1.
Did you know that Probability Theory didn’t exist until the 17th century? Up until 350 years ago (give or take) it was inconceivable that we could measure the likeliness of an event and then express this likeliness in numbers. I was shocked to learn that this was so recently out of mind’s reach for us.
I went to hear NPR’s Math Guy, Keith Devlin, deliver a lecture on his most recent book, The Unfinished Game. Devlin reminded me of the guys from Radio Lab, communicating “advanced” concepts to diverse audiences with the help of different media. His book claims that a single document–a letter between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat–changed the field of mathematics and radically transformed the way people think and reason.
The story I heard goes like this: Early probability was limited to gambling, where, for example, it was commonly known that the odds of rolling two sixes is 1/36 (I had to look that up just now). Determining odds in a finite setting was one thing, but applying this kind of logic to messy human behavior was (and is) altogether different.
For centuries, a by-our-standards simple problem confounded scholars, who routinely failed to solve it. Say two guys–Albert and Bernie–are playing a game of stakes with 5 rounds. The first to win 3 rounds takes the pot. At the end of round three, Albert has 1 win and Bernie has 2. For some unknown reason, they have to call it quits and part ways, never to resume to game. Without a clear winner, how should they divide the pot?
Well, if you work out all the possible scenarios for how the game could have proceeded (there are only 4), you find that odds are 1:3 in favor of Bernie taking the pot. Albert’s chances of winning are 1 in 4; Bernie’s: 3 in 4. So, Albert should take ¼ of the pot, Bernie: ¾. DUH Blaise!
Until 1654, mathematicians claimed that this was an unsolvable problem; the question of how to divide the pot of an unfinished game was impossible to answer. While struggling with the impossible, Pascal sought the help of Fermat, the most respected mathematician of his time. And, after some correspondence, Fermat (remarkably) arrived at the solution. !!!.
Pascal still couldn’t comprehend the solution even after it was spelled out for him. He whined and contested and developed a more complicated (and less correct) solution. As Devlin repeatedly pointed out, people simply didn’t think this way. Sure, they could draw on past experience and data and make reasonable predictions, but they didn’t bank on their predictions; they didn’t measure and quantify data, then calculate outcomes and prescribe behavior. Not like that, anyway.
Scholars once thought nondeterministic events (those containing randomness and variable factors) were the mysterious yet-to-be-unfolded ways of whatever’s-in-control. The belief that the future was out of our hands, impossible to predict, was powerful enough to block or contradict the logic of basic probability. Belief and logic aren’t so different: they’re wed, for better or worse.
When I try to put myself in that mindset, not taking for granted the world I was raised in, I can almost feel the logic. The future belongs to Fortune–it can’t be computed. It would be arbitrary, silly, unfounded to divide the pot according to an unknown future–according to nothing. Suddenly, soothsayers, palm readers, and folk almanacs don’t seem so cockamamie. What more appropriate weapon to wield before the absurdity of Fortune than, well, absurdity?
2.
Superstitions learn from metaphor, emulating the way words leap from sense to disconnected sense. Our minds are full of things we’ve made up; relationships that don’t exist; skyscrapers without skeletons.
Since I can remember, my parents have anointed my forehead with oil. On the first day of school, Dad with the squeeze bottle–the same oil used to rub beach tar from our soles. Moving out, Mom with the extra-large, Extra-Virgin Olive. Spilled it on the tile and my dog licked it up. Gently lift the bangs and two quick strokes with the thumb. Don’t exhale ’til it’s done. Don’t wipe ’til you’re gone.
3.
For protection from bad things, do the following without fail: Adopt an old dog. Dry out his eyes when he’s dead and tie them to your left wrist. Write a letter to your sweetheart. Write it again with Cheetos fingers then lick it clean. Sing the Prayer of Jabez out your basement window as long as it’s raining. Sing it with the water in your mouth.
Do it without fail. In doing so, you will erase your credit history. Count your mutual funds, clip the weather reports, apply for loans that aren’t FDIC insured. Go back to school.
For protection, for money, for love: climb the golden arm and be sure the camera is ready. Don’t call and don’t wait. Always get the idiot’s insurance information. For security, for friendship, for success: join the Wall Street Choir, become a young professional, have luck, have timing, have talent, will travel.
