Phenomena: A Neuroscience Thriller by Douglas Phillips

Author:Douglas Phillips [Phillips, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-09-07T16:00:00+00:00

Chance of success = 1 – (Chance of failure)number of tries

“Let’s say you’re hoping to roll a four – maybe that’s your lucky number. Roll the die once, and you’re chance of success is one minus five-sixths raised to the power one, which is about seventeen percent. Roll the die ten times, and the chance of seeing your lucky four goes up to eighty-four percent. Roll it a hundred times, and the chance is better than ninety-nine percent your four will come up on one of those rolls.”

She tapped her pen on the equation she’d written. “Probability works the same for people. What’s the chance of a baby being born with your specific pattern of consciousness? Just do the math. There are ten million billion possible combinations, and in all of history there have been a hundred billion actual people. Use the same equation, and the odds work out to about one in a hundred thousand.”

A blank look still appeared on Orlando’s face. Amelia wasn’t quite sure what Ev was getting at either.

“Think of it like the lottery balls,” Ev continued. “You know, the ping pong balls they put in a cage, blow them around, and one ball is sucked up to the top? That’s you. You’re the ball sucked to the top. One-hundred thousand ping pong balls in the cage, and you’re the winner. The odds were hugely against you, yet here you are. Consider yourself very lucky. All those other suckers? They’re still bouncing around the cage hoping for their turn, and they’re not likely to get it. Even if the human species manages to keep going for a million more years – which I highly doubt – their chance of popping to the top of the lottery cage and becoming a living, breathing person is miniscule.”

“That’s depressing,” Amelia said. “Like there are people waiting to be born and never will be.”

“Well, it might be depressing to you, but it’s enlightening to me. The fact that your consciousness exists even once shows how lucky you are to be here. But there’s the rub for you, young man.” She patted a bony hand on his shoulder. “The chance of your lottery ball coming up twice is a hundred thousand squared, or one out of ten billion. And coming up twice within the same lifetime? Ridiculous. No sir, your pattern of consciousness is almost certainly not residing in two separate bodies.”

Ev looked back and forth between Amelia and Orlando. “I could talk about consciousness probabilities all night, but does any of this answer your question?”

“You’ve explained some of this to me before,” Amelia said, “but you were talking about the probability of computer consciousness. Applying it to humans makes it sound a lot like reincarnation, the idea that a pattern representing one person could be reborn multiple times.”

Ev shook her head. “Reincarnation – at least as it’s described by Buddhists and others – is pure bunk, and for the same reason that your friend here isn’t living twice in two bodies.

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