What were the chances of you being born?

[EGarrett]

1 out of 1 (since it happened), or something like 1 out of 1 million (for the number of sperm), or something like 1 out of a trillion billion (for your parents meeting each other, having sex, then all the sperm and so on)

[quixotecoyote]

Why stop there? Why not count their parents, grandparent, and great grandparents, all the way back to the beginning of mankind. Of couse, why stop there either?

[polkablues]

A version of the anthropic principle applies here: since you're here to wonder what the probability of your birth was, it was obviously 100%. Likewise, if you were not yourself, and were in fact a totally different person asking the same question, it would still be 100%, because there you are.

You could alternately ask, what is the probability of any individual person being born? And I would respond, pretty good, there's billions of 'em out there.

[Big Al]

I don't have any problem with accepting that the chances of me, as a specific human being, having been born, are perhaps trillions to one against. However, I regard this as no more significant than "what was the chance of that particular raindrop hitting that particular square millimetre of ground out of all the quadrillions of square millimetres on the surface of the earth?"

The only probem comes about if you believe there is a special significance to the event, e.g. with a retroactive belief in some sort of predestination. That's when the huge probability numbers take on an unwonted significance.

I think only the anthropic principle makes it possible to deal with these huge numbers. In the raindrop example, large probability numbers really only mean anything if you predefine the significance of the particular raidrop and the particular target. Without that, it's no big deal.

[Cuddles]

I wasn't born. I hatched.

[Thabiguy]

Zero!

Reasoning as follows: your grandfather is not you. Your identical twin may look very similar, but is not you. Even if someone made an indistinguishable replica of yourself, it would not be you as far as you were concerned. As far as you are concerned, only the exact you is you. Anything different in even the smallest regard is just a close impostor.

Perceiving the universe as randomly trying to construct you, assuming that quantum states are uncountable and considering that any non-zero difference counts as a miss, the probability of you being born is zero. You were almost sure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely) not to be born. Ta-da!

(Seriously though, this is not my opinion on the issue. My opinion is that the question is ambiguous, therefore there's no single correct answer. I just wanted to try and see if any answer from <0,1> can be considered valid, including the counter-intuitive zero.)

[Big Al]

As I indicated above, I think the question is actually meaningless. It's like shuffling a pack of cards and saying "Wow! The odds against this particular random order of cards are 52 factorial to one against! That's fantastically improbable!"

It's only significant if the condition being assessed is defined in advance as special, e.g., the cards are sorted by suit and by point order. Without that advance definition of significance, the probability of the results of your random shuffle are one - you will get 52 cards, probability 100%. Another issue is how many trials are made. The number of games and hands of bridge played throughout the world each year makes the fantastically unlikely "perfect deal" (each player is dealt a complete suit) a certainty sooner or later. Several "perfect hands" (person receiving all twelve spades) have been reported as it is, and that's about 700 million to one against.

I don't know how many men and women there have ever been in the world, and what percentage of them have had children, but every pair that did produced one or more boys and/or girls. The chance of your parents having a child (you) was utterly unremarkable. The fact that it happened to be you is only remarkable if (say) you were foretold in some ancient prophecy in undeniable detail.

I'm presuming you don't claim this provenance?

[Orangutan]

<oblilgitory python quote>
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
how amazingly unlikely is your birth;
and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space…
'cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.
:)

[Davidjayjordan]

1 out of 1 (since it happened), or something like 1 out of 1 million (for the number of sperm), or something like 1 out of a trillion billion (for your parents meeting each other, having sex, then all the sperm and so on)

Yes evolutionists think luck and chance determine everything even our own lives, but consider that rationally even you Garrett were destined to be, .... a soul... and come into existence.

And it is not up to your choice to prove your worth, rather than leaving it all up to luck and chance.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I wasn't born. I hatched.

Well. . .since it's the Ides of March today, how do you count leaving your mother by Caesarian Section?

[AmateurScientist]

A version of the anthropic principle applies here: since you're here to wonder what the probability of your birth was, it was obviously 100%. Likewise, if you were not yourself, and were in fact a totally different person asking the same question, it would still be 100%, because there you are.

You could alternately ask, what is the probability of any individual person being born? And I would respond, pretty good, there's billions of 'em out there.

Correct.

AS

[Piscivore]

I spawned spontaneously and complete from the cold, silent fears of a million generations of fish. From the first stirrings in the Devonian seas my coming was implacable and inevitable as the unspeakable dreams of prey took shape into the manifestation of piscine death I am today.

[Jorghnassen]

Epsilon. What do I win?

[polkablues]

As I indicated above, I think the question is actually meaningless. It's like shuffling a pack of cards and saying "Wow! The odds against this particular random order of cards are 52 factorial to one against! That's fantastically improbable!"



Good analogy... I'm going to have to start using that one.

[JoeTheJuggler]

A version of the anthropic principle applies here: since you're here to wonder what the probability of your birth was, it was obviously 100%. Likewise, if you were not yourself, and were in fact a totally different person asking the same question, it would still be 100%, because there you are.


I had a conversation once that sounded a lot like what you just said in response to a guy who remarked how lucky we were to have been born in the U.S. I pressed him a little to see what he meant, and he said that we could've been born into poverty in an underdeveloped nation somewhere. No, I pointed out, because if you were born to a different set of parents in a different place, you wouldn't be you.

<sigh> He never did get it.

I'm with everyone who says that the probability of the occurrence of an event that has already occurred is 1:1.

Could you imagine betting on a coin flip after it's revealed?

[Just thinking]

As I indicated above, I think the question is actually meaningless. It's like shuffling a pack of cards and saying "Wow! The odds against this particular random order of cards are 52 factorial to one against! That's fantastically improbable!" ...

Agreed ... that it is something of a meaningless question.

I had a debate with someone a while back on this forum regarding the issue of claiming that improbable things happen all the time; for example weekly lottery winners in millions-to-one lotteries. What must be looked at is the event in relation to all other related events -- in other words, all other possible outcomes. If what is described as being improbable is actually no different than all the outcomes, then what is really being stated is that some outcome will occur ... e.g.; there will be a lottery winner ... and there is no unlikeliness or improbability of that (given enough players). Asking what is the probability of you being born is not the issue, since everyone can claim that of themselves all throughout time. There is nothing special about a person being born. What would be improbable is asking what is the probability of a specific genetic combination coming together before the event and then seeing your combination come up next in line. And just because something already happened does not reduce or change the probability of it happening -- for example, a coin's probability of turning up heads is always 50/50 even if it already turned up heads. Now, this seems to fly in direct contrast to what I just said and should make the probability of you being born 1 in billions upon billions -- but not so. With the coin, when one looks at the outcome (heads) and asks, "so what was the probability of that happening ?", in reality it was 100%. No, not the turning up of heads, but an outcome -- either outcome. He just as likely could have asked the same question had it turned up tails. And when one asks what the probability of they themselves being born is, it's really asking what was the probability of someone born asking that very question -- not what was the combination of my specific genetic code coming together, because whatever code came out would have qualified as the unusual combination - and some combination had to come out.

Clear as mud, eh?

[Just thinking]

I'm with everyone who says that the probability of the occurrence of an event that has already occurred is 1:1.

Although I agree with what you said earlier ... I disagree with this.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Although I agree with what you said earlier ... I disagree with this.

I think I don't understand.

If I flip a coin, and it comes up heads, what is the probability of that coin toss (which has already occurred) coming out heads? Surely it's not 1:2.

[IXP]

Probablility of me being born: 1.0
Probability of me being born again: 0.0

IXP

[Thabiguy]

I think I don't understand.

If I flip a coin, and it comes up heads, what is the probability of that coin toss (which has already occurred) coming out heads? Surely it's not 1:2.

The disagreement comes from the subtle difference between these two questions:
1. What is the probability that the coin toss outcome was heads?
2. What was the probability that the coin toss outcome would be heads?

[Just thinking]

I think I don't understand.

If I flip a coin, and it comes up heads, what is the probability of that coin toss (which has already occurred) coming out heads? Surely it's not 1:2.

The way you put the question is ... well, a bit odd.

You can't ask what is the probability of an event happening that has already happened -- you can ask what was the probability of it coming up the way it did, and that's not the same thing.

Asking what was the probability of it coming up heads is 50% ... after it occurred there no longer is a probability involved. And that's not to say it coming up heads is now 100% -- merely that having an outcome was 100%. Why? Because you would have worded it to be tails instead of heads had it come up differently.

[Just thinking]

The disagreement comes from the subtle difference between these two questions:
1. What is the probability that the coin toss outcome was heads?
2. What was the probability that the coin toss outcome would be heads?

I'm not sure that question number 1 is a valid question, in a strict sense. (Your asking for an existing probability for a past event.) Sure, one can ask it -- but it deals with outcomes that are all inclusive because any outcome would have sufficed -- like asking what is the probability that I rolled a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 on a die? That's no different than asking what is the probability that one of all possible outcomes occurred. It is somewhat meaningless, as one outcome must occur.

[baron]

Probability refers either to the future or to an unknown. It cannot refer to a known past.

Assuming reliability in observation, the probability of the coin I've just tossed being heads, assuming I've verified it is heads, is not 1:1, it simply isn't anything. (I say "assuming reliability in observation" because in reality you'd need to factor in observational error and other unlikely factors, such as the vanishingly small possibility of the entire coin swapping places with another identical coin via quantum tunnelling :) )

[Thabiguy]

I'm not sure that question number 1 is a valid question, in a strict sense. Sure, one can ask it -- but it deals with outcomes that are all inclusive because any outcome would have sufficed -- like asking what is the probability that I rolled a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 on a die? That's no different than asking what is the probability that one of all possible outcomes occurred. It is somewhat meaningless, as one outcome must occur.

It is not entirely meaningless. In Bayesian interpretation of probability, questions about past events make sense. You may ask, "What is the probability that the accused did commit the crime, given the evidence we have?" The Bayesian probability of yesterday's coin toss being heads is 1 assuming that it was in fact heads, or 0 assuming that it was in fact tails, or 1/2 with no prior assumptions. When you assume the knowledge of an omniscient observer then the probability of all events that did occur is 1.

It is commonly accepted that when asking about a future event's probability, the knowledge of the outcome is not among the assumptions. When asking about a past event's probability, it is not entirely obvious whether such knowledge is or is not among the assumptions. Such questions can therefore be considered ambiguous, because they can be interpreted either way.

The original question "What were the chances of you being born?" is even more ambiguous. Not only it does not specify the assumptions under which the probability of the event is to be examined, but also the event itself may be interpreted in different ways.

[Folly]

Probability refers either to the future or to an unknown. It cannot refer to a known past.

Assuming reliability in observation, the probability of the coin I've just tossed being heads, assuming I've verified it is heads, is not 1:1, it simply isn't anything. (I say "assuming reliability in observation" because in reality you'd need to factor in observational error and other unlikely factors, such as the vanishingly small possibility of the entire coin swapping places with another identical coin via quantum tunnelling :) )

I'm not a statistician, but I thought probability was merely a branch of math that describes the fraction of all outcomes of a particular event, one with a strong connection to rational betting. P(E=e|E=e) is silly, yes, but what in particular is wrong with it?

[Just thinking]

I'm not a statistician, but I thought probability was merely a branch of math that describes the fraction of all outcomes of a particular event, one with a strong connection to rational betting. P(E=e|E=e) is silly, yes, but what in particular is wrong with it?

I recall reading that probabilities range from 0 to 1, where 0 is considered an impossibility and 1 being a certainty -- so in some sense including 0 and 1 as probabilities can be meaningless, as no chance value is applied.

[Thabiguy]

Probability refers either to the future or to an unknown. It cannot refer to a known past.

Assuming reliability in observation, the probability of the coin I've just tossed being heads, assuming I've verified it is heads, is not 1:1, it simply isn't anything.

May I ask what interpretation of probability are you using here?

In Bayesian interpretation, the probability is obviously defined and is 1. In classical interpretation, it is also 1 (1 possible outcome, 1 outcome in our favor). So it is in frequentist interpretation (lim (n->inf) n/n = 1).

[Just thinking]

It is not entirely meaningless.

Well ... I did say somewhat meaningless. ;)

In Bayesian interpretation of probability, questions about past events make sense. You may ask, "What is the probability that the accused did commit the crime, given the evidence we have?"

Yes ... but that's not the same as looking at a certain outcome (in this case a coin toss) and asking what is the probability that it came out heads. If you asked what is the probability that someone committed the crime you would be more in line with the coin toss scenario.

The Bayesian probability of yesterday's coin toss being heads is 1 assuming that it was in fact heads, or 0 assuming that it was in fact tails, or 1/2 with no prior assumptions. When you assume the knowledge of an omniscient observer then the probability of all events that did occur is 1.

Knowing the outcome makes you an omniscient observer, in this case. Hence, looking at it as a probability no longer applies.

It is commonly accepted that when asking about a future event's probability, the knowledge of the outcome is not among the assumptions. When asking about a past event's probability, it is not entirely obvious whether such knowledge is or is not among the assumptions. Such questions can therefore be considered ambiguous, because they can be interpreted either way.

Agreed.

The original question "What were the chances of you being born?" is even more ambiguous. Not only it does not specify the assumptions under which the probability of the event is to be examined, but also the event itself may be interpreted in different ways.

Yes, which is what I tried to explain in an earlier post -- my first one in this thread.

[JoeTheJuggler]

I recall reading that probabilities range from 0 to 1, where 0 is considered an impossibility and 1 being a certainty -- so in some sense including 0 and 1 as probabilities can be meaningless, as no chance value is applied.

So by that definition probability does NOT range from 0 to 1, but is always greater than zero and less than one because both values 0 and 1 are certainties.

I myself have no problem with certainty being within the range of probabilities.

I don't know that omniscience is the right word, but yes, I was stipulating knowledge of the past event (because the question about "me" being born certainly implies that I know that I was born).

In those Texas Hold 'em TV broadcasts, they put percent probabilities next to each hand (calculated with knowledge of everyone's hands), and there are plenty of times when cards are yet to come that a hand is at 0% or 100%--although the player doesn't necessarily know that.

It doesn't bother me at all to say that a certain hand's chance of being the best is now 100%. (I originally said "winning" but in poker, you can win even with the worst hand.)

[Thabiguy]

I recall reading that probabilities range from 0 to 1, where 0 is considered an impossibility and 1 being a certainty ...

It is the other way around: impossible events have probability 0, but probability 0 does not mean impossibility.

If you randomly pick a real number between 10 and 20, it can be proven that for each and every number in this interval, the probability of picking it is exactly zero. However, it is not the case that for each and every number in this interval, it is impossible to randomly pick it, which can be easily demonstrated by randomly picking a number from this interval.

See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely) for further explanation.

Let me just add that by definition, probability does range from 0 to 1, including both extremes. Of course, one may redefine probability not to include these extremes, but then they won't be referring to the same probability as mathematicians.

[Just thinking]

It is the other way around: impossible events have probability 0, but probability 0 does not mean impossibility.

If you randomly pick a real number between 10 and 20, it can be proven that for each and every number in this interval, the probability of picking it is exactly zero. However, it is not the case that for each and every number in this interval, it is impossible to randomly pick it, which can be easily demonstrated by randomly picking a number from this interval.

OK ... but does that apply to this post's original question? It's more on the order of observing an event and then saying that because that's the event that occurred, the chances of it occurring were 100%. This I do not agree with -- on several levels.

See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almost_surely) for further explanation.

A nice read ... thanks.

Let me just add that by definition, probability does range from 0 to 1, including both extremes. Of course, one may redefine probability not to include these extremes, but then they won't be referring to the same probability as mathematicians.

Allowing 0 and 1 as probabilities in every-day use does introduce a bit of confusion. Why? Because probability usually involves chance ... and if something has no chance of occurring, does it make sense to consider its occurrence as a probability? ... or simply as an impossibility? Mathematically, yes it can be 0 (or 1) -- but as you point out, these are extremes, or special cases. However, be that as it may, the focus on the original question lies in other areas.

[Folly]

OK ... but does that apply to this post's original question? It's more on the order of observing an event and then saying that because that's the event that occurred, the chances of it occurring were 100%. This I do not agree with -- on several levels.

It seems to me that you're mixing conditional and absolute probabilities. Whenever someone says "what's the probability of E" in common language, they usually mean "what's the probability of E given everything else I know." I agree with you that P(E=e) doesn't change given that the event E=e has occurred, but strictly following the convention of common speech, the question being asked is P(I was born|I was born, everything else)=1. That's obviously a useless question so the question is probably meant to be P(I was born|everything else), but "everything else" is very poorly defined...

[Dorian Gray]

The chances of me being born were always 100%. I am necessary for the survival of humanity.

Why can't people just answer the question that was obviously intended, rather than having a pedantic pissing contest to see who can deconstruct the literal meaning in the most annoying way?

The chance of the particular events that resulted in you being born happening in such a way to produce you, starting with the big bang, the stardust coalescing and the galaxy forming, and moving on to the position your parents were in when you were conceived, was astronomically low, in fact approaching zero.

[polkablues]

The chance of the particular events that resulted in you being born happening in such a way to produce you, starting with the big bang, the stardust coalescing and the galaxy forming, and moving on to the position your parents were in when you were conceived, was astronomically low, in fact approaching zero.

Yes, but the point is that viewing probability in this context is patently absurd and essentially meaningless. Big Al's "shuffled deck" analogy perfectly illustrates why.

When viewed in that broad a scope, the probability of anything being the way it is can be said to be so small as to be virtually nil. The problem with that being: everything is in fact the way it is. So that suggests that perhaps probability is not the proper filter through which to look at the question.

[TX50]

I wish I'd never been born.

[polkablues]

I wish I'd never been born.

That's okay. Mathematically speaking, you probably weren't. :)

[Roboramma]

I would prefer to make the question more meaningful - what were the chances that someone like me in characteristics X, Y or Z was going to be born?

Or, given that there were going to be X number of people born, and assuming that "I" was going to be one of them, what were the chances the "I" would have characteristics A,B, and C?

At this point we actually know what we're talking about, rather than just some vague sense of self that might be illusory anyway.

[Just thinking]

I would prefer to make the question more meaningful - what were the chances that someone like me in characteristics X, Y or Z was going to be born?

Or, given that there were going to be X number of people born, and assuming that "I" was going to be one of them, what were the chances the "I" would have characteristics A,B, and C?

At this point we actually know what we're talking about, rather than just some vague sense of self that might be illusory anyway.

The above really doesn't change what I have been trying to present in my posts ... although I admit I may not be wording what I'm arguing very well ... plus the fact that I believe it's a very tricky nuance. When you ask what were the chances that someone like you (actually, that's you yourself) being born, you already have an event that has happened and are trying to look at the fact of it having happened as having some special relevance in it's probability of happening. (That's a mouthful for sure -- so please re-read it.) And it is quite different from asking what are the chances of someone being born with the following characteristics X, Y and Z and then waiting for him to be born. I look at the second question as a proper probability problem and the first as somewhat meaningless. (Note: at this point it might be worth mentioning that this is how some creationists argue the unlikeliness of life as we know it evolving here on Earth -- an empty argument in that context.)

It's no different than making a break shot in 8-Ball billiards, looking at the scatter of balls and then claiming that the probability of that result was so small that it's amazing it happened at all. Funny thing is that it can be played out over and over and over (with different results each time, of course). So why the seeming contradiction? Because what's happening is the person is willing to accept any and all outcomes (of which only 1 will occur) and then jump on it as being an all too improbable event, but yet it happens. What he is really doing is simply looking at an outcome and saying that it's unlikely for an outcome to occur ... and that's the error. It's not unlikely for an outcome to occur -- but that's not how he sees it, so to him there is this confusion. And this is exactly what's happening when one looks at one event that has happened out of trillions (of which all have roughly equal likeliness of happening) and then wondering how unlikely it was to have happened. It's really nothing special at all. And its probability of happening was never an issue (even though it happened) because one would have accepted whatever outcome happened and applied to it the same question. Basically they are asking what was the probability of a person (any person) being born and looking at their composition (described after-the-fact) as being something special. So, the way it's presented, it's not really a probability problem the way some are viewing it.

[Roboramma]

Hm, okay, my questions were poorly worded, however:

The above really doesn't change what I have been trying to present in my posts ... although I admit I may not be wording what I'm arguing very well ... plus the fact that I believe it's a very tricky nuance. When you ask what were the chances that someone like you (actually, that's you yourself) No, it's not me, myself. It could be anyone, so long as they have those particular characteristics that I'm discussing, which are certainly much less than the total number of characteristics that I have.
For instance say I were only interested in one: my eye colour. I have blue eyes. So the question that I'm proposing is: at the time of my birth, if I were to choose a baby at random, what are the chances that it would have blue eyes?

This, I admit, is different from, "what were the chances that someone with blue eyes was going to be born" but the former is more along the lines that I was going for.

You might ask what the point of the latter question is. Am I suggesting that it's the same as "What were the chances of me having blue eyes?" No, but I"m suggesting that when we ask that question, we mean the more meaningful question above. And I think that the conclusions that we can draw from the answer to it are the same ones that people asking the OP question are interested in.

being born, you already have an event that has happened and are trying to look at the fact of it having happened as having some special relevance in it's probability of happening. (That's a mouthful for sure -- so please re-read it.) No, I'm not. I'm looking at an event that happened and trying to undestand things about it by looking at the probability of it's having happened. This is difficult because, as you say, it's hard to decouple that from the fact that something was going to happen. So we might put undue emphasis on the fact that it was improbable to have those particular characteristics when the characteristics that it had were going to be improbable no matter what - this type of result was certain, even if this specific result was not.
And so long as we have nothing to distinguish this particular result from other's of it's type, there's nothing surprising about it.

And it is quite different from asking what are the chances of someone being born with the following characteristics X, Y and Z and then waiting for him to be born. I look at the second question as a proper probability problem and the first as somewhat meaningless. Sorry, I'm not quite sure I see the difference. Yes, I understand that once something's happened, asking about the probability of it happening is somewhat meaningless. On the other hand, we can say, "Given the circumstances that we know about before this event occured, what would we have rated the probability of it's occuring?" And I don't think that's necessarily an empty question.

(Note: at this point it might be worth mentioning that this is how some creationists argue the unlikeliness of life as we know it evolving here on Earth -- an empty argument in that context.) The problem they make is failing to take in to account all of the other improbable things that didn't happen. I don't think I'm doing that.

It's no different than making a break shot in 8-Ball billiards, looking at the scatter of balls and then claiming that the probability of that result was so small that it's amazing it happened at all. Where have I claimed that it was amazing that it happened at all?
However, if we look at a number of characteristics, we can say, "it's amazing that a person chosen at random has these characteristics." The problem is if the person wasn't chosen at random. One of the ways that this happens is if we choose the characteristic that we're discussing based upon the person that we choose as our "person chosen at random" which in this case would be myself.

I hope you can parse that. It's late here.

Funny thing is that it can be played out over and over and over (with different results each time, of course). So why the seeming contradiction? Because what's happening is the person is willing to accept any and all outcomes (of which only 1 will occur) and then jump on it as being an all too improbable event, but yet it happens. Yeah, some people are, I'm not. Nor have I done so.

What he is really doing is simply looking at an outcome and saying that it's unlikely for an outcome to occur ... and that's the error. It's not unlikely for an outcome to occur -- but that's not how he sees it, so to him there is this confusion. And this is exactly what's happening when one looks at one event that has happened out of trillions (of which all have roughly equal likeliness of happening) and then wondering how unlikely it was to have happened. There's nothing wrong with saying that particular event was unlikley to have happened, and yet at the same time saying there's nothing surprising about the fact that it did happen, as all outcomes would have been unlikely in different ways.

It's really nothing special at all. I haven't said that it is.
And its probability of happening was never an issue (even though it happened) because one would have accepted whatever outcome happened and applied to it the same question. Basically they are asking what was the probability of a person (any person) being born and looking at their composition (described after-the-fact) as being something special. But again, I'm not doing that. I really don't see how I have done that.

Hm. Okay, maybe you're suggesting that I'm doing that because the characteristics that I'm choosing to examine are ones that I already know that I have.
If so, that's an interesting point...

[andyandy]

A version of the anthropic principle applies here: since you're here to wonder what the probability of your birth was, it was obviously 100%. Likewise, if you were not yourself, and were in fact a totally different person asking the same question, it would still be 100%, because there you are.

You could alternately ask, what is the probability of any individual person being born? And I would respond, pretty good, there's billions of 'em out there.

Just to clarify others' understanding of the anthropic principle... The principle does not as i understand it make any anthropocentric claims - indeed the basic premise generally used with regards to inflationary cosmology and string theory is;

a) There exists a very large ensemble of universe M which are completely or almost completely causally disjoint regions of spacetime within which the parameters of the standard model of physics and cosmology differ.

b) The distribition of parameters in M is random (in some measure) and these parameters within our own universe are rare.

*this definition from Smolin [who goes on to critique this model]
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/hep-th/pdf/0407/0407213.pdf

[Just thinking]

... Hm. Okay, maybe you're suggesting that I'm doing that because the characteristics that I'm choosing to examine are ones that I already know that I have.
If so, that's an interesting point...

Exactly. I will later go through all your comments (many of which I agree), but I think you now see where I'm coming from and why I said what I did. Remember, I said I may not be the greatest at expressing myself. ;)