Against all odds!

[Axxaer]

Originally posted by Bhruic
Posts like this just demonstrate a lack of understanding of the basic concepts. The universe does not "like" doing anything at all, as it's not a conscious entity. Is there anything that "wants" the cards back together? Nope. Is there anything that "wants" the cards apart? Nope.

Whilst you are correct there, I know several science teachers at high school / uni level who frequently refer to things as 'wanting' something merely because it is the simplest and easiest way for it to be textually represented. (i.e. 'objects want to keep doing what they are doing' or 'charge generally wants to take the easiest path / path of least resistence) I think it is unfair to claim that he demonstrates a lack of understanding of basic concepts merely because he is using language which should be easy to understand for all who read these forums, as opposed to just the intellectuals. (But as I said I think you are both still correct)

[Blake]

The problem is, of course, that the 999 people who won the battle don't come to the forum to complain about winning it, but the 1 person who loses does.

This probably is exactly what is going on. And now back to our regulary scheduled offtopic argument.

Re: Deck of cards.

I'm pretty sure it is impossible for them to reorder, due to air turbulence. Turbulence is a force which IS going to tend to push the cards. Turbulence is also inevitable on a spinning planet (prehaps it needs temperature differentials too, but good luck finding a planet with even temperature). There would also be the turbulence created by the airplane, I'm pretty sure that the turbulence from the planet and that from the airplane would be enough to seperate the cards, once seperated they would be creating their own turbulence which would act to prevent the cards coming back together.
This theory is that the cards seperate not by sheer dumb luck (ie each path has a random, independent path to the ground), but due to actual physical forces that act to seperate the cards.

[[[Back to Ontopic]]]

I think about my lvl5 Horse Archers vs the lvl2 Chariot, in which the horse archers lost without inflicting any damage. Thinking about it logically and with certain assumptions this seems impossible, presumably the only possible way the the horse archers got to such a high level is if they were really good at fighting, real life experience suggests that skill trumps luck and if the horse archers met the chariots in any form of combat it's nearly implausible that they could lose without inflicting a single loss. This would be like highly trained riot police getting beaten down by an unruly mob of equal numbers, despite the police actually trying, as if all the police suddenly couldn't aim, and their mechanical devices all malfunction, and when push comes to shove they become spontaneously pacifist and refuse to punch the mob down, it requires not just something to go wrong, but for absolutely everything to go wrong in absolutely every possible way, with an extra helping of uncharaistic stupidity and a heap of dumb luck for the underdogs.

However there is the enviroment factor.

What clearly must have happened in the lvl5Horse vs lvl2 Chariot is an Act of God of some description. Like the ALIEN INVASION FORCE UNCLOAKS IN EARTH ORBIT AND BLASTS THE HORSE ARCHERS INTO MONOATOMIC VAPOR (AND THE CHARIOTS CLAIM VICTORY). Such random acts of god happen in the real world (minus the cloaked alien fleets), if however the Civ4 world is anything like the real world, they should also happen outside of combat, there should be no need for your elite units to engage in combat with an inferior force for them to die of "natural causes". It should just happen spontaneously while they are strolling along.

Ultimately what it comes down to is plausibility. Players would probably be accepting of units getting damage or killed outside of combat if it were realistic and somewhat predictable. For example, units getting killed by floods on floodplains, by disease in jungle, by avalances in hills next to mountains...

It's when units apparentely trip over their own swords and die that people get mad. There is strategy in avoiding sending units through jungle. There is no strategy against gross and uncharacteristic incompetence.

[wattro]

Originally posted by Blake
Re: Deck of cards.

I'm pretty sure it is impossible for them to reorder, due to air turbulence. Turbulence is a force which IS going to tend to push the cards. Turbulence is also inevitable on a spinning planet (prehaps it needs temperature differentials too, but good luck finding a planet with even temperature). There would also be the turbulence created by the airplane, I'm pretty sure that the turbulence from the planet and that from the airplane would be enough to seperate the cards, once seperated they would be creating their own turbulence which would act to prevent the cards coming back together.
This theory is that the cards seperate not by sheer dumb luck (ie each path has a random, independent path to the ground), but due to actual physical forces that act to seperate the cards.

uhm... what?

turbulence is, basically speaking, an inconsistency in the wind (which is why it feels so shaky when you are flying). The wind is either lesser or greater than expected, and so the plane reacts to it by sudden displacements (which is one reason people hate flying).

Turbulence is just one factor like every other factor that impacts a deck of cards. It is possible that a card could experience turbulence which might bring it in line with another card.

And yes, you are quite right, cards separate not be sheer dumb luck, but by actual physical forces. This is what most people in this thread have been saying. If you know all the forces that apply, what their relationships are, and their values, you can predict exactly where the cards will fall. If you can manipulate all of these values, you can make the cards fall wherever you want, perhaps even in the same order they began in.

[Axxaer]

Personally, I prefer rather than the 'cards falling from a plane and re-ordering on the ground' analogy, the 'monkeys at typewriters producing the complete works of shakespear' analogy. This is something which we can actually assume (ignoring the possibility of 'intelligent' monkeys or something) WILL happen given an infinitely large sample space, as if every possible combination of letters is used, then one will be the complete works of shakespear (and maybe another one will be a comprehensive index for the CivIV manual). This, being a completely theoretical anology (unless you are Mr. Burns - "It was the best of days, it was the blurst of days") one cannot take this so called 'scientific' approach to a problem I see as being theoretical (As in, I don't believe the cards falling from the plane analogy was intended to be analysed with reference to turbulence and planetary revolutions).

[Bhruic]

Originally posted by Blake

It's when units apparentely trip over their own swords and die that people get mad. There is strategy in avoiding sending units through jungle. There is no strategy against gross and uncharacteristic incompetence.

The units didn't trip over their own swords. They were killed by some chariots. I'm not going to try and come up with some real world example of how that could happen simply because it's irrelevant.

What is relevant is that under those circumstances, there is a chance, albeit quite small, of the chariots winning without suffering any damage. More specifically, that chance not only existed, but happened to occur.

What you and others seem to be advocating is that there should not have been a possiblity of it happening. Ie, it should have been absolutely impossible. And that, of course, simply opens up the whole "where do you draw the line?" question. Should it have been possible for the chariot to win and suffer only a single hit? How about 2 hits? Should it be able to have won at all?

And how do you code that? Are you going to ask someone to code every possible situation based on a pre-conceived notion of what should and shouldn't be possible?

Unless you are willing to completely eliminate chance from combat, there are always going to be these sort of flukes (as illustrated by my earlier numerical post).

Bh

[Blake]

And yes, you are quite right, cards separate not be sheer dumb luck, but by actual physical forces. This is what most people in this thread have been saying. If you know all the forces that apply, what their relationships are, and their values, you can predict exactly where the cards will fall. If you can manipulate all of these values, you can make the cards fall wherever you want, perhaps even in the same order they began in.

The act of a card falling generates turbulence in the air, that turbulence acts on cards above it. Turbulence is a chaotic system and nondeterministic (brownian motion). I say it is impossible for a deck of cards to land in order unless they are still in the box. Even if you rig the dropping (say flying the plane back and forth 52 times and dropping cards at precise moments) it would still be impossible to reliably drop the cards into an in-order pile, even if the flying and calculations were perfect. This is because of air turbulence. I do however cede that with enough trials the "52 drops" case will eventually lead to the deck reassambling, assuming the planets stock of carbon fuels (or it's sun) don't expire before the trials are up. This does not mean I agree a single-drop can ever result in the deck reassembling, due to the interactions between the cards (as far as I'm concerned, this would be like arguing that if you spin two magnets enough time, eventually they'll stick north-north or south-south, it's nothing to do with statistics, it's physically impossible).

Also assuming non-silly deck of cards and plane. If the "plane" is the hand of a guy making areoplane noises and it's "flying" one inch above the ground then I cede that the deck could land in order. But I think this is meant to be real planes and a non-trivial distance to fall.

[Bhruic]

Originally posted by Axxaer
Personally, I prefer rather than the 'cards falling from a plane and re-ordering on the ground' analogy, the 'monkeys at typewriters producing the complete works of shakespear' analogy.

I'd rather go with the lottery. People are generally familiar with the lottery, and how astronomically minute the chance of winning it is.

However, the reality is that although the chance of any individual winning it is extremely remote, the chance of someone winning it is quite high - as demonstrated by the fact that lotteries are won quite frequently. In other words, if you have a large enough sample (millions of people buying tickets), the possibility of a miniscule probability event happening (the roughly 1 in 20+ million chance of winning the lottery) is relatively high.

Bh

[Blake]

Unless you are willing to completely eliminate chance from combat, there are always going to be these sort of flukes (as illustrated by my earlier numerical post).

Heheh. In the background I've been working on my "on topic" post, and it happens to answer this...


Now something I've been thinking about is randomness in other games.

Take an RTS game like Warcraft III. Units have a damage value that is partly random, like a footman might do 9-12 damage per swing. What this means is that in a 1 on 1 fight between 2 footmen, you cannot predict the winner and they wont double-kill, one WILL win due to the random element (actually without the random element the winner would the one who swings first), and it cannot be determined which will win.
However if a human footman fights an Orc Grunt one-on-one, the Grunt is absolutely guaranteed to win, despite the semi-randomized damage. The minimum damage provides a "Minimum threshold of performance", it is simply impossible for units to perform so badly that they fail to do any damage in a fair fight.

I feel that Civ4 does need some kind of "minimum performance", while equal strength should be 50% odds and an indeterminable winner, at some point a strength advantage should result in actual, real 100% odds, you still wont know how convincingly it will win, but it is guaranteed to win (or at the very least, guaranteed to do damage).

An example of how to do this would be to make the "loser" of rolls deal a %age of damage, say 25% of full. There could then be an Armor value (sort of like First Strikes) that reduces damage by an absolute amount. A tank might have a damage reduction of 5, which against a spearman would negate ALL the damage of a "losing hit", and most the damage of a winning hit.

The threshold simply comes down to whatever "feels" right, hey, it works for other games.

edit: One other note. If the combat is made more deterministic then it would be nessecary to make some other gameplay changes. For example the main one is making healing no longer free, as is done in some CTP2 mods where you need to pay public works to heal units. As long as healing is free determinstic combat vastly favors he who has a small combat advantage.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Bhruic
The problem with numbers is that the human mind doesn't comprehend them well. For example, let's assume that you have a 99% chance of winning a particular combat. Almost everyone reading this forum would likely do that combat, fully expecting to win.

But if there are 100 people reading this forum, then there is a 63.4% chance (roughly) that someone is going to lose that battle. If there are 1000 people reading this forum, then there is a 99.996% chance that someone is going to lose that battle. And yet, all things being equal, we still would all expect that we would win.

The problem is, of course, that the 999 people who won the battle don't come to the forum to complain about winning it, but the 1 person who loses does.

Bh

I should rectify this by creating 999 different threads based on the victories my Tanks have against Spearmen.

[Aeson]

First of all, you read far too much into a rhetorical question. All I was illustrating was the absurdity of approaching issues from the standpoint you are offering.

If something hasn't happened yet, it can't be considered a possibility... no thanks. We can come to reasonable conclusions about a great many things which have not occurred yet. Theory is one of those ways. (And a very useful one in a vast number of applications.)

Originally posted by Kataphraktoi
Thats one side of things. The first time you say,flipped a coin, you would have examplesize1 and 100% not heads(if tails). everytime you increase examplesize and its not heads, its still 100% that it wont happan. if you plotted that out after 1 billion reiterations, it would be looking like it couldnt,even though i have flipped coins that are tails. but, if you never had flipped a coin or seen a coin, how would you know that?

Why would you flip the coin in the first place then?

Before "examplesize1" you have "examplesize0" which has a 0% chance for either heads or tails (or any other result) as you've never flipped a coin before. Thus there is no reason to flip the coin as there is no known possible result that could occur from it.

another example,say i have an ak-47(i do,infact) and(these numbers for example only) empty a clip into a target. 7\30 hit the first time,then second 13\30 and third 10\30 for a averaged 33.3% accuracy.if you tested it out enough, and at some interval forecasted the outcome and tested it to that interval and it came as expected, i would say you have some idea of its odds of hitting.

Have you ever fired the AK-47 at a person to understand it's results? Why not?

now, say you knew the exact air pressure,wind, position of hand, surface of coin, and landing surface and ammount of energy put into the coin and how you threw it.(perfect knowledge) would you not be able to say weather or not it would be heads or tails? you could calculate the exact spot, see how many times it will bounce,and know where and what it will be.there is no random elements. of course, we dont have that knowledge so it seems like random outcomes. its only random if you dont know whats going on...

I did not say anything on the subject of "random". At least have a clue about what I think before trying to "learn" me about it. The way to do so is either wait until I address the subject incorrectly, or you could simply ask me what my thoughts about randomness are if you really are interested.

now those cards would have to overcome all those sources of energy(being blown out of the plane, the air resistance, gravity, yadayada) and somehow just come together. isnt that a bit fantastic? what exactly is forcing them back together?

I find your personification of physics hillarious.

You as a human being define "ordered" relative to yourself. Physics does not define "ordered" at all.

Matter obeys the laws of physics. If matter exists in a form that is "ordered" to you, even if you were part of the process of that "ordering", it was accomplished while obeying the same laws of physics that in other situations would have wrought "disorder".

You say the chance that flipping the cards out of a plane and having them land in order is unlikely. I say that the likelyhood of that situation (ie. state of the entire universe at that moment in time) having occurred in the first place is exponentially less likely, but it still occurred.

all the physics i know indicate the universe likes taking things apart, not putting them together. there isnt anything that wants them back together. i cant think of a single force that is working towards the effect of flipping them together

There isn't anything that wants them apart either.

Gravity would actually be working on bringing the cards together (not in any specific order). It wouldn't be a big force, and would also be working from other matter at the same time (which could bring them together more, or apart more), but it's a force. Also, there are other physical forces which could be at work. To illustrate an obvious one, glue the cards together (and let it dry) before flipping them. Oil from a person's hands can also cause cards to stick together.

(To be fair, I assume you meant to qualify your experiment to not include "artificially" introducing forces that would hamper the seperation of the cards. But since you're trying to be technical, it's only fair to approach it technically.

I use "artificially" in quotes because unless you've found a way to circumvent the laws of physics, even something like the interaction of matter within yourself to bring about gluing cards together is physics.)

The wind/turbulence/whatever can affect the cards. It can both seperate them, and bring them together. It has no "purpose" in that regard. If the conditions are for a card to go in a certain direction, it does, regardless of whether that direction will lead it to another card or not.

i have never seen anything 'just happan'. the desk in front of me cant just 'poof' into existance because its component materiel started out in peices and would have forever gotten into smaller peices until the universe ends. temporary conditions like inside of sun or core of earth may change things with intense energy to higher states of existance but they expend huge sums of energy,and eventualy the whole universe will be 1 type of matter at the exact same tempature. it wont just 'flip' itself back together.

You're getting extremely far from your initial presumption that if something hasn't been shown to occur, it won't occur. What are the odds of the heat death of the universe occuring? We haven't observed it ever happening, yet you come to that conclusion how?

(That is not to say I agree or disagree with your conclusion. That is another topic entirely.)

If i may ask, what are you basing your arguments on that it could happan?

Perhaps you should have asked first whether or not I think it could happen. I had not stated my belief in that regard yet.

How do you come to the conclusion that I do think it could happen without having first observed (ie. had me say) that I do think it could happen? You seem to be the one jumping to conclusions here.

firm belief in magic or paper-statistics?

If you're really interested in what I think, ask without the loaded questions, and definitely without misrepresenting what I have said. You just have to say, "Do you think the cards could land in order?"

Is that so difficult?

To answer your loaded question though, I don't have a firm belief in anything, except maybe the belief that I am not qualified to make absolute assumptions (ironic as that may be).

I use my experiences (ie. statistical analysis), which includes the experiences of others that I've been able to observe, and any predictive systems that my experience has shown to be applicable, to predict as best I can the outcome of various possibilities, and make choices based on those predictions. In cases where I don't have previous experience that would specifically apply (which actually is every case to some extent), I try to deduce similarities in the circumstances to experiences I have had, and then use transitive weighting to make the predictions off of.

As for "magic", you'll have to define it better. I belief in "tricks" (both by humans and nature), as in outcomes where the causes aren't readily observable or understood. I don't believe in non-physical activity. (That is not to say I don't believe in "spiritual" type activity, just that if it exists, it would also have some "form". Thus it would also be physical, though likely not physical as we currently understand.)

i think statistics as means of 'odds' are pretty meaningless, myself. things either happan or they dont

Assuming something that hasn't happened won't happen is asking to be wrong though. Everything that's happened for the first time is an example. (Time itself is a huge implication on this issue.)

clarification on my references to examplesize; i dont mean to say flipping a coin 50 times and heads results in always being heads. it just reflects the past chances. you can use that to try and decide what the odds are next time of getting it, which is the primary use of such statistics afaik

I can look at a coin and see 2 sides (and an edge that I will ignore for now to not clutter up the reasoning). Even if I have never flipped a coin, I can draw upon experiences that are related to come to possible conclusions about the general possibilities of flipping a 2 sided object. Perhaps I had flipped a CD, a pancake, a washer, or any number of similar objects with 2 sides. Even experience with X sided objects could be applied. Flipping dice enough would likely lead to the conclusion that a 6 sided object has a 1/6 chance of landing on any given side. A 4 sided object with a 1/4 chance... and from that I could deduce that the odds of any given side are 1/X, where X is the number of sides (assuming all are similar) on the object. From that predictive formula, the coin would be given a 1/2 chance of landing on a given side.

That sort of transitive reasoning is not always correct of course, but it's a better base than nothing. And if it's shown to be incorrect, that is in itself a valuable experience.

To bring it back to the card flipping, even though I've never flipped cards out of an airplane, I have flipped cards (and other similar objects) in other circumstances. I understand it is unlikely for even a single card to end up in any specificly predefined orientation after having been flipped. But I also understand that it is almost certain that when a card is flipped that it will end up in a specific orientation. It has happened every time I or anyone I have observed has tried. (except maybe for the ones that seemed to have disappeared under the couch and were never found. )

That leads to the conclusion that if you were to predefine any orientation it is extremely unlikely that it will actually occur. But a specific orientation will occur. That means an extremely unlikely outcome occurs all the time.

Now I know what you are saying. That 1:X (X being whatever the possible number of outcomes of flipping the cards would have) is much less likely to happen than X-1:X. That is true. It is faulty logic to base the conclusion that 1:X can't occur because of that though. 1:X always occurs in practice, regardless of what subset it belongs to. For example, tossing a die leads to 1:6 chances. The chances are 1:2 that it will be odd (or even). The chances are 5:6 that it won't be a specific number. Just because the odds that it won't be a specific number are greater than the odds that it will, doesn't mean that it's impossible for a specific number to turn up. In fact (ignoring the minimal chances for non-number results) a specific number will turn up. When flipping cards out of an airplane, you're dealing with dice with a lot more sides.

I'm never going to try to order cards by flipping them out the window though, because there are much more likely ways to get cards in order. I'm not even going to say that you could order cards by flipping them out of a plane either, as until it has been shown to be a possibility, it's just theory. I will say it's theoretically possible that you flip cards out of a plane and have them land in a stack in order, that that possibility is so slim as to be virtually useless (other than just for kicks, or for theoretical discussions such as these), but that the theoretical possibility is the same as any other specific orientation of the cards.

At the same time, it is not correct to say that the cards could not land in a stack in order after having been flipped from a plane. Statistics do not have the capability of proving impossibility.

They are useful in other applications though.

[Axxaer]

Originally posted by Aeson
Why would you flip the coin in the first place then?

Before "examplesize1" you have "examplesize0" which has a 0% chance for either heads or tails (or any other result) as you've never flipped a coin before. Thus there is no reason to flip the coin as there is no known possible result that could occur from it.

That is preposterous. You're implying that it is not worth doing something unless you know what might happen. There had to be a first time. And (imo) one can't truly 'know' the possible results until they have experienced/witnessed them for themselves.

To make my point I will use an utterly ridiculous scenario (which doesn't really prove anything but makes me feel better):

I make a button. A big shiny mauve button.
I hold a knife to your throat and say if you don't press the button then I will kill you.
You have no idea what the outcome of pressing the button will be.
Would you press the button?

[Bill3000]

Would you press the button?

Yes, because all shiny buttons are to be pressed.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Axxaer
That is preposterous. You're implying that it is not worth doing something unless you know what might happen.

Yes. I was implying that. But not the way you are reading it. The question was meant to be preposterous.

I was showing that Kataphraktoi was not taking his reasoning all the way. He proposed an experiment, flipping a coin. That has a very precise proceedure. Namely, flipping the coin. He also was using the reasoning that because an event hadn't occured yet, that it is not considered a possibility.

My question was a rhetorical one to illustrate that if that line of reasoning is followed through it leads to the conclusion that flipping the coin the first time is not even a possibility, because it hasn't happened yet. I do not agree with that line of reasoning, which should be abundantly clear if you read my entire post. (A daunting task, I know.)

To make my point I will use an utterly ridiculous scenario:

I make a button. A big shiny mauve button.
I hold a knife to your throat and say if you don't press the button then I will kill you.
You have no idea what the outcome of pressing the button will be.
Would you press the button?

There is a problem with this scenario. You are specifically giving a reason to push (or not push) the button. Pushing the button leads to not being killed. Not pushing the button leads to being killed. While that is not the effect of the button (which is not known) that is the known effect of pushing the button.

I agree with your general intent though. Understanding the outcome(s) of an action is not always a prerequisite for the action to occur. It can even be a prerequisite to not understand the outcome of an action in many cases.

[Axxaer]

Originally posted by Aeson
There is a problem with this scenario. You are specifically giving a reason to push (or not push) the button. Pushing the button leads to not being killed. Not pushing the button leads to being killed. While that is not the effect of the button (which is not known) that is the known effect of pushing the button.

I agree with your general intent though. Understanding the outcome(s) of an action is not always a prerequisite for the action to occur. It can even be a prerequisite to not understand the outcome of an action in many cases.

Yeah I didn't really think that example through... oh well at least you see where I was coming from.

[Kataphraktoi]

funny how a side comment\troll turned into this.well i dont have time to reply on all points(and alot of posts there ) and no, i am not sure why some of my text looks blue

Now I know what you are saying. That 1:X (X being whatever the possible number of outcomes of flipping the cards would have) is much less likely to happen than X-1:X. That is true. It is faulty logic to base the conclusion that 1:X can't occur because of that though. 1:X always occurs in practice, regardless of what subset it belongs to. For example, tossing a die leads to 1:6 chances. The chances are 1:2 that it will be odd (or even). The chances are 5:6 that it won't be a specific number. Just because the odds that it won't be a specific number are greater than the odds that it will, doesn't mean that it's impossible for a specific number to turn up. In fact (ignoring the minimal chances for non-number results) a specific number will turn up. When flipping cards out of an airplane, you're dealing with dice with a lot more sides.

Actually, its not my basis for saying its impossible. What i mean to say behind all that, is that their is no basis for it happaning. The state of the cards is 'order' then 'chaos' as they are flipping and 'random' forces cannot reorder them into order again.quote by blake on this actually sums by position up decently. those physical forces need to be overcome by something, some other source of energy for the cards other than gravity.

I'm pretty sure it is impossible for them to reorder, due to air turbulence. Turbulence is a force which IS going to tend to push the cards. Turbulence is also inevitable on a spinning planet (prehaps it needs temperature differentials too, but good luck finding a planet with even temperature). There would also be the turbulence created by the airplane, I'm pretty sure that the turbulence from the planet and that from the airplane would be enough to seperate the cards, once seperated they would be creating their own turbulence which would act to prevent the cards coming back together.
This theory is that the cards seperate not by sheer dumb luck (ie each path has a random, independent path to the ground), but due to actual physical forces that act to seperate the cards.

You say the chance that flipping the cards out of a plane and having them land in order is unlikely. I say that the likelyhood of that situation (ie. state of the entire universe at that moment in time) having occurred in the first place is exponentially less likely, but it still occurred.

Therein lies the root of your problem. The universe cannot just pop into existance. external sources of energy are needed to start it. and off that...

You're getting extremely far from your initial presumption that if something hasn't been shown to occur, it won't occur. What are the odds of the heat death of the universe occuring? We haven't observed it ever happening, yet you come to that conclusion how?

This does tie in...i can say that because the universe needed someone to start it. entropy. without someone\something pumping more order into the univ, it will slowly decay. you can rename 'order' with whatever you like, but the world isnt a self-sustaining machine indefinitly.

If you're really interested in what I think, ask without the loaded questions, and definitely without misrepresenting what I have said. You just have to say, "Do you think the cards could land in order?

OK. do you or not think it could happan?

Assuming something that hasn't happened won't happen is asking to be wrong though. Everything that's happened for the first time is an example. (Time itself is a huge implication on this issue.)

I would agree your correct on all points...except your base is faulty. your arguments are based on that assumption that odds or chances created things. correct? in that case, my argument rests on assumption that all things need to be created or influenced and then are free to wind down with entropy to whatever states they are headed towards. If the universe was not randomly poofed, then there is no reason to say ''all things are possible'' based on that

However, the reality is that although the chance of any individual winning it is extremely remote, the chance of someone winning it is quite high - as demonstrated by the fact that lotteries are won quite frequently. In other words, if you have a large enough sample (millions of people buying tickets), the possibility of a miniscule probability event happening (the roughly 1 in 20+ million chance of winning the lottery) is relatively high.

Different situation. the outcome already exists. weather or not the someone finds it or not. this winning ticket was created and didnt pop into existance...

At the same time, it is not correct to say that the cards could not land in a stack in order after having been flipped from a plane. Statistics do not have the capability of proving impossibility.

As i said, statistics can show what has happaned. any statistics on something that hasnt happaned is pure guessing with maybe some math to make it look good. without a reason\external force that wants them to or is influencing things towards that to come back together, the cards wont. as only sentient's or automated systems setup by those sentient's can influence things with a will(care about the cards coming together) if neither influence things the current way things works dictate that they will spread out. i say a sentient being set things up to work against the cards. of course this opens up a WHOLE new debate that should be fun

I should rectify this by creating 999 different threads based on the victories my Tanks have against Spearmen.

Pure spam

Edit: my post is out of order...yet when i edit it, it shows fine. funny things happan all the time i guess