on the forum, to becoming a Volunteer, to then becoming part of Conquer Club staff. It seems like quite a string of events looking back, when all I wanted was a free place to muck around on.


--Andy

Glad you like it !

For myself.
2 years ago I finished High School and had to choose what to do next. When I made my decision I went online to register to that particular school in the city Groningen. When I filled in the form, and clicked sent, I got an error because the internet was down. I still don't know why it went down, but it went down, and didn't got back up that day. So I thought, well, it happens, I will register tomorrow.

Ofcourse, the next day I forgot, and before you knew it it was a week later that I thought, damn, I forgot something. I tried to register for the school again, but I got an error that the last date that you could register was already gone.

Long story short. Because the internet connection went down for a few hours, I now live in a completely different city, go to a different school, have a different house and hang out with lots of people I would have never met if it wass'nt for that internet fail.

My life is great right, now, Im glad everything happened the way it happened. But what if that day my connection wassn't aborted ? If I would have sent the registration form just minutes earlier when i was still online ?
My life would have been completely different. And I will never know if it would have been better or worse

AndyDufresne wrote:Hm, I like this topic. It surprised me. I went into the topic expecting...well, not this!

In regards to something that had a small chance of happening, but essential to the life I am living right now...I think stumbling across Conquer Club is pretty high up there!

I remember it was back in 2006. Some friends and I just finished playing RISK and Axis and Allies over a weekend, and I wanted to get in another game but we didn't have the time, we had to get back to our usual routine. So I hopped onto Google Search, typed in something like "free online risk" and Conquer Club was the first result I remember looking at. From there...things just snowballed from being a regular user who posted on the forum, to becoming a Volunteer, to then becoming part of Conquer Club staff. It seems like quite a string of events looking back, when all I wanted was a free place to muck around on.


--Andy

Some friends of my brother said "Hey, [TGD's real name], you should play this game with us." So I started playing. Then I saw there was a forum with stuff about politics. Then I started playing more games and tournaments and posting a whole lot more. Then I became a volunteer discussion moderator. Then I became a global moderator. Then, when real life interfered, I stopped playing games and moderating and am now a forum denizen, ignored and disrespected by the players, revered by the other forum denizens.

I have seen a few things regarding the 1 to infinite chance you were born. And its true things during the big bang had to be exactly precise for everything to happen the way it did, when the earth was formed it's believed by scientists that two planets collided, one of ice and one of rock. The collision created enough heat to melt the stone and ice and create our "core" and the remainder created our moon. Had those two planets not collided at that exact angle and speed, things wouldn't have worked. Same goes for the big bang if things hadn't been exactly precise and I mean exact, for example the speed of expansion being exact things would be completely different. That's just our universe....imagine the creating of life....and then imagine the creation of intelligent life...and then imagine that the intelligent life is smart enough to figure out how it was created...

Well, there's also the question whether the universe is deterministic or not.

Some argue that since the laws of physics govern over all matter, everything in the universe, including people, are just sort of automatons that are interacting according to the laws of physics... if you think about it: our brains are of that same matter, and the neurons in our brain that interact with each other, creating our thoughts, are also following the laws of physics. So ultimately, you could say the entire universe is like a train on tracks, everything happens according to how it's going to happen and we don't really have any choice to do anything other than what we're going to do.

In that case, when you lose that 20 v 4, it couldn't have happened any other way, and you couldn't even have not attacked, because you can't help doing what you do.

I used to smoke a lot of weed too.

Natty_dread, even if the law of physics govern over all matter, it would'nt mean the universe should be deterministic for the very simple reason that, in a very complex form, matter would be able to think and make his own decisions.

Anyway, that's a hard discussion, especially on the internet !

I would like to see some more stories of people from events that had such a small chance of happening, but were essencial to the life their living right now

frankiebee wrote:The chance that the world is as it is after 1000 years of decision making by every people on the planet is infinite large.

Well, yeah.. At the moment of the Earth's creation, the chances that somewhere down the line I would be sat at this computer typing this sentence was 1 in infinite. However at this exact moment in time, the chance that I will still be sat at this computer in 5 minutes time is very high.

Put another way: if I tell you to flip a coin 100 times, then the chances of flipping all 'heads' are tiny. But if you flip the coin 99 times, and get all heads, the chance of flipping a head on your next flip is 50:50. Just because the odds were small at the start doesn't mean they stay permanently small.

natty_dread wrote:Some argue that since the laws of physics govern over all matter, everything in the universe, including people, are just sort of automatons that are interacting according to the laws of physics... if you think about it: our brains are of that same matter, and the neurons in our brain that interact with each other, creating our thoughts, are also following the laws of physics. So ultimately, you could say the entire universe is like a train on tracks, everything happens according to how it's going to happen and we don't really have any choice to do anything other than what we're going to do.

Never thought of it that way before. Pretty interesting.

frankiebee wrote:Natty_dread, even if the law of physics govern over all matter, it would'nt mean the universe should be deterministic for the very simple reason that, in a very complex form, matter would be able to think and make his own decisions.

False. Matter doesn't think. In your brain, neurons interact with each other, which creates your "mind", which makes "decisions". But those neurons are still made of the same matter, and that matter is governed by the laws of physics, so the decisions you make are ultimately decided beforehand by the laws of physics.

Think about it: there's a certain configuration of matter, and each particle interacts with other particles according to certain qualities these particles have, and these interactions are governed by certain infallible laws, which are the laws of physics. Now, since there's no external influence which could influence the way these particles interact, and they all just follow the laws of physics, there's ultimately only one way these particles can interact with each other.

Extend this to the entire universe, and basically, the entire history of the universe, from start to finish, is already written - we're just actors in a play playing out a pre-written script.

Pre-written by God.

People seem to forget that, when faced with probability, it's going to happen eventually. Certain circumstances make it more likely for one thing to happen over another, but it will all play out when you deal with infinity- I could explain the concept in a three post message, but basically if something has a nonzero probability it will happen an infinite number of times over an indefinite time span.

I love this subject and I am a huge Hawking fan but I have to be a bit of a party pooper here.

In reality, We have no idea of what the odds where for everything falling into place in the universe because we don't know if it has ever happened before.

In other words, for all we know this scenario of the universe starting from big bang has happened 100 times in a row with the same result.. Many think that when it reaches it peak point of expansion that it will quickly return and collapse back on itself due to gravity and negative energy.

It could have tried this 100 times and this is the first time that it worked..... Or this could be the first time which would make the probability 100%

One last point... When it is all said and done, gravity is the driving force of motion in the universe so if everything would have expanded equally we would not exist either.... It took imperfections to make this happen.

Everything thats written or has been written or could be written is encoded in the digits of pi.

1= a
2= b
3= c

Etc....

Eventually there will be a string of numbers that when decoded will be "Romeo & Julliet" so Shakespeare really didn't write it, it was already contained within the most famous transcendental number.

Shakespeare was a fraud , Barthes was correct "The author is dead."

natty_dread wrote:

frankiebee wrote:Natty_dread, even if the law of physics govern over all matter, it would'nt mean the universe should be deterministic for the very simple reason that, in a very complex form, matter would be able to think and make his own decisions.

False. Matter doesn't think. In your brain, neurons interact with each other, which creates your "mind", which makes "decisions". But those neurons are still made of the same matter, and that matter is governed by the laws of physics, so the decisions you make are ultimately decided beforehand by the laws of physics.

Think about it: there's a certain configuration of matter, and each particle interacts with other particles according to certain qualities these particles have, and these interactions are governed by certain infallible laws, which are the laws of physics. Now, since there's no external influence which could influence the way these particles interact, and they all just follow the laws of physics, there's ultimately only one way these particles can interact with each other.

Extend this to the entire universe, and basically, the entire history of the universe, from start to finish, is already written - we're just actors in a play playing out a pre-written script.

False ??
That pretty arrogant and narrow minded to say. Scientists have ''weighted'' the universe, and one of there conclusion is that the universe has a lot of ''missing matter.''
When neurons interact with each other, what does happen ? Does only matter create, or does more than just happen ?Is there something created that we don't know/understand ? Maybe that's the little something that makes us unique, that gives us our own decisions.

I assume you have no nice story to tell
Because really, we can have a discussion about the universe, infinity, deterministic, dark matter, evolution, religion, filosophy, light speed, time travel, flexible time and space, baby universes etc etc all day, we are just simple CC players with our own humble opinion about how we think how stuff works around us. We will never agree, and nobody will post the ''right'' solution.

frankiebee wrote:False ??
That pretty arrogant and narrow minded to say.

Nope. I'm not claiming that I know how the universe works, only that the premise of your argument was wrong.

frankiebee wrote:When neurons interact with each other, what does happen ? Does only matter create, or does more than just happen ?Is there something created that we don't know/understand ? Maybe that's the little something that makes us unique, that gives us our own decisions.

Maybe, and maybe we're all just brains in jars and maybe the whole universe is just a computer simulation.

frankiebee wrote:I assume you have no nice story to tell
Because really, we can have a discussion about the universe, infinity, deterministic, dark matter, evolution, religion, filosophy, light speed, time travel, flexible time and space, baby universes etc etc all day, we are just simple CC players with our own humble opinion about how we think how stuff works around us. We will never agree, and nobody will post the ''right'' solution.

Even though we can't know with 100% certainty what the right solution is, it doesn't mean that all solutions are equally probable. If we accept the premise that the universe has consistent rules which we can observe, then we can deduce from our observations what those rules are. And eventually, we will know how the universe works. It's just a matter of time.

Frankie, the chances of you being born is 1.
Otherwise you would not have been able to start this thread.

Because we're so limited in our knowledge of the universe, and because our lifespan is so brief in relation to the age of the known universe, a majority of people struggle to get their heads around astronomical figures. Talk in modern times is of billions in GDPs and debt etc, yet until you saw just how much that was - physically - it's just another number bandied around. A while ago (though not so long) a million was thought to be a lot.

Now imagine a universe that is trillions upon trillions of years old, that has expanded and imploded a billion times only to repeat the whole process again. There's every possibilty an 'Earth' existed before, in a different galaxy in a different era and where humans evolved once before, only for it all - as will happen with us - to come crashing down. Pretty deep stuff.

I still enjoy the thought-provoking statement that an intelligent lifeform looking at our planet through a telescope from a place 70 light years away would be viewing images of WW2.

Hmmm, still morning here. Far too early for this topic.

Chariot of Fire wrote:Because we're so limited in our knowledge of the universe, and because our lifespan is so brief in relation to the age of the known universe, a majority of people struggle to get their heads around astronomical figures. Talk in modern times is of billions in GDPs and debt etc, yet until you saw just how much that was - physically - it's just another number bandied around. A while ago (though not so long) a million was thought to be a lot.

Now imagine a universe that is trillions upon trillions of years old, that has expanded and imploded a billion times only to repeat the whole process again. There's every possibilty an 'Earth' existed before, in a different galaxy in a different era and where humans evolved once before, only for it all - as will happen with us - to come crashing down. Pretty deep stuff.

I still enjoy the thought-provoking statement that an intelligent lifeform looking at our planet through a telescope from a place 70 light years away would be viewing images of WW2.

Hmmm, still morning here. Far too early for this topic.

Quick Zyphyr, lets act now, they don't even have nukes yet...

frankiebee wrote:, filosophy,

hehee...

hmmmmhaha...

HahahaHaa,,omigod... i'm literally laughing out loud right now...

I don't complain that I lose a 20v4 .... I complain that it happens way too often.

Robinette wrote:

frankiebee wrote:, filosophy,

hehee...

hmmmmhaha...

HahahaHaa,,omigod... i'm literally laughing out loud right now...

Yeah whatever, you know; ''when you've got nothing nice to say, it's better to say nothing at all''
O wait, that's how it works on the CC forums nowadays, make fun of people, flame and be as negative and unsupportive as possible. Yegh.

Btw, nice comment CoF. As it is 5:15 here I don't have anything more to say about it right now

I don't think 'Nette was being deliberately mean-spirited - she's not like that. It's just that the word 'filosophy' looks kinda cute, and it is amusing given the gravity of its meaning. Your native tongue isn't even English, so I think what you've been able to write and express so far is bloody fantastic (geweldig!). Wish I could do that in another language, and I'm sure Nette does too. So don't take it too seriously.

And thanks for the comment. Enjoyed your own tale of the internet application you were meant to make and the implications sending or not sending have had on your life. Thought provoking indeed.

I sincerely hope she wassn't, but it's getting a trend lately on the CC forums that members are working hard to everything they can to bash on others to look funny/cool whatever whenever they can.
When people are trying to make a point I think it's pretty inappropriate to just reply with:
''HahahaHaa,,omigod... i'm literally laughing out loud right now... ''

Thanks again, it's not that easy to express what you think in a foreign language, hanging around at CC forums sure helps

No one has true freedom of choice. Everything that has ever happened since the beginning of time has brought me to this point...of writing this statement...just as it has brought you to this point of reading this statement.

Thus, the randomisation of dice or anything is pre-ordained by everything that ever happened before it.