The Nobel Prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska once wrote about two lovers who liked to think they'd met entirely by chance, but no, she says, there was nothing chancy about it. So let's say the probability of your parents meeting, ever, is 10,000 divided by 200 million, or one in 20,000. By that definition, I've just proven that you are a miracle. So to the second question: how accurate is this number? (This is also known as consulting especially if you show it all in a PowerPoint deck.). I gotta say, the two numbers are pretty darn close, for such a farfetched notion from two completely different sources: old-time Buddhist scholars and present-day scientists. Say that over the course of all human existence, the likelihood of any one human offspring to survive childhood and live to reproductive age and have at least one kid is 50:50 1 in 2. Your email address will not be published. Thats going to take a LONG time. They each roll the dice and they all come up with the exact same numberfor example, 550,343,279,001., A miracle is an event so unlikely as to be almost impossible. You are living a life you should mathematically not have ever had. It was always likely that a living cell would jump out of that primordial soup because the conditions for that to happen must have existed somewhere; and, probably, in several somewheres. The learned Frenchman put a number on it10 to the power of 50, written as 1050in order to impress upon the common herd that its members are not mathematicians. That is, instead of making one big hand-waving gesture and pronouncing, "The answer is 500 squintillion," we make a series of sequentially-reasoned, smaller hand-waving gestures so as to make it all seem scientific. Probability of every one of your ancestors reproducing successfully: 1 in 1045,000. The Zen philosopher, Basho, once wrote, A flute with no holes, is not a flute. Let's say a life preserver's hole is about 80cm in diameter, which would make the area inside about 0.5 square meter. We were not born by accident given the odds calculated by scientists showing the odds of you being born are at least 1 in 400 trillion IF NOT 1 in 400 quadrillion and most likely 1 in 10.2,640,000. The chances that they would then get knocked up? Same to all of us. If they met one new person of the opposite sex every day from age 15 to 40, that would be about 10,000 people. The following analysis, paraphrased at some points, is taken directly from Mr. Binazir's article: The probability of father meeting mother is 1 in 20,000. : A definitive guide for smart women, How to Get Guys: The 6.5 Dating Phases of Men. Probability of right sperm meeting right egg: one in 400 quadrillion. Want to Read. Or are we glorious accidents, each and every one? Our babys name creator can help you find a baby at 12 weeks old and unique name for your child. Similarly, Dr. Ali Binazir, in his article for The Huffington Post, has a clever calculation that resulted in his estimate that the probability of being born is 1 in 10 2,685,000 . In its Final Data report of U.S. deaths for 2010, the CDC reported assault (homicide) dropped off of the list of the 15 leading causes of death, becoming 16th, following pneumonitis due to solids and liquids.. Were all winners in life without doing anything! Miebakagh Fiberesima from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, NIGERIA. (This is also known as "consulting" -- especially if you show it all in a PowerPoint deck.). Step 4. What would we come up with ourselves starting with first principles, making some reasonable assumptions and putting them all together? If Borels Law is the immutable truth and the creationists are wrong, you cant exist. It seems like wasting our precious lives on self pity or addiction is even less attractive, in this light. First, your parents have to meet, then stay together long enough to reproduce, then conceive you at the exact right time so that the right egg drops (your mother has 100,000 in her lifetime), then the right sperm must make it in (your father produces 4 trillion during the years you could be born). Its not cheesy to be grateful to be alive, if you look at the facts, it should be normal. May 20, 2021; linda hunt commercials; nail salon in publix plaza near me . Part of HuffPost Wellness. Pretty darn close, for such an unusual calculation. The odds of becoming a millionaire in America are between 6.4% to 22.3% according to data from the Federal Reserve Boards Survey of Consumer Finances. In a recent talk at TEDx San Francisco, Mel Robbins, a riotously funny self-help author, mentioned that scientists estimate the probability of your being born at about one in 400 trillion. Think of how strong our ancestors had to be to allow us to eat a sandwich or sing Happy Birthday. Thus, my existence depends on a vast number of meetings going just right; if they hadnt I would never have been born. So the probability of your parents' chance meeting resulting in kids is about one in 2000. Gather your loved ones around and give props to your incredibly resilient and badass survivor ancestors, while you explode your gender revel confetti poppers. First, let us figure out the probability of one turtle sticking its head out of the one life preserver we toss out somewhere in the ocean. First, lets talk about the probability of your parents meeting. So far, so good. The first single-cell organism emerging from an inanimate chemical soup is not something that could have happened by chance. Each sperm and each egg is genetically unique because of the process of meiosis. This alone should boost any lingering low self-esteem quite a bit. If you need to flag this entry as abusive. I gotta say, the two numbers are pretty darn close, for such a far-fetched notion from two completely different sources: old-time Buddhist scholars and present-day scientists., *Illustration of human profile and numbers via Shutterstock, You're one in 400 trillion, or pretty much a miracle. Its maddening to see people worry so much. By that definition, Ive just shown that you are a miracle, he wrote. It turns out that when taking into account the astonishing number of possibilities of parents meeting, grandparents meeting before them, and so on going back generations, and then adding the vast number of sperm and ova in possible combinations over decades of the marital act in all those generations, the odds of me existing just as I do are about 1 in 10. I have one baby so far, but Im still fertile, according to science. That number is not just larger than all of the particles in the universe -- it's larger than all the particles in the universe if each particle were itself a universe. According to WolframAlpha, the total area of oceans in the world is 3.409108 square kilometers, or 340,900,000 km2 (131.6 million square miles, for those benighted souls who still cling to user-hostile British measures). Ensure you visit this website and get the right details and names that fits your babies. Here it should be realize it is a quest work. Because the existence of you here now on planet earth presupposes another supremely unlikely and utterly undeniable chain of events. Each sperm and each egg is genetically unique because of the process of meiosis; you are the result of the fusion of one particular egg with one particular sperm. However, your existence presupposes another supremely unlikely chain of events. You are a representative of an unbroken lineage of life going back 4 billion years. A miracle is an event so unlikely as to be almost impossible. But, despite your being an extremely wonderful person, such a statement is wildly inaccurate. Throw your exploding gender reveal football to festively burst with pink or blue powder. Not only are you and I contingent, we are highly improbable! it is impossible)., The astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle illustrated this with his Junkyard Tornado Theory: The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.. It's the probability of 2.5 million people getting together -- about the population of San Diego -- each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. It's the probability of 2.5 million people getting together -- about the population of San Diego -- each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. For a more thorough discussion of this topic, visit the Tao of Dating and Awaken Your Genius blogs. Well, the right sperm also had to meet the right egg to create your grandparents, too. So beginning with your folks, your odds of you being born come out to 1 in 400,000,000,000,000,000 or 1 in 4 quadrillion. A man will produce about 12 trillion sperm over the course of his reproductive lifetime. Moreover, the second shot would not necessary run into the red. I would not exist if my parents had not existed and then met. Why? We might not all like the cards we were dealt in life, but it is our choice to play what weve been given or to go on blaming our lot which is wanting more power, but giving up any power we already have. Imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in some ocean, with exactly one turtle in all of these oceans, swimming underwater somewhere. Imagine there was one life preserver thrown somewhere in some ocean and there is exactly one turtle in all of these oceans, swimming underwater somewhere. So let's say the probability of your parents meeting, ever, is 10,000 divided by 200 million, or one in 20,000. There is no reason not to be bold, to throw yourself at life with vigor every single day. Mathematician Professor John Littlewood of Cambridge University defined a miracle as an event happening with a frequency of one in a million. Otherwise theyd be different people, and so would their children, who would then have had children who were similar to you but not quite you. I think that was exactly Msgr. Binazir concludes that the odds of you being alive are . Or could they be underestimates of the true number? Just starting from your parents, the chance of them meeting and creating you is astronomically slim. You are the result of the fusion of one particular egg with one particular sperm. Theologically, of course, we are no accident; we do not exist by happenstance. Let's confine the pool of possible people they could meet to 1/10th of the world's population 20 years go (1/10th of 4 billion = 400 million) so it considers not just the population of the US but that of the places they could have visited. Again, it is similar to the probability of winning the Loto: while my chances of winning are very small, the probability of someone (or someones) winning are much higher. They agree to within a factor of two! Fortunately, just such a person is poised at the keyboard right now, so lets get started. Dr. Ali Binazir, who describes himself as a happiness engineer, thinks its way off the mark. A fertile woman has 100,000 viable eggs on average. He calculated that an average human could expect to experience such an occurrence once every 35 days. And whats even more profound is that 10^2,685,00 is not even remotely comparable with eternity. If I had 400 trillion pennies to my name, I could probably build a decent-sized penny fortress with it. But now, as long as I'm musing about insane probabilities, I thought I'd delve a little into the odds of us even being born and what that took! Consider some of the contingencies and requirements for your existence as set forth by Mr. Binazir. So the probability of your parents chance meeting resulting in kids is about 1 in 2000. Gamblers always play the odds; their lives revolve around probabilities, and that has led many into dark places. Now let's say the chances of them actually talking to one another is one in 10. Which one's bigger? What it took to get us all here, in this time, together, seems too precious to let pass us by without open hearts. The even better news is that the first one on Tue June 16, which is the Special Session on Joy, is free Continue reading "Brain Yoga: New Sessions" Or are we some mysterious combination of impossible and inevitable? "That's a pretty big number," I thought to myself. Say that over the course of all human existence, the likelihood of any one human offspring to survive childhood and live to reproductive age and have at least one kid is 50:50 -- one in two. Here's Dr. Ali Binazir on the probability of a human being born: "It's the probability of 2.5 million people getting together about the population of San Diego each to play a game of dice with trillion-sided dice. One number that is tossed about a lot is that the odds against your being born are one in 400 trillion. Just go have some fucking fun! Previously, I had heard the Buddhist version of the probability of "this precious incarnation." Remember the sperm-meeting-egg argument for the creation of you, since each gamete is unique? You are a representative of an unbroken lineage of life going back 4 billion years. Scott and Janice Huse, in their 1997 book The Collapse of Evolution, state that It is very significant to note that mathematicians generally consider that any event with a probability of one chance [in] 10^50 as having a zero probability (i.e. Lets say we have a insect thatmirabile dictuwe can send to the moon. One of the talks was by Mel Robbins, a riotously funny self-help author and life coach with a syndicated radio show. Its like winning a free ticket to the the best party in the world. Its almost too big to process, just know that the odds that you exist at all are basically zero.