READ: This is a huge post. I’m sorry - I can’t help myself - my thoughts must move! I realize that most people probably won’t read it all - that’s fine, I don’t expect anyone to. This post is more for my own documentation than it is to share my ideas with everyone. In a future post, I will condense this down into a more readable format. Until then, I need to document my thoughts before the next lottery drawing…

So anyways… I lost the lottery on June 15th, and it really pissed me off, and got me thinking. Look - there’s an important lesson here that needs to be learned by the majority of people on this planet. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. It’s not reality’s fault - it’s mine. When your model of reality is incorrect, you DO NOT force reality to fit into your arbitrary mold. You change your model, and learn from your mistakes. That’s what this post is about.

I was wrong about intention manifestation. I believe intention manifestation is a very nice model of reality, but there are some flaws, and these flaws are holding me back. All models of reality have partial truths in them, so I must take what is true out of the intention manifestation model of reality, and create a new model that can help me win the lottery.

I was breaking the news to a friend of mine, and he responded that first I rejected randomness, and now I’m rejecting intention manifestation… what next? Perhaps I enjoy rejecting models of reality a little too much :-). Either way, I have an updated understanding (which will someday be replaced by yet another, I’m sure). On to version 3.0…

The realization I made originated in my second lottery adventure, which is documented in text and video. What sparked that experience was that I went to the store, and tried to force a win from the scratch off machine. And I failed. Being pissed, I decided to listen instead of forcing things, and documented one of my biggest wins on video as a result.

Where intention manifestation fails is that it gives you the sense that you can accomplish anything, as long as you believe it through and through. This is false. I hate to be a downer, and I hate to sound negative… but I have to conclude it’s false based on the evidence. Belief can help by filtering and aligning your perspective on reality - but belief alone can not create. All it does is change the filter, which can help you in finding opportunities, and things of that nature. With an open belief system, your eyes are more open to success. Belief is important - but belief alone does not do the creation.

Intention manifestation agrees with this mostly. Intention manifestation states that you have to have belief, but you also have to have feelings - you have to visualize and feel as though your goal is true in this moment. Intention manifestation states it’s more than just positive thinking… it’s more than just filtering your perspective. Adding emotions into the mix, and really FEELING it, will produce results. This is false.

Now you might jump out of your seat and yell - “Wait a second, you’ve been using intention manifestation to do all sorts of things, and you’ve gotten results! How can you say that intention manifestation is false?! You’ve used it and seen it with your own eyes!”

True enough. I have used intention manifestation to produce results that can’t be explained by simply altering your beliefs, and changing your filter. On the surface, it seems as though intention manifestation is true, and that’s whats so tricky about it. But we have to dig a little deeper.

The truth is that sometimes intentions come true, and sometimes they don’t. The truth is that sometimes we go through all the steps, and it just doesn’t work. Sometimes it does! And it’s awesome! But sometimes it doesn’t. So obviously we’re missing something in the equation. Some other factor that plays an important role, or some other understanding.

Hopefully I haven’t lost you just yet. Let me review everything, from the beginning, to clear up what I’m about to do.

Ok. So we have these models for reality. Everyone has models for reality in their own minds… we might call them “belief systems”, or “the way things are”, or “how things work”, or “religion” … etc. We all have an internal model of reality that we use in our minds.

Now there are some popular models that a lot of people share. For example, the skeptical/cynical model of reality (version 1.0). If I were to tell a skeptic that I plan on winning the lottery, they might respond that it is POSSIBLE for me to win… but in all likelihood, I won’t. They might use concepts found in statistics and probability to talk about how the world works, and how the lottery is designed to make a profit for the government. They might say that the lottery is the tax for the stupid. Stuff like that. This is all in their model of reality. Now the skeptic usually has trouble telling the difference between actual reality, and the model of reality in their head. They think they see reality perfectly clear, and usually have a hard time admitting that they just might be wrong. They haven’t made the distinction that it’s simply a model in their own mind. But that’s ok, we can forgive them for now.

In the New Age and Personal Development circles, we have the intention manifestation model of reality (version 2.0). If I tell people who subscribe to this model that I plan on winning the lottery, most would probably cheer me on saying that it’s certainly possible if I do what intention manifestation tells me to do. Some people might argue that because I’m getting “something for nothing”, that I will fail, because I don’t have a noble cause. But most would probably admit that it’s possible. They would tell me that I have to really believe that I can win, and that I have to meditate and visualize myself winning, and feel all the emotions associated with that. Really put myself in the moment and feel like a winner. Feel like I just won. See it in my mind so clearly that it becomes superimposed on my subconscious mind, and transmitted out to the universe to attract it using “vibrations” and such. Ok.

Now, those are just two models of reality. Sure, they are each interesting in their own right, and they each have a body of literature and history. They each have truths that can’t be denied. But both of them are still just models of reality made by humans… they inherently have faults in them. The trick is to separate yourself from the model you hold in your mind. Don’t become attached to the model - become attached to reality. Reality is the judge. Not the model in your mind. Reality determines what is possible, and what isn’t possible. Not your human understanding. So we must constantly evolve our own internal models based on what we observe in reality. We might not be able to create a 100% perfect model, but that’s ok. We just need to be flexible enough to modify our model when the situation calls for it. We need to be willing to change.

So… my interest in the lottery was sparked by internalizing the realization that the skeptical/cynical model of reality (version 1.0, dealing with probability and statistics) isn’t entirely true. There is a vital flaw in this model. I outline the flaw in three posts on this website, Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. If you don’t want to read all those, I will summarize the flaw briefly here.

The flaw with the skeptical/cynical model of reality is that it can’t explain how people win the lottery twice. It simply can’t. Now, if you think that it can explain it, then I encourage you to take classes in probability and statistics to truly understand what our modern views of reality tell us about someone winning the lottery twice. If you grasp probability and statistics correctly, then there is only one conclusion to make: people should never win the lottery twice. Yet, people do. So we must admit that the skeptical/cynical model is incorrect.

Now we reach another crossroad. Reality is not behaving as the intention manifestation model states that it should. Just like reality doesn’t behave like the skeptical/cynical model says it should. What is our response? Modify our model of reality. We are forced to reject intention manifestation, the same way we were forced to reject modern ideas of probability and statistics.

When we rejected probability and statistics, we didn’t reject everything. We can’t. A lot of probability and statistics is completely correct and accurate! I would say probably 99% of it :-). But there is a vital flaw. Probability and statistics rely on the existence of the concept of randomness. However, it is my understanding that randomness does not exist. Therefore, while probability and statistics are great tools, we have to realize what they are doing. They are not modeling random numbers. They are modeling choice. Making that simple correction does not undermine all the work that’s gone into the fields of probability and statistics. It simply tweaks it slightly to more accurately fit reality - and it works.

Now that we’re rejecting intention manifestation, we have to realize that a lot of intention manifestation is completely correct. But we need to tweak again. We need to observe reality, and realize where the holes are in our model. Then we need to patch the holes, and use this modified model of reality to accomplish our goals. If reality throws experiences at us that contradict our modified model (which will certainly happen at some point), then we will be forced to tweak again.

So - where does intention manifestation fail?

It fails when we try to manifest something, following the instructions correctly, and it doesn’t work. Our goal isn’t accomplished. We experienced the feelings, we did the visualization, we focused, felt good, believed… and then nothing. No results. Instead of beating ourselves up, let’s beat up intention manifestation :-).

Let’s try to understand how humans created intention manifestation to begin with. We were pretty smart about it… What we did was go around, and interview and talk to all these successful people. We asked them, “How did you do it? What is your story? What made you succeed where everyone else failed?” This is a great idea! Asking questions is a brilliant idea.

Successful people responded with their stories. And a lot of these stories had things in common. So, being the smart human race that we are, we looked at the patterns. We noticed that a lot of successful people had a burning desire to succeed. And this desire consumed their thoughts. We noticed that a lot of successful people believed they would succeed before they did - even when they logically shouldn’t have believed it. We noticed that this burning desire and belief were the very things that made them succeed. Story after story, we noticed that it was this burning desire and belief that got these people through the tough times, and allowed them to create opportunities for them, that led to success. Amazing!

So, after we noticed this, we proclaimed: Successful people had a burning desire and unwavering belief before they were successful. If you want to be successful, you need a burning desire and unwavering belief. Tada!

This idea is outlined in hundreds of books, the most popular of which is undoubtedly Napoleon Hill’s, Think and Grow Rich, published in 1937. A lot of books influenced the creation of the intention manifestation model of reality, but it is my opinion that this book is one of the major ones.

Over time, the intention manifestation model has evolved into what we see presented today, by programs like “The Secret“, and all the other ripoffs. It has evolved from this idea of burning desire and belief, into visualization and feeling your goal is already achieved.

So where is the mistake? Where is the flaw?

I will tell you. It’s very clear to me now that I have hindsight. The flaw is that we think belief, expectation, and feelings cause our goal to be accomplished. This is incorrect.

This is the mistake that we made. We saw that successful people have strong beliefs, and having this sense of “knowing” that they would succeed, before they actually succeeded. This sense of “knowing” is very important - and anyone who has applied intention manifestation knows specifically what it is. This sense of simply knowing that your goal WILL be accomplished. You just know. The mistake that we made is thinking that this sense of knowing caused the goal to be accomplished.

It’s actually a pretty normal mistake that we make all the time. The cynics have solved this problem already for us (hey, what can I say, I owe you a beer :-P). It’s a logical fallacy, called Post Hoc. We noticed that this sense of knowing came before the success, so we assumed this sense of knowing caused the success. Incorrect. Just because it came before does not mean that it caused it.

Our techniques for intention manifestation are based on the idea that we need to induce this sense of knowing. We need to alter our beliefs. We need to create a burning desire. We need to make ourselves believe. We need to convince ourselves that our goal is accomplished. Once we do that, we will have our sense of knowing. And once we have this sense of knowing, then success will follow.

But now we have to reconcile the fact that people can brainwash a sense of knowing in themselves, and the goal still isn’t accomplished. How do you reconcile that? All you intention manifestation people out there reading this… how do you explain how a person can believe 100%, feel it, visualize it, get into it… and then fail? You can’t. Not with the intention manifestation model. It’s time for a new model.

We run into some tension here, because some people might fear that if intention manifestation is incorrect, then we must downgrade to the skeptical/cynical model of reality. Hey, don’t beat yourself up too bad. We don’t have to move in that direction. We can create a new model that incorporates everything we’ve learned. And since our new model is going to be based on personal experience and open mindedness, we’ll be sure to include everything we possibly can, which will in turn help us to accomplish our goals even faster than before.

So now that we know the history of all this bullshit, what is our new model going to be? I propose version 3.0, the choice model :-). Please be aware that I didn’t come up with this all on my own. My current understanding is a result of reading, experimenting, discussing, and stealing ideas from other smart people (one good location for that is Steve’s forum on intention manifestation).

(This is a long post, I’m sorry. I want to get this down on paper before the next lottery drawing, even if that means no one will read the entire post :-P.)

My current understanding is that choice is the root to achieving a goal. This choice is made before the goal is actually manifested, ranging anywhere from a few microseconds, to decades. When this choice is made, we feel a sense of knowing that the goal will be accomplished. Perhaps this sense of knowing comes from a precognitive facility in our minds that actually sees the goal being accomplished - I’m not sure.

What I want to point out is that this choice has a supernatural quality about it that creates the reality we will someday experience. This isn’t simply a normal decision that we experience all the time… this choice is on a different level. English doesn’t have the vocabulary for it.

Ok, look. This isn’t your normal decision. I’m not sure if I can explain it to someone whose never made a decision like this before. To people who have used intention manifestation, you’ve already done it, and you can probably understand what I’m getting at. There comes a point when you say to yourself, “I AM going to do this. Period.” And that sentence alone isn’t what’s so powerful about it. It’s all the emotion… it’s every cell in your body saying “YES” to this. It is a true decision, a real choice. Not the wishy-washy crap that we do daily. It’s the type of choice that makes you slam your fist down on the table, stand up tall, and stare reality in it’s eye. It’s not anger, it’s not fear, it’s not happiness, it’s not joyfulness. It’s the raw emotion of “am”. “To be”. I AM going to do this.

That’s where the power is. It’s not about good or bad, or noble, or evil. It’s raw “YES”. It’s raw “GO”. This is the emotion that is the root to the burning desire. This is the emotion that is the root to belief. To the sense of knowing. This emotion - this choice - is the origin. Maybe you’ve never made a decision like this before, but you’ve probably seen someone make this decision. To look in their eye, and see their resolve. It’s almost like their decision convinces you. You don’t know how they’re going to accomplish their goal, but just by looking at them you know they are going to.

It’s not stubbornness, though it might look a little similar. It’s different. Stubbornness is forceful in nature… this type of decision that I’m describing really isn’t forceful. It’s self-evident. It’s true because it’s true. Stubbornness shuts down your mind… this type of decision opens your mind up. That’s one way to tell the difference.

When you make a decision like this, the world moves. Shit that’s in your way gets out of your way. Shit you need to experience starts to bee-line in your direction.

Now - there are different degrees, which is important to realize. It’s not all about emotion, even though that’s the picture I painted above. Emotion does help though. We can throw all the emotion out the window, and still be left with this choice. However, if you want to make the choice consciously, it would probably be in your best interest to use emotion to help you.

It’s about existence. It’s about being. It’s not inducing a sense of knowing… it’s behind that. Once you hit it, you feel a sense of knowing. Don’t identify it as the sense of knowing - that’s where intention manifestation made it’s mistake. It’s behind the sense of knowing. It’s the root.

Intention manifestation points us in the right direction, which is why it’s successful. But it fails because it’s not precise. It gets us in the right area, but it misses the exact location. We may stumble upon the exact location while using intention manifestation, but only because it’s in such close proximity. These are the times when we succeed. Other times, we are still in the same ballpark, but we fail because we didn’t precisely hit where we need to be.

I’m not sure if I’m explaining it correctly. Sometimes my mind gets carried away… let me try again :-P.

Ultimately, it is a choice. Wash away the extra bullshit, and you’re left with a choice. Now, in reality, we have a real hard time washing away the extra bullshit :-P. So we have to deal with the bullshit instead. That’s where things start getting hard to understand. Everyone has different stuff piled on their consciousness, so we all have different things to deal with when it comes to making this choice. It’s tough to get through and make the choice, because there’s so much crap. That’s why we have techniques, methods, exercises, models, ideas, discussions, growth, etc.

Look, if you believe that you can’t win the lottery, then that is extra bullshit piled on your consciousness that needs to be dealt with before you can win the lottery. But it’s not even that simple. If that’s all you had to deal with, then that would be easy! In reality, we have miles of shit to wade through. A simple belief that you can’t win is just an ounce.

Here, let me draw a picture:

Alrighty!

All hope is not lost… yet :-P.

My point is that we have a lot of stuff that goes on inside of our head that stops us from making these powerful choices all the time. The intention manifestation model does a pretty good job of cutting through a lot of that shit, but it’s not good enough. We can accomplish a lot of wonderful things with intention manifestation, but it falls short when it comes to winning the lottery. We might be able to use intention manifestation to win the lottery, but there is a better way.

I failed to win the lottery this past time because I focused on inducing a sense of knowing, assuming that it was the sense of knowing that created the success. This is false, hence I failed.

Now that I see that this supernatural choice is my goal, I know where to aim. And I’ll know when I get it, because I’ll feel a sense of knowing.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

What does it all mean?!

It means I’m changing my strategy for picking lottery numbers. In the past, I just picked random numbers while filling out the lottery sheet. This method may produce a win, but I want to be smarter about it. My new method is to write down lottery numbers on paper, and examine my “sense of knowing” about them. Then tweak the numbers over and over again, until I find my maximum “sense of knowing”. Then play those numbers.

This “sense of knowing” is something that needs to be polled. It needs to be examined and used. NOT FORCED. Not induced. It’s already in us, so let’s use it! I’m much more confident with this strategy than my strategy in the past, and it feels much more correct.

We shall see where it leads.

If you’ve made it this far, amazing. I really didn’t expect anyone to read this entire post. You must be bored :-). Like I said at the start, I intend on making a much more smaller version of this post in the future. I simply didn’t have the time, and I wanted to get my ideas out before the next lottery drawing. If you’ve skipped to the end, then you’re a lousy cheater! JERK! :-P. Anyways… this post took three days to write. And my thoughts are still bouncing around. They will eventually settle down. Thanks! See ya.

EDIT: In other news… I lost this round. I hate losing. I mean… sure, I only lost $1, so it’s no big deal. But it pisses me off.

I got zero numbers correct.

Why does this piss me off? Because I know I can win. I know I can. But I can’t reconcile the fact that I’m losing. I mean, if I look at the numbers, I’m winning overall. I’m still making a profit over the months I’ve been playing, and I’m shattering the mathematical odds. Blah blah blah. No jackpot though. Profit is nice, but it’s not my goal. My goal is the jackpot.

I am going to win. Each loss adds energy to my win.

Bloody hell. I know exactly how I’m going to go about it as well. I know exactly where I’m making my “mistake”, if you want to call it that. The solution is murky, but the “mistake” is clear as day.

If they can do it, I can do it. If I can do it, then I will do it. Simple as that.

So I had a lucid dream last night. Before I continue, I’d like to point out that the MegaMillions Jackpot is at $45 million - the amount I require before I start playing. Back to my dream…

Before I fell asleep, I told myself that I wanted to have a lucid dream so I could investigate the lottery. Maybe get some numbers, or some techniques… something. Seemed like a good idea.

I became lucid a few hours into sleeping, during the beginning of a long period of dreaming. I knew I had a lot of time to kill before I would wake up (as long as I didn’t excite myself too much), and decided to get some answers about the lottery. I was inside a huge Victorian house that was also partly a mall, and there were tons of people around me.

I started by grabbing the next available person, and asking them, “How do I win the lottery?” They said they didn’t know. I asked another person. They didn’t know. I went up to another person, and declared that they would be representing my subconscious mind. I asked them how to win… they had a slightly longer response that boiled down to not knowing.

I left the area I was in, pretty frustrated. I saw some children playing, and asked them what they were doing. They said they represented different parts of myself - different characteristics. I asked them how to win the lottery - I asked them for numbers, and for techniques to try. They didn’t know.

By this time I was getting a little frustrated. I began searching for someone who should know, instead of asking random strangers. I would see someone and scoff them away, because I knew they wouldn’t know. Person by person… I floated downstairs, partly surfing on the banister (hey, I was lucid, might as well have some fun :-P). I turned a corner and saw a religious black man, who looked like a shaman.

I made friends with him and asked him how to win the lottery. He told me he didn’t know of the top of his head, but he knew where we could find out. He said he could look it up for me (in a book?), and to follow him. So I did.

We winded around the house, going all over, and eventually found the stairs to the basement. We went down, but it wasn’t a basement - it was the outdoors. It was shifting between night time, and day time, in the matter of a few seconds. He started doing some ritual, and the stars in the sky started to move. He told me he would find out by reading the stars. I told him I thought he was going to use books in a library - he said he could do that too, but that we could also use the stars. I said ok.

I watched him manipulate the stars into weird patterns. They rotated around the sky as he “read” them. I tried to read them too, but I didn’t get it. Unfortunately, I had been lucid for an extremely long time at this point (perhaps 15 minutes), and my lucidity started to fade.

While he was manipulating the stars, a women offered us some food samples. Cakes, brownies, and chocolates, and stuff like that. At first I said no, because I wanted to only eat healthy food, but then I realized it was ok because it was a dream. While eating the food, I became distracted, and lost my lucidity. After that, myself and the shaman forgot about the stars, and got stuck in these narrow tubes in the yard. Lucidity was gone, and I forgot about my lottery goal. No results.

I find that my dream characters are worthless when it comes to usable information. In the past, I have asked them for help on different topics, and they always fail to provide anything substantial. I remember one time, while lucid, I decided to track down a “psychokinetic master” and ask him techniques. When I found him, and asked him, all he gave me was a simple chakra meditation. Another time, I was lucid and asked to speak to my subconscious. A man walked up to me, but it quickly turned into helping someone with a drug addiction (that doesn’t exist). Another time I also asked to speak to my subconscious - the receptionist told me I’d have to call him. After finally getting a hold of my subconscious on the phone after some trickery, nothing was beneficial.

And most of the time in my dreams, all the dream characters do is try to convince me I’m not dreaming. What a waste. I’m lucid - I know I’m dreaming.

I also asked about the lottery when I first started playing. My dream gave me numbers…. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 3. Needless to say, they didn’t win.

I wonder how people have precognitive dreams. While my dreams are fun and useful in self-discovery, they always fail at helping figure out things about reality.

Bah.

I lied in my previous post. I’m not done talking about the lottery:

This is the last post I’ll make about the lottery for a few weeks, I promise :-P.

My old intention was to simply win the lottery. I told myself constantly that, “I am happy and grateful now that I’ve won the lottery.” I visualized. I got my emotions going. I obsessed my mind with it. All that stuff. And I won.

And it’s made me realize that I really don’t want to just “win the lottery”. Sure, I’ve won a bunch of scratch off tickets, but that’s the end of the road. What I really want now is to win the jackpot.

I’ve changed my intention to, “I am happy and grateful now that I’ve won the entire MegaMillions Jackpot.” This simple change has made me uninterested in playing scratch off tickets. Which is the correct emotional response, according to my intention.

I have a rule that I won’t play MegaMillions unless the jackpot is $45 million or more. I made this rule a few months back. The reason being: if I win the jackpot, it’s going to really suck if I win the $12 million one, when on average the MegaMillions will pay out between $50 and $100 million. So the rule was created not to play unless it’s $45 million or more. Maybe you think I’m just being greedy now :-P. But hey - I think it’s a smart choice. Brand me any adjective you wish.

When someone wins the jackpot, it goes back down to $12 million, and slowly climbs it’s way up. It takes about 2-2.5 weeks to reach the $45 million mark again. So during this time period, I don’t play.

Now the kicker: someone won $44 million. I was pissed :-P. I had waited patiently for 2.5 weeks to play again, waiting for it to get $45 mil or higher. Someone wins right below the cut off point for me. Back to ground zero. Now I have to wait another 2.5 weeks.

Which is the reason why I won’t be posting about the lottery for a little while. I’m not doing the scratch off anymore, and I’m not playing MegaMillions until it gets to $45 mil or higher. Perhaps this will force me to talk about some new topics, and give the whole lottery thing a rest for at least a little while :-P.

Bahahaha.

Absolutely ridiculous :-).

So I walked to the store, needing to buy some batteries. I brought $2 with me specifically because I wanted to play a scratch off lottery again, and win $100. My subconscious told me I was going to lose, but I didn’t care. I went. Bought the batteries. Bought the ticket. And lost.

On my walk home, I was pissed. I was talking to my subconscious, and declared (being rude, almost): if you know that I’m going to lose, then you know when I’m going to win. Go FIND me a winning ticket, and I’ll drive to it!

So I grabbed my camera and documented my adventure. I ended up filming about 60 minutes of footage, and trimmed it down to 10 minutes for YouTube. Enjoy!

(I’d also like to note that I haven’t bought any lottery tickets since my last winning, so this isn’t a case of playing a whole lot to win a few times - I’m making a profit).

I’ve been posting a lot lately, because the comments from the previous posts engage my mind :-). If you haven’t visited the blog in a few days, be sure to check out the previous posts. I’m moving somewhat fast.

Why do we love this idea of randomness? Why are we attached to it?

I was sitting and thinking about this question, and the solution popped into my head. In hindsight, it’s actually pretty obvious, and it’s spelled out very clearly in the movie “The Secret” (which I’ve seen a few times, Joe :-P). The way the solution popped into my head is pretty funny though… I was getting bored with the question of why people love randomness (because I couldn’t answer it), so I decided to start an entirely new and unrelated line of questioning. I asked myself what my most offensive belief was. I answered that karma and cause and effect is a pretty offensive belief. Then the solution to my previous question about randomness hit me.

The reason we love this idea of randomness is because we use it 99% of the time when something bad happens.

One of the biggest problems in all religions is answering the question of: why do bad things happen to good people? This is a very hard question. Small bad things can be reasoned away, but then you see extremely bad things, like child molestation, rape, or natural disasters that kill millions of people… and in religion, people are forced to ask themselves: if God is a good God, then why would he allow this to happen? Big problem for religion.

What do we do? I believe that while we all have our own religious beliefs, and we all will answer why bad things happen to good people differently - I believe that in our hearts, most of us will rely on this idea of randomness. Some of the really bad things in this world don’t have a good explanation, no matter how much faith we have. So at some point, in our conscious or subconscious mind, we latch onto the idea that sometimes random shit happens.

But now look at what we’ve done. We’ve attached the idea that randomness exists to the most emotionally charged experiences we can think of. That means we really need this idea of randomness. If randomness were to leave the picture, then we would have to deal with all these highly emotional issues again. Our subconscious mind does not want this.

For example, when I was a little kid, my aunt died from cancer. I think she was in her 30’s. I must have been 8 years old, and at such a young age, I had to deal with this extremely emotional situation. I barely understand death as it is, and now my aunt is gone. I ask my parents why she died, but they can’t give a solid explanation. Maybe I hear that it was “her time”, and that “God decided to take her”. Those are great ideas… but what sinks into the subconscious mind? What is the belief I form in my heart?

Probably that random shit happens. Now I’m 24, and I’m challenging this belief. Which means I have to re-live my aunt’s death, and try to make sense of it again. I also have to re-live everything else where I’ve used randomness as the explanation. Talk about exhausting!

I think we all latch onto this idea of randomness because we’ve all had bad experiences. No one lives a perfect life. Everyone has family members who have died, or friends, or teachers. My 6th grade teacher died when I was 13 years old - he was a volunteer firefighter, and was responding to a call, and a tree fell on his car with him in it. How do I explain that to myself? It seems the only way I can live in peace is to use this idea of randomness.

If you don’t like my theories on randomness, or even if you do, I submit to you an exercise: ask yourself, “What would it mean, emotionally, if randomness didn’t exist?” - you can start by finishing this sentence: “If randomness didn’t exist, then _______”. Don’t give a one sentence answer either :-P. Chances are that blank should be a few pages long. (No need to post your response in the comments :-P).

Hahaha!

So I went to the store today. For no real reason… mainly because I wanted to walk outside, and walking to the store gives me an excuse to enjoy the sunny weather.

By the time I made it to the store, I had to pee, so I went to the bathroom. I came out, and figured it’s time to go home. While walking out the store, a lottery machine caught my eye :-). I had $60 on me, all in $20 bills. I was going to purchase one ticket for the fun of it, until I noticed a sign saying that the machine doesn’t give any change. So it was either buy a bunch of tickets for $20, or walk.

After deliberation, I decided to put in a $20. I got 9 tickets, at different price ranges ($1, $1, $2, $2, $2, $3, $3, $3, $3). I walked home with them in my hands, partly thinking I’m a complete fool, and partly thinking this is going to be totally sweet.

About half way home, I decided to send out the intention. I made the decision to make a profit. I didn’t want to go for the jackpot, because it was too unbelievable for me at that point. But I could realistically intend on making a profit, and not feel guilty about lying to myself :-P. I also visualized myself making this post online, announcing that my intention came true.

When I got home, I laid out all the tickets, and told each one that it was a winner. I also told the tickets that the total of all the prizes would be more than $20. Then I started scratching, from cheapest to most expensive.

The first ticket I scratched, I won $3. So I was feeling really awesome :-).

The second ticket was a dud. And so were the next 4 tickets.

The 7th ticket I won $10. So my prizes totaled $13, with 2 tickets left.

My 8th ticket won $24. And my 9th was a dud.

So: I spent $20 on scratch off tickets, intended to make a profit, and post my success online.

I scratched the tickets, won $37, and am posting this online.

I hate being right sometimes >:-D.

This is a continuation of ideas from my last post on randomness…

Let’s assume you look at someone winning the lottery twice, and you have the same reaction that I do: there’s no way our current model correctly predicts it happening. Now I notice a lot of people in the previous post don’t have that reaction :-P. I’ll attempt to address people’s complaints, but also move along at the same time.

There are a few problems that spring up if we say that randomness doesn’t exist. The idea of randomness is essential to the field of probability and statistics. It’s also essential to Quantum Physics, where matter phases out into a “probability-cloud” that acts as a wave-form when not being observed. Mad Hatter made the observation that if randomness doesn’t exist, then reality is deterministic - and we have no free will.

There is a solution to these problems though. What if, where we perceive randomness, what actually exists is a conscious choice?

Probability and statistics are still useful. They just model choice instead of random behavior. Quantum Physics is still correct - but it just means that when matter phases out of existence, it just hasn’t chosen where to exist yet. And free will still exists, because everything is now free will!

So my current understanding is that, where we perceive randomness, what we’re really perceiving is a choice that we don’t understand completely.

Think of a hypothetical situation: imagine that I’m paralyzed, and all I can control is my blinking. Now imagine that you come to see me, and you are absolutely convinced that I’m a machine. You believe you are looking at a complicated clock. Perhaps I try to communicate with you by blinking letters of the alphabet… maybe using morse code. I painstakingly spell out “Hey Jimmy, how’s the wife and kids?” What do you perceive?

You will see me blinking, but you’ll think it’s just random movement. You can watch my blinking, and figure out the “probability” that I’ll blink or not. You might declare that “This machine has a 0.476 chance of blinking at any given second” - and that might true. But because of your belief that my blinking is inherently random, you miss the message.

A strange analogy… but that’s what I think is happening. We witness seemingly random events, and sure - we can calculate the odds of that event happening, and we can study it, and analyze it, and make great models. But so long as we believe that the event itself is inherently random - we are stuck. If randomness exists, then that means events are meaningless.

If we replace the idea of randomness with conscious choice, then everything has meaning. Things fall into place.

Perhaps you disagree with me :-P. Or perhaps you think it’s interesting, but haven’t made up your mind. Either way, that’s fine. This is only my current understanding - there’s a good chance the more I think about it, the more this will change as well :-P.

“God does not play dice with the universe.” - Albert Einstein

I will explain my ideas on why I believe randomness doesn’t truly exist. I believe I can win the lottery using these ideas.

The first thing to understand is what society’s current beliefs are about randomness.

One of the first things you might think about, is that when you play video games on your computer, there is obviously some random stuff going on. Sometimes an enemy turns left, sometimes he turns right - completely random. You might even know some things about programming, and know of functions to call when you want a random number.

All these random numbers on computers aren’t truly random though - they are pseudo-random numbers. What that means is that usually some number is taken from the outside world - for example, the time it takes you to click on the “New Game” button in milliseconds - or the time of day you run the program in milliseconds - and that number is treated as the “seed”. From this seed number, the computer can generate a sequence of numbers that appear to be random. All it does is perform some math on the seed number, and spit out the result for you. Then change the seed number (according to a formula), so the next time you want a random number, it has a new result.

You don’t have to understand the exact formulas. If you’re curious you can do some more research on pseudo-random numbers, and random number generation. It’s a large field in computer science. The important part to understand is that these “random” numbers on computers aren’t actually random. They are calculated from some seed, based on formulas. Not random.

So randomness doesn’t exist on a computer. But surely randomness exists in reality?! You might argue, for example, what about flipping a coin? What about rolling dice? These events are truly random.

Well, on the surface they sure do seem like it. After all - how many of us can predict 100 dice rolls in a row? No one. So it does seem like that is a random system. However, there is a problem.

The problem comes in when we research how many people have won the lottery twice. Google, Video, Couple, Family, PA, NY Deli, etc, etc…

Now of course there are skeptics on the issue, claiming that with so many people playing, surely there will be some people who win twice. For those with some common sense, reading the skeptic side of things is actually pretty hilarious - they claim: “the odds of someone winning the lottery twice to be something like 1 in 30 for a four month period and better than even odds over a seven year period. Why? Because players don’t buy one ticket for each of two lotteries, they buy multiple tickets every week” - wow. Then how come everyone doesn’t win twice? All they have to do is play 40 times ;-). An absolutely ridiculous article, especially for those that understand statistics and probability at a high-school level.

The truth is that our current understanding of reality can NOT explain how people win the lottery twice.

So, we have to do what’s right. We have to be honest with ourselves. Probability and statistics are models for reality. The models work pretty good most of the time, but when we look at people who win the lottery twice, we notice that our model is incorrect. If our model is mostly correct, but has some incorrect moments, then what do we do? Modify the model. Clearly our model isn’t completely accurate. So we modify it. We DO NOT spatter off nonsense to try and convince ourselves that our model must be correct, and that reality is just being rude for not following our laws. We take an honest and humble look at it and say: Well gee, we’re a little bit off, how can we make a more accurate model?

Think about it. Study probability and statistics a little bit. Try to digest the odds of someone winning twice. In this article we’re told the odds are 419 million to one. That would mean the winner would have to play the lottery every minute - for 796 years - to accomplish this using our current model. Now you see how impossible this really is with our current model.

Think about it. I’ll post more on it later.