Despite the vanishing probability, you obviously exist. The key is that countless other potential individuals never got the chance to exist. The universe “tried” an unfathomable number of combinations through evolutionary history and reproduction, and one of those combinations ended up being you.
Writer Dr. Ali Binazir tried to put a rough number on this by combining a series of assumptions about ancestral survival, meeting probabilities, and sperm-egg combinations. He arrived at a number on the order of 1 in 10^2,685,000. To put this in perspective, that’s a 1 with 2,685,000 zeros after it—an incomprehensibly small probability. While this is not a rigorous scientific calculation, it conveys the idea that the precise set of circumstances leading to you is effectively zero from a purely statistical standpoint.
The chance of a particular individual existing as they are can be considered effectively zero from a numerical probability standpoint. Yet, given the immense scale of time, the multitude of ancestors, and the number of possible genetic outcomes, someone was bound to occupy your spot. You are the product of a cosmic lottery with virtually infinite odds—and you won.
Now what is the probability for a human to exist who is male, in his 20s, virgin of middle class, with brown hair, Gen Z and of a specific city in a specific country?
Those are just some attributes that are part of the universal combinatorial equation that eventually make "you" you.
There is almost no way to calculate that, but the chance to end up as what you are, and reading this post - up to the end as well - is about 1 in TREE(3).
Its infinidesimal! In other words: Should "you" even exist?
Writer Dr. Ali Binazir tried to put a rough number on this by combining a series of assumptions about ancestral survival, meeting probabilities, and sperm-egg combinations. He arrived at a number on the order of 1 in 10^2,685,000. To put this in perspective, that’s a 1 with 2,685,000 zeros after it—an incomprehensibly small probability. While this is not a rigorous scientific calculation, it conveys the idea that the precise set of circumstances leading to you is effectively zero from a purely statistical standpoint.
You, the Miraculous: What Are the Chances of Being Born? - Happiness Engineering with Dr Ali Victor Binazir
Some time ago at TEDx San Francisco, I listend to a talk by a very funny self-help author and life coach. In it, she mentioned that scientists calculated the probability of your existing as you, today, at about one in 400 trillion (4×1014). “That’s a pretty big number,” I thought to myself. If I...
happinessengineering.com
The chance of a particular individual existing as they are can be considered effectively zero from a numerical probability standpoint. Yet, given the immense scale of time, the multitude of ancestors, and the number of possible genetic outcomes, someone was bound to occupy your spot. You are the product of a cosmic lottery with virtually infinite odds—and you won.
Now what is the probability for a human to exist who is male, in his 20s, virgin of middle class, with brown hair, Gen Z and of a specific city in a specific country?
Those are just some attributes that are part of the universal combinatorial equation that eventually make "you" you.
There is almost no way to calculate that, but the chance to end up as what you are, and reading this post - up to the end as well - is about 1 in TREE(3).
Its infinidesimal! In other words: Should "you" even exist?
