Normally

Bear the mathematical jargon with me. There is a life lesson to be learnt at the very end.

The mathematical version of predicting the future involves assigning certain values (termed 'probabilities') to an event. In theory, the future is pretty much uncertain. Since the event we're predicting has yet to happen, there is theoretically an equal chance for that event to happen and for an altogether different event to occur.

For example, nothing has yet to happen in the next instance, so there is theoretically an infinite number of things that can happen. In the next minute, I can continue typing on this keyboard, or the computer can blow up in my face, or a meteor can strike down from the sky and smite me from the face of this Earth.

Remember: nothing has happened, so ANYTHING can happen.

I'll leave out most of the elaboration on this part since it will be bore the readers to death, if the post hasn't done so already. A slightly similar argument is the infamous Schrodinger's Cat.

Under this argument, there is theoretically an equal chance for anything to happen. So, to be fair, we allocate every event with the same probability of occurrence.


So now it is just as likely for me to get up and make a cup of coffee as there is for a Japanese samurai to materialize beside me, scream "Banzai!" and then proceed to offer me a slice of cheese cake.

Obviously, such generalization is totally pointless, since we are back to square one, with no useful model of predicting the occurrence of an event to any degree of certainty.

Therefore, it is more suitable to allocate higher probabilities to events that are more likely to occur and lower probabilities to rare-occurring events than to give them all similar values.

A very commonly used model is shown above, called a normal distribution (since this is a model that predicts events as they 'normally' occur). The 'average' event, or event that seems to occur the most, is allocated the highest probability, while more extreme events are given lower values.

This is a perfectly sound reasoning, as experience in life shows that things always happen around the 'popular' value. There are way more average-height people than there are very tall or very short people, for instance.

While not seemingly fair to have totally neglected the argument of "nothing has happened, so anything can happen", the normal distribution has proven to be representative of how life works.

So, what have we learnt?

1. It is quite pointless to be fair.
2. Normally, life doesn't try to be fair.

Sorry. This post popped up in my head from my musings on certain mathematical theories. Hehe.

This is such a filler post. In disguise. =p