A Quote by Steven Pinker
Statisticians tell us that people underestimate the sheer number of coincidences that are bound to happen in a world governed by chance.
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People will say, "You're never going to convince me that something as complicated as an eye could come about by sheer chance." And the answer is that natural selection is the very opposite of sheer chance. Natural selection is a non-random process.
All countries must be governed by the modern people; they must be governed by the progressive people; they must be governed by those who believe in the reason and science; they must be governed by the compassionate and just, by the ethical and honest, by the nonviolent and peaceful people; they must be governed by the libertarians; they must be governed by the people who believe in the enlightenment and who refuse to shape the society based on some childish religious stories!
And behind it lies not blind chance but a principle that works to help us understand, a thousand "coincidences" and friends come to show us the way when the problem seems too hard to solve alone. Problems for overcoming. Freedom for proving. And, as long as we believe in our dream, nothing by chance.
Given the infinite number of coincidences that could happen, very few ever actually do. The universe exists in a coincidence-hating state of anti-fluke.
In a universe governed by God there are no chance events. Indeed, there is no such thing as chance. Chance does not exist. It is merely a word we use to describe mathematical possibilities. But chance itself has no power because it has no being. Chance is not an entity that can influence reality. Chance is not a thing. It is nothing.
By the laws of statistics we could probably approximate just how unlikely it is that it would happen. But people forget especially those who ought to know better, such as yourself that while the laws of statistics tell you how unlikely a particular coincidence is, they state just as firmly that coincidences do happen.
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth. Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound and we are bound.
Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.
Many a happiness in life, a many a disaster, is due to chance alone; but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.
You probably need 1/10 of the world's population for us to continue to exist. There's just too many damn people. You have to somehow get us from 7 billion people to... I don't know what the magic number is, but I imagine at some point, that will happen. And I don't know about you, but I don't think I'm making the cut.
We have this window of opportunity; we have a chance to make something real happen. Something possible happen, to live beyond our fear, think about that, and help us. Help lift us up, help us fight this fight to change, - transform - this country in a fundamental way. This chance won't come around again.
Wall Street is where prophets tell us what will happen and profits tell us what did happen.
There were long stretches where each of us was engaged in a private world of rapidly shifting vignettes. Always I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of human beings ebbing and flowing like the tides of the sea.
I don't think there is any kind of magic about what I do. All of the connections are there, somewhere in the subconscious or in the collective unconscious. If I let the elements speak to each other, then these coincidences will happen. And they do happen. They happen all the time.
But really, there are no coincidences. Coincidences are just other people's choices, plans you don't know about.
We have reduced poverty in the world by 50% since the year 1970 - the number of people who go to bed hungry, the number of people that have to sleep without a roof over their heads, the number of people that are illiterate.The world is better.
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