Would I sit to scribble a blog if I had won the $2 billion-Powerball? Would I have a grip on reality? Become a different person? Run and hide from the incessant beggars I might attract—iron filings gathering football shape in a magnetic field generated by my newfound wealth?
Did I even have a grip on reality in buying a ticket for the recent big prize on November 7, 2022? I think the odds of winning were something like 262 million to one. What about the ensuing jackpot for Saturday, November 12, 2022? I understand the odds of winning something—even two bucks, but maybe not the $40+ mil—are one in 24.9? Should I spend the $2 on a line? Could I use an extra $40 million? Do I want to spend my time anticipating, dreaming, planning? All my plans for the $2 billion went for naught. What if I spend brain energy on another set of hypothetical plans—markedly reduced plans, of course—only to find disappointment? Anyway, what can one do with a mere $40 million? Buy a plasma TV the size of a football stadium? Empty the shelves at both Costco and Walmart? Fund a food bank out of guilt?
And in a week when so many thought they might be the winner of the $2 billion jackpot, did other people with other concerns also wake up to disappointment? To shattered dreams? It was, after all, election week in America.
When hypotheticals carry us like self-driving cars, we put our lives in the control of others—even in the control of machines. Don’t get me wrong. Hypotheticals drive discovery. That’s how physicists motivate themselves to work at CERN; that’s how vaccines based on mRNA get made; and that’s how you looked for a job and a place to live. “If I work here…” and “If I live here….” What we find, however, is that the pursuit of hypotheses often leads to null hypotheses. But that’s okay for scientists, if not for the rest of us in our daily lives. When our personal hypotheses fail to become theories, we can become stuck in the past centered on “wasted emotional and intellectual efforts,” not to mention the perception or reality that we wasted time, space, and material.
Hypotheticals. Was not the winning the $2 billion the product of an unreal condition? Well, someone won. So it wasn’t entirely “unreal.” And now the rest of the millions of Powerball ticket-buyers have to decide on whether to spend money on a new set of hypotheticals.
Occasionally, faith in hypotheticals pays off, but all hypothesizers need to temper that faith with some probability reasoning. It seems unlikely at this time, for example, that physicists will be able to run an experiment that proves String Theory though many are strung along like Powerball ticket-buyers. The “prestigious” research institutions want to hire string theorists over other theoretical physicists and practical physicists. The hypothesis drives like an autonomous vehicle; the hypothesis about strings is all they have, like the hopes of a ticket-buyer. Oh! Sure. It all works out theoretically, but in practice? The odds of running that final experiment are far larger than 262 million to one.
And the hypothesis that people will get along as Rodney King hypothesized—yes, that famous question after the riots centered on his arrest—or that “unity” that naive politicians seem to have when they are candidates only to discover that “people will be people” and “hypotheses” are often unfulfillable wishes.
But we can’t relinquish our adherence to hypothetical living. It’s in our nature. Call it “hope,” “desire,” or “wishful thinking,” it’s what we do as humans. It’s a bane. But, hey, no one is stopping you from buying that next Powerball ticket. Someone has to win sometime.
Did I even have a grip on reality in buying a ticket for the recent big prize on November 7, 2022? I think the odds of winning were something like 262 million to one. What about the ensuing jackpot for Saturday, November 12, 2022? I understand the odds of winning something—even two bucks, but maybe not the $40+ mil—are one in 24.9? Should I spend the $2 on a line? Could I use an extra $40 million? Do I want to spend my time anticipating, dreaming, planning? All my plans for the $2 billion went for naught. What if I spend brain energy on another set of hypothetical plans—markedly reduced plans, of course—only to find disappointment? Anyway, what can one do with a mere $40 million? Buy a plasma TV the size of a football stadium? Empty the shelves at both Costco and Walmart? Fund a food bank out of guilt?
And in a week when so many thought they might be the winner of the $2 billion jackpot, did other people with other concerns also wake up to disappointment? To shattered dreams? It was, after all, election week in America.
When hypotheticals carry us like self-driving cars, we put our lives in the control of others—even in the control of machines. Don’t get me wrong. Hypotheticals drive discovery. That’s how physicists motivate themselves to work at CERN; that’s how vaccines based on mRNA get made; and that’s how you looked for a job and a place to live. “If I work here…” and “If I live here….” What we find, however, is that the pursuit of hypotheses often leads to null hypotheses. But that’s okay for scientists, if not for the rest of us in our daily lives. When our personal hypotheses fail to become theories, we can become stuck in the past centered on “wasted emotional and intellectual efforts,” not to mention the perception or reality that we wasted time, space, and material.
Hypotheticals. Was not the winning the $2 billion the product of an unreal condition? Well, someone won. So it wasn’t entirely “unreal.” And now the rest of the millions of Powerball ticket-buyers have to decide on whether to spend money on a new set of hypotheticals.
Occasionally, faith in hypotheticals pays off, but all hypothesizers need to temper that faith with some probability reasoning. It seems unlikely at this time, for example, that physicists will be able to run an experiment that proves String Theory though many are strung along like Powerball ticket-buyers. The “prestigious” research institutions want to hire string theorists over other theoretical physicists and practical physicists. The hypothesis drives like an autonomous vehicle; the hypothesis about strings is all they have, like the hopes of a ticket-buyer. Oh! Sure. It all works out theoretically, but in practice? The odds of running that final experiment are far larger than 262 million to one.
And the hypothesis that people will get along as Rodney King hypothesized—yes, that famous question after the riots centered on his arrest—or that “unity” that naive politicians seem to have when they are candidates only to discover that “people will be people” and “hypotheses” are often unfulfillable wishes.
But we can’t relinquish our adherence to hypothetical living. It’s in our nature. Call it “hope,” “desire,” or “wishful thinking,” it’s what we do as humans. It’s a bane. But, hey, no one is stopping you from buying that next Powerball ticket. Someone has to win sometime.
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