Randomness and superstition
November 25th 2005 -
Every so often, I claim that I am a minor weather god. This is because whenever I go on holidays, the weather is good. There have been several notable occasions that prompted this initial observation – in particular, a holiday in France in which the weather was perfect and lovely but in which there was major flooding several weeks after I left; and a kayaking trip on Doubtful Sound, in which it did not rain until a minor drizzle in the last hour or two of the four day trip. In Doubtful Sound, it rains for about 300 days a year. Subsequently, I paid more attention to the weather and noted that the weather was often good. This sadly extended to the ski trip in NZ, in which the weather was so nice and sunny we had lousy snow.
Anyway, that trend has continued for every holiday I can remember, and I went through the elaborate second-guessing that you do only when something is truly irrelevent. Will talking about being a weather god jinx me? Apparently not: I’ve immodestly mentioned the “fact” on many occasions. So, therefore, talking about it is *good*: the powers that have bestowed on me such fortune like me talking about it.
So I’m trying something new. I don’t really believe it. The “weather god” argument was partly to make myself notice the weather more, in order to more objectively notice when things go right and when they go wrong. I think that much of our superstition and pattern recognition require that less attention be paid during times that don’t match the pattern for the superstition to build up. It’s a kind of post-hoc version of some of my Dad’s work on behavioural psychology, oddly enough (paying attention to a behaviour tends to increase it, regardless of the type of attention.)
Anyway, I’ve been trying to throw that off by paying attention beforehand, and by detecting my fear of jinxing something over which I have no control, and deliberately saying or doing the thing that would jinx me. In particular, I have been saying “I bet the traffic will be excellent on the way home today!”, and “I’m almost certain I won’t roll a 1,” and “It will be excellent weather this weekend, just as the weather reports predict.” Which is fun anyway, although a little bit goes a long way: I’m not trying to be obnoxious about it to other people (although in my most recent D&D game, I confidently predicted that the dice rolling would be purely random and that the dice certainly would not punish us for talking about them, which caused some disgruntlement, and, obviously, much attention to the first couple of rolls, which were entirely coincidentally rather poor). Mostly it’s just thinking confident thoughts, and trying to confront my many superstitions head-on.
It seems fairly logical that the areas over which we have the least control are areas we have the most superstition. These are the things I get superstitious about:
Weather
Traffic & queues
Dice
Cards
Dr Clam Says:
November 27th, 2005 at 7:12 am
Aha! At last a decent explanatoin for why you won’t talk politics and philosophy with us :D
“paying attention to a behaviour tends to increase it, regardless of the type of attention.”
Lexifab Says:
November 27th, 2005 at 7:17 am
I dunno, man…the dice, they can smell fear. Don’t mumble about “jinxing” them – that’s playing right into their hands. You have to impose your will on them little buggers. Show them who’s boss. You have to assert.
And watch out for the d4′s, coz they’re prickly lil bastids.
Marco Polo-shirt Says:
November 27th, 2005 at 10:58 pm
The only chances I take are posting items on ebay at minimum cost. I kind of like it because I get the inkling that perversely, they tend to end up at a higher average sale price – however you seem to have jinxed that general pattern :-) by being the exception to the rule – but that’s ok – let the sun shine always wherever you travel on the internet!
Noswonky Says:
November 27th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
Hence the expression… “Break a leg!”