New Theroy

I have come up with a very strange idea that to calculate probability would be impossible. For example, Say if i had 10 nickles and ten quarters in a bag and i picked one out of the bag without looking. Supposedly their is a 1/2 chance that i will pick a quarter but what if a piece of space junk crashes on top of me making me unable to pick from the bag. Or if i had a heart attack and died. My theory basically is that there are a infinite number of ways something screwing up so calculating probability is impossible. Discuss :)

Those screw ups could then be calculated by chance, but then again, chance is merely a concept that we imagine in order to skip a ton of steps that would actually add up to 100% for the action actually happening, or 0% for not happening. Chance does not really exist. All scenarios have attributes that could be inserted into calculations using the laws of nature, which would allow us to predict all the future and past actions of that scenario/associating scenarios…but that would require all information of every variable of every component of that scenario along with the required knowledge/tools in order to calculate the EXACT action. But we still use chance, because we are far from calculating anything like the exact position of an electron from an atom within a specific frozen time interval.

It’s not asking if you COULD grab a coin in your bag, it’s a more like “If you WERE to grab a coin out of your bag.” So no, that theory can stay in the back of your mind until you run into a little kid and trick him. Seriously, do it.

Probability does exist.
When we consider the actions of subatomic particles, they behave in non-deterministic, but probabilistic ways (subject to laws that describe their behaviour).

In the macro-level, that sort of breaks down, and reality becomes more deterministic.

But to get onto the main theme of your discussion, slasher sums it up quite nicely.
Probability describes what is called the sample space, which is the set of all possible outcomes.
For example the sample space of a coin toss would be {heads, tails}. Note this does not include arbitrary events that could destroy the world, etc.
We then assign probabilities to these events, and make inferences based on this.

What you’re describing is an interesting concept, and in reality, it is true, but in practice we avoid that sort of thing because it makes everything impractical.
When I go to sit down on a seat, I don’t ponder if the seat will hold my weight. When I cross a street I don’t ponder that a car will always hit me. I just cross. When I leap for joy because something fantastic happened, I don’t worry that gravity will suddenly cease to be and I’ll go flying into the cosmos, I just leap.

Say if […] i picked one out of the bag without looking

^there. your space junk or heart attack would prevent that condition from being met. so the proposition based on that condition is still true.

you have a point probability is saying best case scenario am able to pull the coin from the bag and see what it is but there are the ifs you refer to with those involved in the scenario makes the probability harder to determine so lets put this even more complicated way into algebra say x is an if we have a 1/2 chance of pulling the quarter out multiply that by the odds of an if happening you would end up with a new statistic correct now lets say we add in all ifs i mean all of them combine those stats to an if factor apply the if factor to the odds of pulling a quarter the odds change so your theory dose not make it impossible to predict probability just harder so when we get the if factor worked out we will know for sure but until then go with best care scenario

Events with a probability that is not significant are usually simply neglected. It’s interesting, because this is not only done in science, but also in everyday life. If we didn’t we could not make any predictions whatsoever, because we would have to take every single, usually uncontrollable detail into account. It would be absolutely ineffective.

Whatever events could happen that will prevent you from picking a coin, or picking another with an increased chance, don’t affect the overall chance (ignoring the fact that this question asks for you to actually pick a coin). There could be a black hole sucking up all of the nickles, but with an equal likelihood sucking up all of the quarters. The chance doesn’t change. And, as said above, most of such events have an insignificant chance.

Also, THEROOOOOOOY JENKIIIIINS.

This entire thread is just people repeating the same thing in different forms to Mr. Theroy.