Dennis Prager Show - Timeless Wisdom: Ultimate Issues Hour - How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Aired: 2026-04-09
Duration: 39:32


=== Faith Beyond Answerable Questions (03:36) ===

[00:00:00]  Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
[00:00:02]  It's not your fault.
[00:00:02]  You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
[00:00:06]  At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
[00:00:11]  If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864 644 1900.
[00:00:19]  Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
[00:00:24]  That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
[00:00:27]  Call 864 644 1900.
[00:00:30]  Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
[00:00:34]  Hear thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
[00:00:38]  And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com.
[00:00:49]  Episode of Timeless Wisdom.
[00:00:52]  There is one question I will tell you now that is not answerable.
[00:00:55]  That is simply a matter of faith.
[00:00:58]  And I respect both positions equally as it happens.
[00:01:03]  And that is, God directs everything or God allows randomness to take place.
[00:01:09]  I respect both positions equally.
[00:01:12]  And I am comfortable with both and uncomfortable with both.
[00:01:17]  That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
[00:01:20]  And it starts right now.
[00:01:24]  Or not to be?
[00:01:27]  That is the question.
[00:01:29]  Where was God?
[00:01:30]  Isn't God supposed to be good?
[00:01:32]  Isn't he supposed to love us?
[00:01:33]  Does God want us to suffer?
[00:01:35]  Ten years, you're not finished yet?
[00:01:38]  Warning!
[00:01:40]  Why did you do this to me?
[00:01:43]  Who are you?
[00:01:45]  Bruce?
[00:01:47]  I am God.
[00:01:48]  Bingo, Yahtzee!
[00:01:50]  Is that your final answer?
[00:01:52]  Our service has God!
[00:01:54]  Bing, ding, Well, it was nice to meet you, God.
[00:01:58]  Thank you for the Grand Canyon, and good luck with the apocalypse.
[00:02:06]  You're listening to the Dennis Prager Show, and this is the Ultimate Issues Hour.
[00:02:14]  We talk about some great issues of life.
[00:02:17]  The great issue of life this hour is randomness, luck, and everything related to that.
[00:02:24]  And it is, there is one question I will tell you now that is not answerable.
[00:02:30]  That is simply a matter of faith.
[00:02:33]  And I respect both positions equally as it happens.
[00:02:37]  And I'm talking about, obviously, in this arena, those who do believe in God.
[00:02:43]  And that is, God directs everything or God allows randomness to take place.
[00:02:49]  I respect both positions equally.
[00:02:52]  And I am comfortable with both and uncomfortable with both.
[00:02:57]  So just know that that's one issue.
[00:03:01]  It's an issue that I.
[00:03:03]  We may discuss later on in the hour.
[00:03:05]  But right now, I have a professor at Caltech, California.
[00:03:10]  What is the actual California Institute of Technology?
[00:03:13]  You see, it's so funny.
[00:03:14]  You say Caltech so much and you forget it.
[00:03:16]  It actually stands for something.
[00:03:19]  That and MIT, they are the most distinguished technology or technological universities in the United States, if not the world.
[00:03:29]  One on the East Coast, one on the West Coast.
[00:03:32]  He's a professor who has his PhD in physics from Berkeley.

=== The Law of Large Numbers (09:09) ===

[00:03:36]  Leonard Mladenow, and he teaches randomness.
[00:03:44]  He teaches about randomness to future scientists at Caltech.
[00:03:48]  His book was on the New York Times bestseller list and is now number four on the business bestsellers, which is interesting that it would be a business bestseller, Dr. Mladenow, I must say.
[00:04:00]  We have him in studio, and the book is titled The Drunkard's Walk How Randomness Rules Our Lives.
[00:04:08]  And Dr. Mladenow, pleasure to have you on the Dennis Prager Show.
[00:04:12]  Great to be here.
[00:04:13]  Now, let me first deal with some definitions and then we'll talk about the philosophy of all this because we use these terms all the time.
[00:04:24]  And then when I was looking through your book, I realized, by golly, I really don't know exactly what, or I thought I knew exactly what it meant.
[00:04:32]  If I'm told, Dennis, daily exercise will reduce the risk of a cardio incident by 10%.
[00:04:41]  By 26%.
[00:04:41]  Right?
[00:04:42]  Right.
[00:04:43]  What does that mean?
[00:04:45]  Well, that means that if you look at a large number of people who are in your situation and you look at two groups, one of them who do the exercise and one of them who don't, then the people who do the exercise have been found to have that many fewer heart attacks.
[00:05:01]  Okay, so fine.
[00:05:04]  So compared to those who don't do it.
[00:05:07]  Okay, that's what I thought it meant.
[00:05:09]  But looking through your book, you said sometimes it's not quite as clear as we think it is, these statements of percentage less likely or more likely.
[00:05:20]  Well, that's true.
[00:05:21]  You have to look at the studies.
[00:05:22]  If it's a medical study, one would hope that they did a good study and there were enough people on the study because when you say 26% less, it means that you sampled a certain number of people.
[00:05:32]  Okay, you're right.
[00:05:32]  You're right.
[00:05:33]  Then I'll tell you where you raised it that I'd love you to deal with.
[00:05:36]  Okay?
[00:05:37]  What are the odds against my taking two dice, because you deal with this, and rolling a snake eyes twice in a row?
[00:05:47]  That is two ones.
[00:05:49]  Well,.
[00:05:50]  The odds of rolling one one is one in six, and the odds of rolling another one is also one in six.
[00:05:55]  So the odds of rolling two in a row are one in 36.
[00:05:57]  And the way you could look at that is there are 36 possible combinations when you roll two dice, and they're all equally probable given that the dice are fair.
[00:06:07]  If the dice are fair, and if you want to talk philosophically, that could be an assumption that we might want to question.
[00:06:12]  But if you assume that the dice are fair, there are 36 different possibilities, each equally probable, and only one of them is two ones.
[00:06:20]  Right, okay, fine.
[00:06:22]  But you point out, I believe, it's probably not going to happen if I roll 36 times.
[00:06:27]  Right, well, that's the deeper question.
[00:06:30]  Well, there's two questions there, okay?
[00:06:33]  If you roll it a small number of times, the chances are that the results that you achieve are not going to reflect the actual underlying probabilities.
[00:06:43]  And that is a big issue in interpreting life and the world around us, not just in throwing dice.
[00:06:52]  Take a simpler example, for instance.
[00:06:56]  You have a 60% chance of success in some venture, that a company has a 60% chance of success, or you have a 60% chance of success, however you define that.
[00:07:05]  And suppose that you take five shots at it.
[00:07:08]  You would think, if your results were to reflect the underlying probabilities precisely, that you would get three out of five successes because that's 60% of five.
[00:07:20]  But in reality, when you do the math, you find out that the chances are only one out of three that you'll have 60%, or three out of five successes.
[00:07:27]  If your underlying probability is 60%, the chances are two thirds that your results in five tries will not reflect that.
[00:07:34]  And there's a one in 10 chance, in fact, that you have five successes or five failures in a row.
[00:07:40]  So, why would we even say it's a 60% chance?
[00:07:42]  Well, it's meaningful if you have a larger number of tries.
[00:07:48]  Like the dice.
[00:07:49]  Like the dice.
[00:07:50]  You have to have, see, there's something in mathematics called the law of large numbers, which says that if you do it enough, then the chances are very great that your results will reflect the underlying probabilities.
[00:08:00]  But one mistake that people make is what psychologists call the law of small numbers, which is not a law at all, so it's kind of a bad term, but it's a sarcastic term.
[00:08:08]  And what it means is they apply the law of large numbers to small numbers.
[00:08:10]  And they can't be.
[00:08:11]  You can't be.
[00:08:12]  So if you look at the Fortune 500, if every company was equal and every company had a 60% chance of success in a given year, and you look at the track records over five years, you would find 50 companies with either five straight good or bad years, even though everyone had an identical 60% chance of success.
[00:08:29]  And people need to understand that.
[00:08:31]  In real life, we don't often have samples of hundreds where we can play quite a lot of games.
[00:08:35]  And let me explain this in layman's terms and tell me if I'm right.
[00:08:39]  And that is those of you who have played blackjack at a casino, say in Vegas, and there are rules in blackjack that are based on numbers.
[00:08:48]  In other words, if the dealer is showing a 10 or a picture card, same thing, and you have a 5, you should.
[00:09:00]  I think you get hit.
[00:09:01]  But you're supposed to get hit, exactly.
[00:09:03]  But if they're showing.
[00:09:05]  A five or a runner, and you're showing something you shouldn't take a hit away.
[00:09:10]  But still, people will draw on a 15 when they shouldn't, and they'll get a six, and they're terrific, 21.
[00:09:16]  That's what makes life interesting.
[00:09:17]  Well, and the reason is because it's small numbers, which then the casino tries to undo by having six decks.
[00:09:25]  Right?
[00:09:26]  Yeah, they try to.
[00:09:27]  And so you can't count.
[00:09:28]  So you can't count.
[00:09:28]  Yeah, so you can't count.
[00:09:30]  Because the odds change as cards are revealed.
[00:09:33]  Exactly.
[00:09:34]  So at what point, when we say you said back to the dice, It's a 1 in 36 chance that I will do two ones in a row, correct?
[00:09:45]  Is that what you said?
[00:09:46]  Okay.
[00:09:48]  Now, at what point is that ironclad?
[00:09:54]  In the billions?
[00:09:55]  How many rolls will make that an ironclad fact, or is there never such a thing?
[00:10:01]  Oh, there's never such.
[00:10:03]  What do you mean by ironclad fact?
[00:10:04]  In other words.
[00:10:05]  That you will throw that you'll have exactly one out of six after so many rolls.
[00:10:09]  That's correct.
[00:10:09]  That's never an ironclad fact.
[00:10:10]  Never.
[00:10:11]  No matter how big the number.
[00:10:13]  That's right.
[00:10:14]  So what is it?
[00:10:15]  It becomes, though, the chances of the way.
[00:10:18]  Here's the way the law works.
[00:10:20]  If you tell me how, if you say that the probability is 1 in 36, then the law works this way.
[00:10:26]  You tell me what your allowed error is away from 1 in 36.
[00:10:30]  Is it 1 in 36.001 or 1 in 36.00001 or plus or minus .001?
[00:10:37]  Okay.
[00:10:38]  What is that?
[00:10:39]  And then I can tell you, and you have to also tell me how certain you want to be that you're going to get within that error of 1 in 36.
[00:10:44]  All right.
[00:10:45]  I'll even make it broader.
[00:10:46]  35, 36, or 37.
[00:10:48]  Yeah.
[00:10:48]  Well, I would have to do a calculation, which I think bore your listeners.
[00:10:52]  No, it would.
[00:10:53]  But is there a number?
[00:10:54]  Yeah, if you think about the coin tosses, for instance, you need hundreds or 1,000 depending on how much margin of error you want and how probable you want to be of getting within that margin of error.
[00:11:04]  So in the coin toss example I gave you with 60%, depending on whether you want to have, let's say, 95% certainty that you're within 3% of 60%, or do you want 99% certainty that you're within 1% of 60%?
[00:11:18]  You have to weigh these things.
[00:11:20]  But in general, in that example, you would probably want hundreds at least.
[00:11:24]  Exactly.
[00:11:26]  And in life, we don't normally give, for instance, videos 100 years.
[00:11:29]  That's right.
[00:11:30]  What about this?
[00:11:31]  I'm doing a coin toss with you.
[00:11:33]  I just got three tails in a row.
[00:11:36]  Is there anything in the universe that would make it less likely that the fourth one is a tail?
[00:11:44]  You'll answer it when we come back.
[00:11:46]  We've got to take a break.
[00:11:47]  And then I want to ask the big stuff.
[00:11:49]  How does this play out in our lives?
[00:11:50]  Drunk drivers, cancer, etc.
[00:11:54]  The book is The Drunkard's Walk, Professor Leonard Bladenow.
[00:11:58]  This is the ultimate issues hour on The Dennis Prager Show.
[00:12:01]  This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
[00:12:07]  Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
[00:12:09]  It's not your fault.
[00:12:10]  You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
[00:12:14]  At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
[00:12:19]  If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864-644-1900.
[00:12:27]  Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
[00:12:31]  That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
[00:12:35]  Call 864-644-1900.
[00:12:40]  Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
[00:12:44]  Prager, it is the ultimate issues hour.

=== Seven Games and Probability (15:10) ===

[00:12:46]  The subject is the randomness of life probability, randomness, luck.
[00:12:51]  But first, we're establishing our parameters about what it even means.
[00:12:55]  What does it mean that there's a 50% chance?
[00:12:57]  What do we even understand that sort of stuff?
[00:13:01]  And there's a best selling book out on that called The Drunkard's Walk How Randomness Rules Our Lives.
[00:13:08]  Leonard Mladenow, or Mladenow, M-L-O-D, that's the Mladenow.
[00:13:15]  He teaches at Caltech, California Institute of Technology, and has a PhD in physics.
[00:13:24]  Okay, Dr. Mladenow, let's do a real life situation, then go to some of the great philosophic questions, because you have some stories there from your parents' lives, which are riveting.
[00:13:36]  But let's talk about sports for a moment.
[00:13:40]  In a World Series, the winner is the team that wins four games first.
[00:13:45]  Four out of seven, it's called, obviously.
[00:13:49]  It is said, though, among baseball, basketball, hockey, football connoisseurs that the winner is not necessarily the best team because pretty much any team can beat any pro team can beat any other pro team on any given day.
[00:14:05]  That's what they always say.
[00:14:08]  So, do your statistics of randomness and probability support that statement that in a four out of seven series, the best team doesn't have all that much probability?
[00:14:23]  More likelihood.
[00:14:24]  You have to play a lot more than seven games for it to play out.
[00:14:29]  Yes.
[00:14:29]  Well, first, we have to recognize that in sports, it is a good area to test these ideas because it's controlled, there are set rules, and the statistics are publicly available.
[00:14:39]  But in sports, there are many random factors depending on the sport.
[00:14:43]  But if there weren't random factors, anytime one team, Team A, played Team B, you'd have the same result.
[00:14:48]  Team A would win every time.
[00:14:49]  But they don't because there are random factors which can be anything from someone not feeling well to the wind blowing the wrong way or.
[00:14:57]  Different things.
[00:14:57]  But if you, let's say that we took a team and let's take baseball and that team A was better than team B. Let's say their theoretical advantage was 55% to 45%.
[00:15:09]  So if they played a zillion games, they would tend to win 55% of them.
[00:15:12]  Now they play a seven game series and best of seven wins.
[00:15:16]  Well, if you do the calculation, then you'll find that the chances are about 40% that the lesser team in that case will win the best of seven series.
[00:15:24]  So even in seven games, the seven game is almost a toss up.
[00:15:28]  Whoa, whoa, whoa.
[00:15:29]  Oh, you consider 40% a toss up?
[00:15:31]  Well, it's 40 versus 60.
[00:15:32]  So the superior team will win more often, but certainly.
[00:15:36]  But let's say they're 25.
[00:15:37]  I wouldn't bet my life on it or even my car.
[00:15:39]  Of course.
[00:15:40]  But wait, if they played 1,000 games, what's the difference?
[00:15:43]  Well, so here's the question is then, and we were talking before about when you can use the law of large numbers.
[00:15:47]  Let's say you wanted to lower the percentage, in this case, of the lesser team winning the four of seven series, winning the best of something series.
[00:15:56]  How many games do you have to play?
[00:15:58]  Yeah.
[00:15:58]  If you're willing to accept a 25% increase, Chance of the lesser team winning, then you have to play a best of 40 game series.
[00:16:06]  Oh, I see.
[00:16:07]  And if you want to have what they call statistical significance, which means there's only a 5% chance that the lesser team will win, in this case, you'd have to play a 269 game series.
[00:16:16]  Okay, so it does support the theory that seven games is an advantage for the worst team.
[00:16:23]  Seven games gives them a shot, right?
[00:16:25]  Yes, a much better shot.
[00:16:27]  As in most of life, as I keep saying, you don't really play, you don't have enough opportunities to really see what's going on.
[00:16:33]  You know, it's almost two baseball seasons or one and a half or several basketball seasons to really see what's going on.
[00:16:40]  Of course, different games are different.
[00:16:42]  You might want to factor in home court advantages.
[00:16:44]  We're simplified.
[00:16:45]  Wait, I want to remember that.
[00:16:46]  That is fascinating.
[00:16:49]  Okay, I get it.
[00:16:53]  I really do get it.
[00:16:55]  269 games would have to be played in order to ensure that you got what should be the chances of the worst team winning.
[00:17:06]  Well, if one team is better than the other by 55 to 45, I get you.
[00:17:10]  They usually are pretty close.
[00:17:11]  That's right.
[00:17:12]  But if you want to minimize, if you want to have the chances being only 1 out of 20 or 5% that the lesser team will win, you have to play two best of 269.
[00:17:20]  Right.
[00:17:20]  Right.
[00:17:21]  I understand.
[00:17:21]  Now, to make it clear to folks out there, if a team is much better than another team, let's say the first place team and the last place team played a World Series, you wouldn't need 269 games.
[00:17:32]  You'd need less.
[00:17:33]  That's it.
[00:17:34]  You'd have to do the calculation.
[00:17:35]  It depends on what the.
[00:17:38]  So there are a lot of factors.
[00:17:40]  All right.
[00:17:40]  Now, obviously, we try to apply this to our lives.
[00:17:46]  Where does this apply?
[00:17:48]  In other words, if.
[00:17:51]  Somebody, unfortunately, and it makes me very angry to even say this, will be hit by a drunk driver today on some highway in America.
[00:18:00]  You view that as utterly random.
[00:18:05]  From the point of view of the person who was hit, I would view it as a random event in the sense that it's unpredictable, and all you can say when you leave the house is what your probabilities are of getting hit.
[00:18:17]  There's no deterministic factor unless you're the one drinking.
[00:18:20]  Yes, exactly.
[00:18:21]  Exactly.
[00:18:22]  Now, the only.
[00:18:26]  Balancing view would be that there is a divine will that you be hit that day, right?
[00:18:32]  I mean, there is no other, there's no third possibility.
[00:18:36]  There's divine will that you be hit, or there is randomness.
[00:18:40]  Now, the problem is that a lot of religious people feel that God and randomness can't coexist.
[00:18:47]  I don't happen to agree with that, but as I said earlier, I respect that view, but I don't happen to agree with that.
[00:18:52]  I think that God made a world where you can be hit by a drunk driver, and God didn't will it.
[00:18:58]  Now, I know you're not theologically, that's not your area, but is that a fair statement?
[00:19:03]  There is no other possibility, right?
[00:19:04]  Either it was.
[00:19:05]  Well, the other possibility would be that you have some control over the situation or the drug.
[00:19:11]  In this case, I don't feel that you do.
[00:19:13]  Yeah, a lot of people like to believe that.
[00:19:15]  Positive thinking will make sure you're not hit by a drug.
[00:19:17]  No, no, no.
[00:19:18]  Exactly.
[00:19:19]  And it's an interesting illustration because what it shows is that very small.
[00:19:22]  See, our lives are guided not just by our abilities and our efforts, but also by random factors that happen.
[00:19:29]  And it's those factors and our reactions to them.
[00:19:32]  That governs a lot of our lives.
[00:19:34]  And in this case, this is an example where a very small random factor, like having an extra cup of coffee, could save your life and you'd never know it because you will not know that you would have been hit had you left a minute earlier.
[00:19:44]  Yes, of course.
[00:19:45]  And sometimes something happens where you would have been hit.
[00:19:48]  But you could have the same cup of coffee and it causes you to be hit.
[00:19:51]  It causes you to be hit, yeah.
[00:19:53]  And when you look back at your lives, there are many areas where you can identify relatively, well, completely unrelated events that change your life completely.
[00:20:02]  I mean, in my life, that's happened, but in the book, I tend to focus more on.
[00:20:06]  People that are more interesting than I.
[00:20:08]  And for instance, Bruce Willis is one example I give.
[00:20:11]  And he was a struggling actor, not a complete unknown.
[00:20:15]  So people had looked at him, just no one picked him out and said, You're the man.
[00:20:19]  He was in New York, tending bar on and off, being in off Broadway plays and whatnot.
[00:20:24]  And then one summer, he decided to, depending on which story you believe, to visit his girlfriend in Los Angeles, or if you believe another version, to go see the 84 Olympics.
[00:20:36]  And he came out to Los Angeles.
[00:20:37]  And an agent recommended that he go and try out for this TV show that they were casting.
[00:20:42]  And the TV show already had a favorite, but he showed up there.
[00:20:46]  And of the three decision makers, two out of three didn't like him, and the other one did.
[00:20:51]  All right, you'll tell us the rest when we come back, and we'll take your calls.
[00:20:53]  We've got a full board already.
[00:20:54]  1 8 Prager 776.
[00:20:57]  This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
[00:21:03]  Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
[00:21:05]  It's not your fault.
[00:21:06]  You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
[00:21:09]  At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
[00:21:15]  If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864 644 1900.
[00:21:23]  Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
[00:21:27]  That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
[00:21:30]  Call 864 644 1900.
[00:21:35]  Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
[00:21:40]  The subject of this Ultimate Issues Hour is Randomness.
[00:21:43]  How Randomness Rules Our Lives is the book, which is titled The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mladenow, and it's up at pragerradio.com at the blog.
[00:21:55]  He teaches exactly this subject, Dr. Mladenow, at Caltech.
[00:22:02]  And you were telling the story about Bruce Willis, who Coincidentally, he turned out to come out to Los Angeles where he had no career at the time in acting, and somebody suggested he audition.
[00:22:17]  Two out of the three judges of the audition were not in favor of him.
[00:22:21]  Go on.
[00:22:22]  Well, I should say he had some career, but not a hugely successful career.
[00:22:26]  He was still bartending bar in New York.
[00:22:30]  Two out of three did not recognize that he would be a great star.
[00:22:35]  The other one ended up convincing the other two, and they did hire him.
[00:22:39]  And then the show went on the air and was not a great success, actually, and it went on midseason.
[00:22:44]  It's called Moonlighting, that people may remember.
[00:22:47]  And then the second season, it just took off and made him a big star.
[00:22:50]  And then the Die Hard series came, and the rest is history.
[00:22:53]  But the point of that story is two points.
[00:22:55]  One is that despite all our planning and all our efforts and trying very hard to maximize our success, quite often it's really random events that have a huge effect on us.
[00:23:09]  Events always look clear in hindsight.
[00:23:12]  And if you look at Bruce Willis now, you'll say, star, charisma, genius, whatever.
[00:23:18]  He's had a huge career.
[00:23:21]  That's only clear in hindsight.
[00:23:23]  And it wasn't clear beforehand.
[00:23:24]  Plenty of people had seen him, and no one had said, This man is a certain star.
[00:23:28]  This man has all this charisma.
[00:23:29]  We have to hire him.
[00:23:30]  And to take it away from that, I talk about in the Drunkards Walk about Pearl Harbor, 9 11, other examples where people have looked in hindsight and saw that things look very clear.
[00:23:42]  And that you could trace a series of events and say one event A caused B caused C, and therefore we should have known.
[00:23:49]  But the point is that there are often many different options that could have happened between A and B or between B and C.
[00:23:55]  And when you're back at A and you're faced with this tree of a million options, it's not all that clear which one is going to happen.
[00:24:01]  It's only clear after it happens and you trace it backwards.
[00:24:04]  So that's just another important point.
[00:24:06]  So, in governing your own life based on your expertise in randomness, statistics, et cetera, In governing your own life, because I could say it governs a lot of my thinking.
[00:24:17]  For example, I wear a seatbelt every time I drive.
[00:24:21]  I've read the data, and they strike me as so persuasive that in case of an accident, injury or death is so much lessened than the death of a person.
[00:24:30]  Right, it's a good example, but you can also find people who tell you that they only lived through their accident because of some, they did not wear a seatbelt.
[00:24:37]  That is right, and I always use that as an example.
[00:24:39]  Right, I always use that as an example of how a generalization is true, even though there are exceptions.
[00:24:44]  And that's what happens when there's probabilities involved.
[00:24:46]  So what you're doing when you're putting on a seatbelt is increasing your probability of surviving an accident.
[00:24:51]  There may be a case where you will guarantee my death.
[00:24:54]  And in life, I'm not saying it's very important for me to say that I'm not saying that ability doesn't matter and that effort doesn't matter.
[00:25:01]  What I'm saying is there's also another component.
[00:25:05]  Of course there is.
[00:25:05]  If you have a bunch of failures, for instance, if you're J.K. Rowling and your book is rejected nine times, don't give up.
[00:25:14]  Her book, First Harry Potter, was rejected nine times.
[00:25:17]  No kidding.
[00:25:17]  John Grisham's A Time to Kill was rejected over 20 times.
[00:25:20]  There's a million stories.
[00:25:22]  The Dyer of Anne Frank, the manuscript was sent to.
[00:25:25]  A New York publisher for translation before it had come out.
[00:25:30]  And it was rejected, and it was described as another petty example of teenage familial politics.
[00:25:39]  All right, fine.
[00:25:40]  All these things can happen.
[00:25:42]  It doesn't mean that they're true, it doesn't mean you should take it to heart.
[00:25:45]  One of the lessons of the book is to get many at bats, many opportunities, because your chances are almost never 100% of success.
[00:25:53]  And they may be small at the endeavor you're trying, but if you keep trying, the chances are very great that something will happen for you.
[00:25:59]  And if you're a great success, if you're on the bestseller list, which I'm happy to be, you have to recognize that a lot of that was luck.
[00:26:07]  Well, what it is is.
[00:26:08]  And you shouldn't get arrogant about it.
[00:26:10]  That's right.
[00:26:11]  It's humbling.
[00:26:11]  It's humbling.
[00:26:12]  Listen, I have talked about this with regard to marriage.
[00:26:16]  I was just with a couple married 49 years, they married after four days.
[00:26:24]  50 years ago, they met.
[00:26:26]  And I said, so it's obvious.
[00:26:27]  I said, the secret to your great marriage is luck.
[00:26:30]  They said, entirely.
[00:26:32]  Entirely.
[00:26:33]  And that is very, very.
[00:26:36]  People should work on their marriages, obviously.
[00:26:38]  But the luck in every area of life.
[00:26:41]  We're going to take your calls when we come back.
[00:26:43]  Then you have a very powerful story about your parents I want you to tell.
[00:26:48]  1 8 Prager 776.
[00:26:50]  Hi, everybody.
[00:26:53]  The Ultimate Issues Hour.
[00:26:54]  Dennis Prager here, and I am with.
[00:26:57]  Dr. Leonard Mladenow, he teaches at Caltech, teaches randomness.
[00:27:04]  His book is exactly about that.
[00:27:05]  It's called The Drunkard's Walk, How Randomness Rules Our Lives.
[00:27:09]  And I happen to agree with just about everything here.
[00:27:14]  And I think the rational person maximizes odds as much as possible.
[00:27:18]  That's why I wear a seatbelt, even though I acknowledge that there would be occasions in a crash where, in fact, wearing a seatbelt would be bad.
[00:27:27]  But in the vast majority of cases, it's a good thing.
[00:27:30]  You maximize your odds.
[00:27:33]  That's what we do.
[00:27:35]  But it doesn't dictate what will happen to you.
[00:27:37]  The odds don't dictate anything, they are just what they are.
[00:27:41]  And we try to live accordingly.
[00:27:45]  And let's go to some of your calls.
[00:27:47]  1 8 Prager 776 in Conroe, Texas.
[00:27:51]  It's Kenneth.
[00:27:52]  Hi, Kenneth.
[00:27:53]  You're on with Dennis Prager and Dr. Mladenel.

=== Intelligent Civilizations vs Randomness (06:34) ===

[00:27:56]  Hi, guys.
[00:27:57]  Good evening.
[00:27:57]  Hi.
[00:27:58]  I have a challenge for the doctor.
[00:28:01]  In my theory, randomness is actually a misunderstanding or a lack of understanding of the events that are occurring.
[00:28:07]  For instance, in his dice throwing analogy, if we knew the force and the angle which they were being thrown and the spin on the dice and the Surface on which they were landing, we could guarantee every time that we would know what the outcome of the dice is.
[00:28:18]  Is that not correct?
[00:28:19]  You're absolutely correct.
[00:28:20]  In fact, that's very good, very good, Kenneth.
[00:28:24]  So, you're saying, and then of course, we're going to have your response.
[00:28:27]  So, I just want to understand you're saying there is contextual in every instance.
[00:28:33]  No, it's not that's what he's saying.
[00:28:36]  No, I'm saying is that what you're saying, Kenneth?
[00:28:38]  That there's never randomness.
[00:28:39]  Kenneth, do you know about quantum mechanics?
[00:28:42]  Well, I know that there's a great lack of understanding about the way quantum mechanics works, yes, sir.
[00:28:48]  Actually, I would say that there is a pretty good understanding of it, but we don't need to get into physics here.
[00:28:55]  But I do talk in the book a little bit about a discussion I had with a fellow who was very religious, who had a hard time accepting that there was any randomness in the world.
[00:29:05]  And what Kenneth is saying is absolutely true that it is contextual.
[00:29:10]  And I was going to say that there were some people who built a machine, for instance, that could flip a coin and it gets the same heads or tails every time.
[00:29:18]  So, when we say random.
[00:29:20]  Did they build such a thing?
[00:29:21]  Yeah, and actually, I have a friend who claims that he knows someone who can actually do that with his thumb.
[00:29:25]  So, when we say something is random, what we mean is that we can only describe the possible results using probabilities and not exactly determine them.
[00:29:36]  And that depends on our knowledge.
[00:29:38]  So, if you did have completely controlled conditions, you can take something that is random when you don't have controlled conditions, and it's not always the same thing with a drunk driver.
[00:29:47]  That's what I was just going to ask, Kenneth.
[00:29:49]  All over town, and how much they were drinking, where they were going, you could predict things.
[00:29:53]  Kenneth, you will not acknowledge that if you were hit by a drunk driver today, that would have been a random act as far as your life is concerned?
[00:30:02]  As far as my life is concerned, Dennis, you're correct, because I don't have a control over every human being on the face of the planet and their consumption of alcohol.
[00:30:09]  So that's right.
[00:30:10]  So when we say randomness, we mean contextual.
[00:30:12]  Now, the only exception is that physicists have found that on the small scale level, nature is ruled by something called quantum theory, and quantum theory.
[00:30:23]  This is what Einstein's objection was to it.
[00:30:25]  Quantum theory has an inherent and unavoidable randomness in it, and it's not due to a lack of our knowledge.
[00:30:31]  It's just part of nature.
[00:30:33]  So, I'm just curious now to get to it.
[00:30:37]  Thank you, Kenneth.
[00:30:38]  He's the sort of caller that makes me proud of my listeners.
[00:30:44]  Question to you, who is not a theist.
[00:30:50]  Have you ever read to your satisfaction any number, any likelihood of intelligent life evolving, being created?
[00:31:03]  I guess I'll use the word just existing.
[00:31:05]  The odds against us being around, do you have any number in your mind?
[00:31:13]  No, I've read many different numbers, actually.
[00:31:15]  Okay, but whoever writes about it, the odds are tremendously against us being here.
[00:31:23]  Right, but we have to also take those odds with a grain of salt because people don't really know the exact mechanisms of evolution or even of planetary development to be able to say how unlikely it really is.
[00:31:36]  Based on what we now know, all right?
[00:31:38]  I can't say on what we may know one day.
[00:31:40]  Based on what we now know, the odds are extraordinarily small or large, I guess.
[00:31:47]  But on the other hand, there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy.
[00:31:49]  Yes, you're right, but with 100 billion stars and 100 billion galaxies.
[00:31:56]  The chance that Bach will come out strikes me as infinitesimally small.
[00:32:04]  And that's one of my chief arguments for a God.
[00:32:07]  That at some point, forget evolution questions and intelligent design questions, just the odds question.
[00:32:16]  I'm asking you now as a professor, as it were, as a teacher, as a PhD, not as a believer or non believer.
[00:32:25]  Is that not an argument for a God?
[00:32:31]  If the odds are so small or so large, I don't know how you put it in your language.
[00:32:38]  Well, in a sense, it doesn't matter how, you mean that there are other civilizations or that we are here?
[00:32:44]  That we are here.
[00:32:45]  Well, it doesn't really matter how small the odds are because if the odds are not zero, right, then there will be an intelligent civilization somewhere and they already being one.
[00:33:02]  What if the odds are greater than the number of stars?
[00:33:06]  If the odds of intelligent life and intelligent civilization are not zero, then the point is that.
[00:33:12]  Yeah, but if it's one in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion.
[00:33:15]  It doesn't matter.
[00:33:18]  There still could be an intelligent civilization.
[00:33:20]  Sure, I agree.
[00:33:21]  And that civilization being there would naturally have more information that they have to take into account with the odds.
[00:33:27]  But just as you said, there have to be a certain number of baseball games played for the better team to inevitably win.
[00:33:34]  Well, suppose that's a good example.
[00:33:35]  Suppose that team A has a one in 1,000 chance of beating team B.
[00:33:39]  Yeah, but you have.
[00:33:40]  But now we're looking, since we're already here, the series has been played, and we're saying that Team A won.
[00:33:45]  So what point is it to say, well, Team A had one in 1,000 chance of winning the series?
[00:33:50]  We know that they won, so the odds are 100%.
[00:33:54]  But I don't think that there are enough games to have Bach come out of it.
[00:33:59]  That's all.
[00:33:59]  Or even you or me.
[00:34:00]  All right, we're going to take more calls when we come back.
[00:34:04]  This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
[00:34:11]  Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
[00:34:13]  It's not your fault.
[00:34:14]  You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
[00:34:17]  At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
[00:34:23]  If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864-644-1900.

=== Holocaust Stories and Luck (03:45) ===

[00:34:31]  Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
[00:34:35]  That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
[00:34:38]  Call 864-644-1900.
[00:34:42]  Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
[00:34:48]  Hi, everybody.
[00:34:49]  Dennis Prager here.
[00:34:51]  Final segment of a very fast moving hour, I must say.
[00:34:55]  I salute my guest, Leonard Modinow.
[00:34:57]  M-L-O-D-I-N-O-W.
[00:35:00]  Anyway, it's up at pragerradio.com at the blog.
[00:35:03]  The book is The Drunkard's Walk.
[00:35:05]  I like that name, by the way.
[00:35:07]  Thank you.
[00:35:07]  How Randomness Rules Our Lives, which I think people would remember more readily than the title, but it's a good title.
[00:35:14]  And he teaches at Caltech, and we're talking about randomness in life.
[00:35:19]  I will.
[00:35:20]  Did we do, Alan, did we do an Ultimate Issues Hour on luck and God?
[00:35:24]  We did.
[00:35:24]  It's probably worth doing another time as well.
[00:35:26]  It's such a big deal, and I want to comfort people on this matter.
[00:35:30]  They really feel it's one or the other, and it's not.
[00:35:34]  I don't think.
[00:35:35]  I know it's not.
[00:35:36]  It's not a matter of, you know, I feel.
[00:35:39]  You have a very powerful random or luck story with regard to your father who was in the Holocaust.
[00:35:45]  Why don't you tell that?
[00:35:47]  Well, my father was a resistance fighter in Poland during the war and then ended up in Buchenwald.
[00:35:53]  Which is one of the German concentration camps.
[00:35:57]  And somehow, when he was there, he had the opportunity to steal a loaf of bread and he was starving.
[00:36:04]  When he was liberated finally, he was about 80 pounds.
[00:36:07]  And the Nazis noticed that this loaf of bread had been stolen and they lined up everyone who had access to it in a row.
[00:36:15]  And they said, That they wanted the person who stole the bread to step forward.
[00:36:21]  And nobody stepped forward.
[00:36:23]  Or they would kill.
[00:36:23]  Well, nobody stepped forward, and then they said that, okay, we're going to start at this end, and we're going to just shoot all of you until the person either steps forward or you're all dead.
[00:36:33]  And so my father told me that he figured everyone was going to die anyway, or he would die anyway, so he stepped forward and confessed to taking the loaf of bread, and he thought that they would immediately kill him.
[00:36:44]  And instead, they gave him a job as an assistant in the bakery.
[00:36:47]  Which is a completely random, unpredictable event.
[00:36:52]  And it just, I mean, this is the way the concentration camps were, according to the stories my father told me.
[00:36:59]  They could shoot you for looking at them the wrong way, or they could do this.
[00:37:01]  And, you know, if they had shot him, of course, I wouldn't be here.
[00:37:05]  And that's just one of many incidents that happened.
[00:37:09]  Nor your kids.
[00:37:10]  Nor my kids.
[00:37:11]  Which is why murder is the worst crime.
[00:37:14]  Because you have not only killed that person, you have killed all the generations that would have come.
[00:37:20]  There's a biblical basis for that, by the way, because when Cain kills Abel, God says to Cain, the bloods of your brother are crying out, not the blood.
[00:37:33]  And because of all the bloodline that has been killed.
[00:37:38]  Anyway, this has been absolutely riveting to me.
[00:37:43]  The whole notion of randomness in life, folks, is so powerful.
[00:37:47]  I'll tell you one thing, whether you're a believer or not.
[00:37:51]  One thing that is critical is that this humbles us.
[00:37:56]  If things go well in your life, I'm sure you may have contributed.
[00:38:01]  But no matter how wonderful your kids or your marriage or your parents or your work or your career, there's been a lot of luck.
[00:38:09]  Thank you, Leonard Ludmill.
[00:38:11]  Thank you.
[00:38:12]  Tomorrow, Untimeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.

=== Humility in a Lucky Life (01:15) ===

[00:38:16]  As a rule, as a rule, there are many exceptions to this rule.
[00:38:22]  But as a rule, you get treated back the way you treat people.
[00:38:27]  And that will increase your happiness.
[00:38:30]  By and large, if you treat people decently, you will be treated decently.
[00:38:36]  And if you think that you are going through life getting shafted by everybody, there is something probably a little wrong in your perception.
[00:38:45]  This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
[00:38:49]  Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.
[00:39:02]  Is losing weight getting harder as you get older?
[00:39:04]  It's not your fault.
[00:39:05]  You're eating better, you're moving more, but your body isn't responding anymore.
[00:39:09]  At PhD Weight Loss, they help people identify what's actually blocking fat loss and help increase your lifespan.
[00:39:14]  If you want to understand why your body isn't cooperating, call PhD Weight Loss now and book your consultation at 864 644 1900.
[00:39:22]  Mention Dennis Prager and you get two weeks free in the program, and they'll pay for your food.
[00:39:26]  That's a $1,500 value absolutely free.
[00:39:29]  Call 864 644 1900.