hakeem4:
I don’t understand your concept of luck. As I do not believe in it

Luck is the chance/opportunity of being exposed to what is useful.
In other words,you come across what is useful by chance.
You can't really determine whether you will come across it.
You can only determine how likely it is for you to come across it.
You can only determine the probability of meeting it.

HellVictorinho:

I disagree.
Luck has nothing to do with preparation.
Luck is the chance/opportunity of being exposed to something that is useful.
In other words,you come across something useful by chance.
Your preparation to meet 50 million dollars doesn't mean you will meet 50 million dollars.

Don't fall into the trap of magical thinking, you are not going to meet 50 million dollars out of the blue. You will meet opportunities to make 50 millions dollars but how would you recognise or take advantage of the opportunity if you are not prepared?

LordReed:


Don't fall into the trap of magical thinking, you are not going to meet 50 million dollars out of the blue. You will meet opportunities to make 50 millions dollars but how would you recognise or take advantage of the opportunity if you are not prepared?

Luck is the opportunity itself.
Taking advantage is another matter.
You don't have to be prepared to have luck.
You only have to be born.
Anyone that exists can have luck or come across an opportunity.
But there are different kinds of opportunity.
Some are bigger while others are smaller.
What is the essence of being ready for the bigger in the presence of the smaller

HellVictorinho:

Luck is the opportunity itself.
Taking advantage is another matter.
You don't have to be prepared to have luck.
You only have to be born.
Anyone that exists can have luck or come across an opportunity.
But there are different kinds of opportunity.
Some are bigger while others are smaller.
What is the essence of being ready for the bigger in the presence of the smaller

No its not. You have thousands of opportunities to play the lottery or sports bets does that make you lucky? Even if you meet Dangote today one on one, nothing will change in your life if you are not prepared to take advantage of it so does meeting Dangote make you lucky? The opportunity is the random chance of the universe working on its own mindless way. The lucky is when you take advantage. I will repeat for your benefit, don't fall into the trap of magical thinking, that is the realm of get rich quick schemes and conmen.

HellVictorinho:

Luck is the opportunity itself.
Taking advantage is another matter.
You don't have to be prepared to have luck.
You only have to be born.
Anyone that exists can have luck or come across an opportunity.
But there are different kinds of opportunity.
Some are bigger while others are smaller.
What is the essence of being ready for the bigger in the presence of the smaller

Lemme give you a typical example of what I mean. An uncle I haven't seen in years called me that he was coming to Nigeria and would like to see me. I was happy cos it had been a long time and I have fond memories of him. I went to see him when he came and we got talking and he told me what he was in Nigeria for and what do you know it was my field and I had projects I wanted to do which I discussed with him. He was enthused and said he would send me money to start. If I was not ready to take advantage of this meeting nothing would have happened, we would just have smiled heartfelt warm smiles at each other and drank a cocktail together.

On the other hand I have other rich relatives but I have no way of taking advantage because I am not prepared so nothing is happening with them.

LordReed:


No its not. You have thousands of opportunities to play the lottery or sports bets does that make you lucky? Even if you meet Dangote today one on one, nothing will change in your life if you are not prepared to take advantage of it so does meeting Dangote make you lucky? The opportunity is the random chance of the universe working on its own mindless way. The lucky is when you take advantage. I will repeat for your benefit, don't fall into the trap of magical thinking, that is the realm of get rich quick schemes and conmen.

The opportunity of being exposed to something that is useful/applicable can be referred to as luck.
The application I am referring to is the one that leads to benefits.
I am not referring to anything that induces addiction.
Intelligence actually involves taking advantages of opportunities to progress or taking advantages of luck.
Misfortune is the chance of being exposed to something that cannot be applied towards benefits.

HellVictorinho:

The opportunity of being exposed to something that is useful/applicable can be referred to as luck.
The application I am referring to is the one that leads to benefits.
I am not referring to anything that induces addiction.
Intelligence actually involves taking advantages of opportunities to progress or taking advantages of luck.
Misfortune is the chance of being exposed to something that cannot be applied towards benefits.

Misfortune is not the chance, something has to actually happen or else there is no misfortune. Every day you have the chance to be crushed by a heavy laden truck does that make you unfortunate?

LordReed:


Lemme give you a typical example of what I mean. An uncle I haven't seen in years called me that he was coming to Nigeria and would like to see me. I was happy cos it had been a long time and I have fond memories of him. I went to see him when he came and we got talking and he told me what he was in Nigeria for and what do you know it was my field and I had projects I wanted to do which I discussed with him. He was enthused and said he would send me money to start. If I was not ready to take advantage of this meeting nothing would have happened, we would just have smiled heartfelt warm smiles at each other and drank a cocktail together.

On the other hand I have other rich relatives but I have no way of taking advantage because I am not prepared so nothing is happening with them.

You were lucky to have a rich relative that was calling you to know how you were doing.
You were smart to take advantage of the opportunity.
You are still lucky to have other rich relatives.
You can still take advantage of having them if you are smart to that extent.

HellVictorinho:

You were lucky to have a rich relative that was calling you to know how you were doing.
You were smart to take advantage of the opportunity.
You are still lucky to have other rich relatives.
You can still take advantage of having them if you are smart to that extent.

Dude you really are caught up in magical thinking.

LordReed:


Misfortune is not the chance, something has to actually happy or else there is no misfortune. Every day you have the chance to be crushed by a heavy laden truck does that make you unfortunate?

Well,there are words that have different meanings.
But the point is that you have to be lucky to meet XYZ but taking advantage of meeting XYZ requires intelligence.

LordReed:


Dude you really are caught up in magical thinking.

It is not about magic.
It is about taking advantage of whatever opportunity to progress or taking advantage of luck through intelligence.

HellVictorinho:

Well,there are words that have different meanings.
But the point is that you have to be lucky to meet XYZ but taking advantage of meeting XYZ requires intelligence.

Chance is not luck my guy. Until something of benefit happens then you are not lucky. That I have rich relatives doesn't make me lucky. You don't even know if they are the mean type, whose one naira won't even drop by mistake. Billionaires have relatives that haven't even smelled their one naira so how does being relatives in such a case make them lucky?

LordReed:


Chance is not luck my guy. Until something of benefit happens then you are not lucky. That I have rich relatives doesn't make me lucky. You don't even know if they are the mean type, whose one naira won't even drop by mistake. Billionaires have relatives that haven't even smelled their one naira so how does being relatives in such a case make them lucky?

Well,if your relatives will rather watch you die instead of spending anything on you, then it means you're not lucky to have them.
Concerning something happening,you should know that you can't come across any good thing except by chance.

HellVictorinho:

Well,if your relatives will rather watch you die instead of spending anything on you, then it means you're not lucky to have them.
Concerning something happening,you should know that you can't come across any good thing except by chance.

Fact is until something good happens you are not lucky. Everyday the chance exists that something good will happen to you, it doesn't mean you are lucky.

LordReed:


Fact is until something good happens you are not lucky. Everyday the chance exists that something good will happen to you, it doesn't mean you are lucky.

Is coming across an opportunity to make 80 million dollars not a good thing ?
Is it until you make the money that such event becomes good?

LordReed:


LoL! Yeah that's why it's important that we acquire the best tools for figuring out what our shared reality is.

But what is "our shared reality" when our understanding of reality is based on interpretation and experience? As in two people can share an experience yet be impacted by it differently and give different narratives of it?

Do you not see religion as the lense one looks through, like everyone wearing blue tints so everyone shares a blue experience?

HellVictorinho:


The most important characters in most religions are spirits/Gods.

How can spirits/Gods be more important than the creators of religions and spirits/Gods?

Important to whom, exactly?

LordReed:


The mental process is based on physical processes, there is no escaping that.

Really? You remind me of TruthSeeker1 who got tired of arguing that he was the "garri, amala, water, air etc" that he ate.

Tell, my Lord, what and how is mental process based on physical processes.

LordReed:


Fact is until something good happens you are not lucky. Everyday the chance exists that something good will happen to you, it doesn't mean you are lucky.

I think when the chances are stacked in your favor and you take advantage of it.
That's what is dubbed as luck.

My idea/thoughts/hypothesis on the origin of religion.

Long form writing isn't something I'm particularly good at, as I find to hard to organize my thoughts so bare with me.
I'll be trying to connect some loosely related ideas combined with my own experience and limited understanding of the human mind here.

Let's start with examining one of the oldest known form of belief in the world, which is animism (the attribution of a living soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena.), which is still commonly held by rural indigenous tribes/people.

We are not inherently logical creatures, we are driven more by emotion, sentiment, intuition. While our minds are hardwired to create narratives about our ourselves and our reality.

Here is a thought experiment, what would an uninformed person who was born and lived only in the wilderness think about the world? What would he think caused the rain/thunder, caused the earthquake, the sun to rise etc.. what narrative would his/her mind create to explain the world?
My thoughts here are from using my own memories and my thought process form my childhood as a reference here. Whenever there was a rain storm I was frightened, because to my immature and uniformed self it gave me a feeling as though the sky, rain, wind, thunder had a mind and will of its own and it was raging.

With this I'm drawing an assumption on animism being something that came about from this type of feeling. A feeling of as though everything and every phenomenon in the world had a will and mind of its own. Because what could possibly cause these phenomenon to behave the way they did, and it all seemed unpredictable.
So, a not so far fetched idea would be an animistic perception of the world.

Ok, tells take this a little further. Polytheism originating from animism.
From natural phenomenon having a mind and will of its own, to being anthropomorphized..

Will continue later..

DeusXmachina:

I think when the chances are stacked in your favor and you take advantage of it.
That's what is dubbed as luck.

Exactly. And the more you know the more stacks you can get.

HellVictorinho:

Is coming across an opportunity to make 80 million dollars not a good thing ?
Is it until you make the money that such event becomes good?

Yes until you take advantage of it it was just a potential.

budaatum:

But what is "our shared reality" when our understanding of reality is based on interpretation and experience? As in two people can share an experience yet be impacted by it differently and give different narratives of it?

Indeed that is why we "rub minds" and try to come to agreements and better understanding.

Do you not see religion as the lense one looks through, like everyone wearing blue tints so everyone shares a blue experience?

Hmmm, its something like that. The skew is propagated to more and more people such that it looks real since more than one person has accepted the blue tint.

budaatum:

Really? You remind me of TruthSeeker1 who got tired of arguing that he was the "garri, amala, water, air etc" that he ate.

Tell, my Lord, what and how is mental process based on physical processes.

Mental processes are an emergent property of the interaction between brain and the chemical processes of the body. No brain, no mental process and also no body, no mental process.

budaatum:

How can spirits/Gods be more important than the creators of religions and spirits/Gods?

Important to whom, exactly?

At least,they exist in the heads of religious people.

LordReed:


Yes until you take advantage of it it was just a potential.

You didn't answer me logically.
If something is not good,then it is bad.

HellVictorinho:

You didn't answer me logically.
If something is not good,then it is bad.

Fallacy of false dichotomy and Fallacy of black and white thinking. Have you forgotten the word NEUTRAL exists?

LordReed:


Fallacy of false dichotomy and Fallacy of black and white thinking. Have you forgotten the word NEUTRAL exists?

How does neutrality relate to the issue?
Is there anything like a neutral situation?
We're talking about something being beneficial or not.
If you can't benefit from it,then it is bad.
If you can benefit from it,then it is good.

HellVictorinho:

How does neutrality relate to the issue?
Is there anything like a neutral situation?
We're talking about something being beneficial or not.
If you can't benefit from it,then it is bad.
If you can benefit from it,then it is good.

Really? Of what benefit have been the cars that pass you every day been to you? What of all the businesses and people making money day in day out what benefit are they giving you?

LordReed:


Really? Of what benefit have been the cars that pass you every day been to you? What of all the businesses and people making money day in day out what benefit are they giving you?

Well,if I come across a pen on the floor,it means I'm lucky to some extent because I can use the pen to write the lyrics of a rap song.
There are other scenarios like that.

HellVictorinho:

Well,if I come across a pen on the floor,it means I'm lucky to some extent because I can use the pen to write the lyrics of a rap song.
There are other scenarios like that.

You can't answer the questions can you because it shows that you are wrong.

If you don't pick up the pen then you are not lucky.

LordReed:


You can't answer the questions can you because it shows that you are wrong.

If you don't pick up the pen then you are not lucky.

Your view of luck means there is nothing like intelligence.
So, your view is incorrect.