The Probability Cloud
Every day we wake up with our head in a probability cloud. There are so many probabilities in just one day that we spend lifetimes trying to decode the best methods for choosing from an infinite array of choices. Every choice we make collapses the probability cloud. Remember that game show where people had to choose from one of three doors? Remember the way contestants would agonize over their choice? What if they chose the wrong door and lost. Life, as some perceive it, is like that game show writ large. Every moment becomes a choice to wring their hands over and every choice made only makes them wonder if another door would have had a better prize. The doors available are infinite, but once you open one and walk through it, all the others disappear and are lost to you forever. Of course, the flip side is that each door opened and walked through collapses the probability cloud behind you, but immediately presents you with a fresh one.
Every person approaches this “life as a game show” differently. There are those who become paralyzed and never make a choice for fear of losing something. They lose anyway. There are those who try to break the code through religion, morality, philosophy, science, popularity, or transcendence. It is their belief that if only they break the code, they will always choose the best door, and then the best door after that, and so on, and their lives will be an endless stepping through to pleasure, happiness, and freedom from any and all unpleasantries. Then there are those who say, “F**k it, I’m going to win some, I’m going to lose some”, and they don’t waste any time making their choices.
Whose right? How can we ever know when our choices are the best choices? How can we reconcile the doors we lose? I don’t know. I can’t know. So I say, “F**k it, I’m going to win some, I’m going to lose some.” Today I woke up with my head in a cloud…a probability cloud. Let’s see what’s behind door number one.
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