Other than a weekend playing “Keep Up with the Power Equipment” (which we will get to in a moment) I spent a couple of hours Sunday morning working on “The Luck Problem.”
Remember last week’s column? “Math in the Afterlife“?
That symbol (or sigil) I brought out of the dream realms has been bothering me. Oh, I still get work done, pay the pills, chase Elaine around, play with the Cat, and keep up socially. But there’s a concept I want to show you that has my deepest attention…
(continues)
Let me lay it out as a graphic. Pretend this is titled “How We Humans Think About Luck.”
That seems pretty simple, right?
Most people live on the left side of the “what is luck?” question and they are perfectly happy with the pursuit of higher (and higher) mathematics in order to explain their observations.
Which still leads only to probabilistic expectations that (and this is key) on average work out.
When they don’t, or when there is a large variance from expectations (the outlier or black swan events) then we dig up more mostly rational more complexly formulated explanations for why “outliers” occur.
Lynn McTaggart’s book “The Intention Experiment” comes to mind. Peach of a book.
But, suppose it is wrong?
This is where we jump to looking at the right-hand side of the problem: What if there is something in “group think” that is keeping us from seeing a different (and far more efficient) technique for seeing probabilities land manipulating them (more or less) directly?
Well, now we’re into the quicksand.
We “know” empirically that there IS some kind of global randomness coherence. The Princeton Noosphere/Global Consciousness Project says on its webpage here that:
“When human consciousness becomes coherent, the behavior of random systems may change. Random number generators (RNGs) based on quantum tunneling produce completely unpredictable sequences of zeroes and ones. But when a great event synchronizes the feelings of millions of people, our network of RNGs becomes subtly structured. We calculate one in a trillion odds that the effect is due to chance. The evidence suggests an emerging noosphere or the unifying field of consciousness described by sages in all cultures. “
Which gets me to explaining the two hours I spent Sunday morning playing five-card draw poker against a computer.
I’m a pretty good player, in that I am algorithmic. That is: I have a set of rules that determine when I hold or draw, and when I raise my bets. My “rule set” works very well most of the time, incredibly well a small fraction of the time, and I get my ass kicked about the same small fraction.
But here’s the piece that is fascinating:
After I have been playing for, oh, 20-minutes, or so, I get into a “mental zone” where I find the tiniest amount of time between committing to a play and KNOWING in advance how it will come out.
Yeah, weird, huh? But I’ve had enough precognitive experience with dreams of a road closure due to a fatal accident and resulting detour, to the Gulf of Mexico Deep Water Horizon spill a full 18-hours (and so posted) in advance of the accident, to recognize the “real-deal precognition stuff” when it smacks me upside the head.
When I am playing at my best (as happened Saturday afternoon when my mind was fairly unloaded with background processes) I ran a stake of $5,000 up to over $200,000 using my playing algorithm.
Sunday morning, however, was a complete and utter disaster. I took an $11,760 stake and ran it to zero in a matter of 35-minutes. (I hope I mentioned this is digital scrip, not real money?)
Let me show you where “The Space” is so it will be clear what we’re talking about.
The computer deals me a hand: Say it’s four clubs and a heart.
As soon as I press the “deal” button, I know the tiniest bit in advance of committing as I touch the key whether or not the decision was a winner, or not.
In another iteration let’s say I was dealt a pair of 10’s, a Jack, and an Ace.
In the payoff table for this hand (in this program) I know that if I hold the Ace or Jack (or both) what my odds will be of a “win.” But we need to be very precise when we talk about “winning” in gambling jargon.
That’s because gambling terminology may hold a clue as to how we think about probabilistic outcomes. Here’s why:
In Case 1. I hold the Ace and the Jack. I draw a single Ace (or Jack) and the machine happily reinforces the idea that I have won with “two of a kind.”
But have I REALLY won?
In a sense (lower case “yes”) because I won my wager back. But, in a larger sense, “no” because I only returned to where I was at the start of the hand.
This (exploitable by the gaming industry) difference between a REAL “WIN” (where you get your money back PLUS something) clouds our view in gaming.
In Case 2. I throw away everything EXCEPT the pair of 10’s.
In a statistical sense, I know there are five cards from 52 that were dealt as the hand began. And I also know that there are two 10’s remaining in the deck. So grossly, my odds on a 3-to-1 payout on my wager at 2-out of- 47 (remaining cards).
There is a chance (another calculation I won’t bother you with) that I might miss on the 10’s but be dealt a pair of any other card value, and thus the odds are really better 1 to 23.5. The discussion of statistics runs off into the weeds about here.
What DOES MATTER is that as soon as I am about to make the keystroke to “lock in” the decision, I know even before the cards are turned whether or not it will be a winner.
What I spend the concentration time on, therefore, was trying to “reach out and touch” that stuff that goes on in that space between “precognitive knowing” (before the card is shown” and when it is “actually shown.”
Much has been written about ways to improve your psi abilities – where psi is the beyond normal realms of mental activity.
But this is something we can all practice on with something as simple as a computer card game that is relatively random.
In my experiments so far – thousands upon thousands of hands – I have found there to be no noticeable difference statistically between outcome and staring at the cards for a minute or two per hand with all the strength and commitment you can muster.
BUT there is this “space of knowing” between when you commit and the tiniest fraction of a second as the event arrives where there is a HUGE difference.
Schematically, it looks like this:
“That Barrier” is my present area of focus. I’ve gotten fairly good at knowing (as after I have committed but before the card is turned) how it will come out once I have committed to a course of play.
But what I haven’t figured – and it’s an exercise that I’m trying to quantify so it is repeatable with greater regularity – is how to “hold commitment just so while sensing the outcomes.”
It’s an almost ghost-like task. It is so hard to remain “clear” – no wishes, no hopes, no biases, no expectations, rather just a pure sensing and just at the point of decision.
How many times in card play have you told yourself “Hell, I KNEW that would happen…..”
Turns out, you probably really do know at some deep levels. But we seem to have an inbuilt “barrier” that keeps us from being god-like self-actualizers because that “barrier” is what keeps it from becoming so.
And this circles us to the very top of this morning’s discussion, doesn’t it?
“Is our understanding of Luck Wrong?”
Are we trying to use a mathematical approach to what is a psychosocial phenomenon of actualization?
The cards are trying to tell us something:
At some point, mathematical tools become trying to pour a cup of coffee with a Skil saw.
We need to see the problem more clearly and go tool-shopping.
(We’ll have the power equipment discussion tomorrow…)
Write when you break-even,
George@ure.net
Boy oh boy – can our new guy do foreign policy or what??
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/06/the-gcc-states-led-by-saudi-arabia-will-collapse-into-oblivion.html
Just what the world and natural gas prices have been needing, right?
Yep, the individual must be able to manipulate the outcome. When I was about 8 at cub scouts I bought several raffle tickets… won the first three prizes was told to give the last one back.
Have had times I was playing around and seemingly manipulated the clouds (at that time making em go away). Prayed for the drought to end and 36 hours later it was raining in nw Colorado. A military helicopter flew over with a man looking down on me later.
It depends on how well we can connect with the “field” and how many connect with the same intentions.
Yes, had same results praying for rain and other things. Praying for people is strengthening for the recipient AND the person doing the prayer. Clean living, (physical, mental, spiritual) inside and out combined with prayer, affects our DNA and genetics. Powerful fruitful activity anyone can do. That is why there is so much purposeful destruction of the culture in all ways. We are being BOMBarded with spirit destroying messages, including bad laws, and lack of justice for all. Getting back to the basics is the only way to counter these negative effects.
By the way yes on the knowing if your bets right or wrong. People leave the table at times when I play blackjack as I don’t follow the system and play my gut. If my guts playing well, that is, only play with money I’m willing to lose. But it’s also why casinos have so many noise makers.
If everyone were like Helene Hadsell, the ‘science’ of statistics might not exist. She won every (or almost every) contest she ever entered — hundreds. She even won a house. It is very easy to find information about her online. There are YouTube videos, and perhaps even some mind science courses still left out there, devoted to her method. She passed over in 2010 at 86.
Another earlier, and well regarded person, who could manifest what he wanted, was Neville Goddard. Once again, much material is on the web freely available. His work is fascinating also because of its novel take on Christianity.
Psychologist Joe Gallenberger is doing some current work on luck — at the gaming tables in Vegas. He has books, CDs, online study courses, and in-person group events to Vegas to teach luck.
James Coyle/Jim Francis (one is a pseudonym – I forget which) has some books on Amazon, but mostly on his Mindtech website. He is Australian/NZ and currently lives in Vanuatu. He did a lot of luck and mind power research and gave me two key insights: one, that luck tends to run in a daily cycle like a biorhythm, and two, that it is highly dependent on your physical energy level. He said if he travelled from Australia to Vegas, he had to wait a couple of days to recuperate from the travel to be able to win at the tables at all.
A lot of people have the energy level, the desire, and the current mental clarity and focus, to be able to follow the methods outlined by the teachers listed. Almost no one replicates Helene’s statistics busting records because of the invisible bondage of unconscious programming. Removing and rewriting, ‘what you know that ain’t so’, is the very hardest part of manipulating, ‘reality’.
Question, George. With the program you’re playing on does it have a set deck, or multiple decks, it’s drawing from or is there a continuous shuffle of an infinite number of possibilities that produces the result you happen to land on when your gigahertz processor stops in a “musical chair” fashion on what you get? In other words if you waited a fraction of a second longer to hit the key would your result be different?
That has occurred to me, too. No clue. GSN Casino in Kindle, outlaw (5 card draw) poker
You explained that process so well. I have had those experiences on a random basis unlike your deliberate experiments. My observation is that the ‘clear’ meditative type state is the key for precognition, yet, I wonder as you do, how to maintain that state and do the conscious functioning simultaneously. I doubt it can. So, it must be a super fast switching back and forth or something like that. Sure is fun to mess with it.
Torkom Sayaradarian taught, back in the 90’s, that our etheric bodies are cells in the etheric body of Gaia, and that that is where the deep connection is. He also taught that advanced functioning is something we naturally grow into as we consciously make the effort to ‘become more’. Seems to me you are on the right path, and thank you for sharing.
Not exactly a path, my dear.
Sort of like waking up every morning in the middle of a busy freeway at demolition derby hour and wondering how to survive the madness.
Let me reprogram your cell phone so that you’ll know what to expect in the future