Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead Probability Coin Toss

Opening scene of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead contemplating probability.

[@karthikeyakarampudi5793]

My math teacher near damn killed himself after seeing this scene

[@kyttee1]

Love. My turtle is named Rosencranzt

[@IsiahTomas]

1:12, You had me at *Flip!*

[@Virus989898]

Who's here from Probability course?

[@zhenzhoutian1415]

me lol

[@userPrehistoricman]

the* Probability course

[@estebancanomaler4649]

i am here for anthropology class lol

[@kyttee1]

Shakespeare/Tudor class.

[@user-re1mb6fb4v]

Not me. I'm for the awesome movie here.

[@flyingsaucer818]

Heads.. Heads Heads. Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads Heads.. Heads Heads. Heads.... ahem.. HEADS

[@dessh259]

who's here from dr narbonne's discussion question 👀👀

[@eggy4281]

yooooo

[@doctorxawesomestop-motion1234]

hello!

[@scign]

What are the chances?

[@kickballjedi]

Where they are.. 100%

[@davidsnow2420]

Early evidence of simulation theory

[@mendeleyev1790]

Every theological theory in existence has been a simulation theory

[@kickballjedi]

This is actually the first thing I ever saw that made me start to doubt my atheist view. Think of the odds of each "random" event in our universe as a "Heads" result- the big bang, a solar system forming with a medium sized star, a planet evolving in the green zone of that system, that planet having water, that planet giving birth to basic life forms, those life forms evolving to walk on land, the dominant life form on the planet getting wiped out so the lesser, weaker mammals could then evolve, the mammals evolving eventually to homo sapiens, homo sapiens becoming self-aware, developing art, science, language poetry, then homo sapiens nearly getting wiped out by the black plague but somehow making it through... generations after generations being born and dying but somehow you made it here, now. That's a LOT of heads in a row...

[@SuperKrazy2000]

This is a great example of something called the "Anthropic Principle". It goes like this: The probability of me personally winning the lottery is very very low. But the probability of *someone* winning is 100%. When that someone wins, they will think to themselves, "Wow, this was so unlikely!" And it *was* unlikely that this specific person won - but there was a 100% chance that *someone* would win and thus be eventually be sitting there thinking, "Wow, this was so unlikely!" In the case of human life, it's similar - on millions or billions of planets, there is no self-aware life form thinking, "What is the probability that I would exist???" Our planet, which does happen to have sentient life, is the only place that even could possibly be asking question. If you could go back to the Big Bang and point to one planet and say, "What are the odds that *this planet right here* will have intelligent life in 14 billion years?" the answer would be "Very very very small". But if we look at a universe full of planets and say, "What are the odds that one of these planets will have life in 14 billion years?" the answer is "quite high". And wherever that life does appear, it will probably look around and say, "Wow, this was so unlikely!" This is not meant to be an argument one way or another to do with religion - just an idea that I think is really cool and that helped shape my thinking about human life. :)

[@kickballjedi]

@@SuperKrazy2000 I like it. The only reply I have is that there is no guaranteed winner of the lottery. So I can imagine in the infinite cycle of universes being born and dying, maybe sometimes no self-aware life comes into existence. Still just too insanely unlikely for me to chalk it up random chance.

[@SuperKrazy2000]

@@kickballjedi Very true! If something is, say, a 1 in a billion chance, and you get a million tries, it's still unlikely! Hard to put a number on something like the emergence of life, I guess.

[@gigangreg7837]

It helps to have a lot of proverbial coins tbf (i.e., the rest of the universe)

[@Mumiah862]

@@kickballjedi ​ the lottery doesn’t stop until there is a winner