Sam Harris

In his latest book “Free Will” Sam says that those born with an inclination to do harm to others have bad luck.
I’m wondering what his opinion is concerning the existence of what is commonly called “luck”.
Is there such a thing and does it actually play a part in our life?

Everything is luck.  Even if hard determinism is our reality, the fact that some people live better lives than others means they are “luckier” than others.  We have no choice but to experience the algorithm which is our lives, and so it seems to me that the best word to describe the variability in levels of well-being from one person to another is “luck.”

I find it weird that people feel the need to ask if there “is anything such thing as luck” (good or bad). My first inclination is that there wouldn’t be a word “luck” if people weren’t trying to convey something.

It would be lucky, at least in my opinion, to be born to loving parents, instead of crackheads who didn’t give a fuck about you, except maybe to collect welfare.

Seems to me pretty much everything in each of our lives comes down to luck.

Born with an intellect to get you a PhD from Harvard or Stanford and have loving parents who nurture and encourage you? Luck.

Born in the hills of Arkansas with an intellect to get you a PhD from Harvard or Stanford, but get put down every day of your life and told you’ll never amount to anything…now, go mow the back 40? Bad luck.

Blow your chances in circumstance A because you’re lazy? Bad luck - you didn’t choose to be born lazy.

Mow the back 40 then go study Plato and get yourself into Harvard by sheer will. Again, lucky to have been born with the drive to over come such crappy circumstances.

Obviously, it can go either way in both cases, but both are due to some amount of luck (good and bad).

Majority of One - 22 April 2012 10:54 PM

I find it weird that people feel the need to ask if there “is anything such thing as luck” (good or bad). My first inclination is that there wouldn’t be a word “luck” if people weren’t trying to convey something.

It would be lucky, at least in my opinion, to be born to loving parents, instead of crackheads who didn’t give a fuck about you, except maybe to collect welfare.

Seems to me pretty much everything in each of our lives comes down to luck.

Born with an intellect to get you a PhD from Harvard or Stanford and have loving parents who nurture and encourage you? Luck.

Born in the hills of Arkansas with an intellect to get you a PhD from Harvard or Stanford, but get put down every day of your life and told you’ll never amount to anything…now, go mow the back 40? Bad luck.

Blow your chances in circumstance A because you’re lazy? Bad luck - you didn’t choose to be born lazy.

Mow the back 40 then go study Plato and get yourself into Harvard by sheer will. Again, lucky to have been born with the drive to over come such crappy circumstances.

Obviously, it can go either way in both cases, but both are due to some amount of luck (good and bad).

There is no such thing as luck.
There is no such thing as being unlucky.
Luck is a concept that originated in the mind’s attempts find a source for and hopefully influence its imagined self’s life.
Some events appear to be fortuitous to whom they occur and the cause of them is sought out.
The mind assigns a label to this imaginary causative element and imagines that what it call “luck” actually exists.
One would say that to win the lottery is lucky in spite of the fact that most people who do have their life fall apart.
So I guess that they are lucky and unlucky at the same time.
Perhaps we could coin a new word for that.