What is luck?

Originally posted by Pentothal

When people are relaxed and feeling good they perform better. So there is some real measurable positive effect. It is in the mind of the individual. So I suppose luck can have a positive effect in certain circumstances.

So I suppose that the mindset of luck can be positive. Luck itself does not exist as such, it is simply a mindset. It exists inside the individual mind only. There is no external ‘force’.

I think you are exactly right however I do think there is something else "feedback" into the system. The more positive the better the reaction towards luck the more negative the tendency is towards being unlucky.

MJ2

LordBucket's "materialist" explanation is spot-on, and should be the starting point of any attempt to explain good fortune in terms of spirituality or synchronicity. Before speculating on the meaning of an unlikely event, we should first be well-grounded in the statistical reality of it all and acknowledge that there is no reason why anything magical must have been behind it.

That being said, in reality good fortune is never entirely about statistics, because very few things (quite possibly nothing) we encounter in daily life are 100% random. Usually there are other factors, even if they are hidden from the people involved, that tilt things one way or another. Someone who always seems to have things going their way may in fact be a person with an attitude and temperament to roll with the punches and make the best out of any situation, good or bad. Such people might be seen by an outsider as being constantly lucky, while those same events happening to a more rigid person might screw up their plans and make them all down and dejected. Then an outsider would see that person as having bad fortune.

So "luck" as we observe it is in fact largely a personal trait. But not necessarily any magical, "the gods favor him" sort of reason, but for more mundane reasons that we just call "luck" because it's hard to analyze all the minute factors that contribute to a person's fortune. Unless of course this is what it means to have the gods favor you; then you can have your physical cake and spiritually eat it too.

I have heard that luck is where preparation meets opportunity. I don't believe in luck, chance, or coincidence anymore. They are entirely subjective, imo. To me there is only the will of God. He favors whom He will, and He chastens whom He will.

Luck is being open to opportunity,
recognising it when it happens,
and working your butt off to make the most of it.

reply to post by VreemdeVlieendeVoorwep


There is no such thing as luck, everything is connect therefore everything has a cause and effect. Luck and chance is on the same borders, neither exists, no such thing as chance, and no such thing as luck.

Luck and chance are in the same borders as random, which also doesn't exist.

In order for chance to exist, hence this team has more chance of winning, this is true if random events are taken in to consideration, that randomness creates chance, but since there is no such thing as random, there is no such thing as chance.

I hope you see what I mean. Kinda hard to explain.

You have to see the relationship between luck, chance and random.

"In my experience there is no such thing as luck" - Obi-Wan Someone had to say it.

Luck is a fickle size, it can go either way