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What's the simplest thing humans are too dumb to grasp? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 11 months ago by TheBananaKing to c/asklemmy

215 comments fedilink hide all child comments

You ever see a dog that's got its leash tangled the long way round a table leg, and it just cannot grasp what the problem is or how to fix it? It can see all the components laid out in front of it, but it's never going to make the connection.

Obviously some dog breeds are smarter than others, ditto individual dogs - but you get the concept.

Is there an equivalent for humans? What ridiculously simple concept would have aliens facetentacling as they see us stumble around and utterly fail to reason about it?

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[–] AnUnusualRelic 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And that past random events have no influence on future ones.

If a coin landed on one side ten times in a row, it's still a 50% chance on the next throw. Something a lot of people have trouble with.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No, but you see, the chance you get the same side twice is... (HH, HT, TH, TT) 50%, shit

When we add another toss, you get only two possibilities of always same side, and 6 that are not.

So which is it? The coin itself may always have 50/50, but the universe which tosses in a series doesn't?

[–] CheeseNoodle 6 points 11 months ago

Every combination is equally likely we just ascribe special meaning to certain ones due to overactive pattern recognition. Hx6 is just as likely as any seeminly more random result from 6 consecutive throws there are just more options we don't ascribe special meaning to.