(February 9, 2014 at 5:27 am)max-greece Wrote: If I have just won the lottery and you ask me the probability that I have just won the lottery then the probability is indeed one in one.
If I am waiting for the results of the lottery the probability of my winning is obviously a lot less (one in a hundred million or some such).
I think that's a fallacious understanding of probability, because in the case of the event that has already taken place (e.g. you won the lottery), you are not taking into account all the other possibilities of what could have happened (which probability requires you to do) but instead you have assigned a probability value simply based on your knowledge of the past event and not the probability itself.
(February 9, 2014 at 5:36 am)Jacob(smooth) Wrote: Essentially yes. I'd change it slightly to "the odds of that having happened". Odds look forward not backward. The odds of my next hand are mathematically established. My last hand simply was what it was (paired aces from a pre flop shove with A 8 heads up).
Same thing that I said above.
Again, your knowledge that your last hand was a straight flush is just a fact (or something you just know) and it's not probability per se. Facts =/= Probability.
