Is there a cost for being lucky?

[Zinjanthropos]

I met someone this summer. Very old with a fascinating story. She is a special friend of a person I've known for years. Despite being in her late 80's she still lives in her own home all by her lonesome. 

Here's the scoop: By a sheer stroke of luck she survived WWII. A teenage refugee near the end of the war, she and along with 150 others were deemed to be too much for the retreating German army to deal with. Marched to the side of a road they were lined up beside one another and told to turn and face an adjacent field. A German machine gun opened up, systematically mowing down these people, men, women and children one at a time. As the steady stream of death was about to reach her end of the line, the gun suddenly stopped firing for some reason. Perhaps it had jammed or they ran out of bullets but the Germans never finished what they started and left the scene in a hurry, sparing her life and that of a few others. 

I should tell you something else about this woman. Shortly after this massacre she claims visitation  every night by angels with whom she speaks to. Not only that, she can recognize demons amongst us and she can heal the sick through faith. Her home is crammed with Christian religion artifacts of every size, shape and description. When I told her I had cancer she said that she would pray for me and talk about my situation with the Angels. Caught by surprise I uttered something like ' I'll take all the positive vibes I can get".

So I ask myself, 'how lucky has she been, really?' Lucky to be alive? Absolutely. What about the emergence of special powers? Subject to closer examination perhaps. What about severe untreated mental trauma/depression? I think a very good chance.

[Secular Sanity]

Post hoc egro propter hoc (wikipedia.org)

It’s tempting.  Even I’m tempted on occasion.  Do you do know what C C said?  She said, don't ever under-appreciate being the recipient of the rare side of probability just because likelihood lacks any personhood traits about it. Just enjoy the effects!

[Zinjanthropos]

Post hoc egro propter hoc (wikipedia.org)

It’s tempting.  Even I’m tempted on occasion.  Do you do know what C C said?  She said, don't ever under-appreciate being the recipient of the rare side of probability just because likelihood lacks any personhood traits about it. Just enjoy the effects!

I thought I was being careful and noncommittal. Merely posing the question. Me personally? Hell,  I'm left wondering what her angelic visitors are saying about me or why she didn't heal me

[Secular Sanity]

I thought I was being careful and noncommittal. Merely posing the question. Me personally? Hell,  I'm left wondering what her angelic visitors are saying about me or why she didn't heal me  

Ah, see there, our signals get crossed with 'off the cuff' comments.

I meant that it’s tempting for most human beings to presume the purposeful intervention of a sentient or intelligent agent in situations that may or may not involve one.

Psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner wrote:

"The high cost of failing to detect agents and the low cost of wrongly detecting them has led researchers to suggest that people possess a Hyperactive Agent Detection Device, a cognitive module that readily ascribes events in the environment to the behavior of agents."

"The definition of luck (or chance) varies by the philosophical, religious, mystical and emotional context of the one interpreting it. When thought of as a factor beyond one's control, without regard to one's will, intention or desired result, there are at least two senses that people usually mean when they use the term, the prescriptive sense and the descriptive sense. In the prescriptive sense, luck is a supernatural and deterministic concept that there are forces (e.g. gods or spirits) that prescribe that certain events occur very much the way laws of physics will prescribe that certain events occur. It is the prescriptive sense that people mean when they say they "do not believe in luck". In the descriptive sense, people speak of luck after events that they find to be fortunate or unfortunate, and maybe improbable."

Luck (wikipedia.org)

My problem with it is that it makes them feel special like they have some magical powers or a special purpose while everyone else is dead.

[C C]

[...] A teenage refugee near the end of the war, she and along with 150 others were deemed to be too much for the retreating German army to deal with. [...] A German machine gun opened up, systematically mowing down these people, men, women and children one at a time. As the steady stream of death was about to reach her end of the line, the gun suddenly stopped firing for some reason. Perhaps it had jammed or they ran out of bullets but the Germans never finished what they started and left the scene in a hurry, sparing her life and that of a few others. [...] Shortly after this massacre she claims visitation  every night by angels with whom she speaks to. Not only that, she can recognize demons amongst us and she can heal the sick through faith. [...]

Apparently survivor guilt didn't become formalized as a mental condition until the 1960s (it's now subsumed under PTSD). It could have manifested in a broader range of more feral and unexpected ways before then; including fantasies that insulated the victim from a runaway conscience dictating suicidal punishment, rather than succumbing to the latter. Various personal coping strategies may still be the case, but the concept of survivor guilt as originally formulated or still currently described could limit discernment / cognition of the former as such. Put another way: The condition outright hidden by the successful management strategy the individual generated on their own, thereby interpreted as something else going on with the person.

After research in recent years, the broader category of PTSD surely now includes literal brain injury from collisions, nearby explosions, vibratory stress of lengthy gunfire, etc as often being fundamental causes or triggers. Not just biochemical imbalances / disruptions arising purely from strong emotional feelings.

- - -

[Zinjanthropos]

Sounds like the only price one pays for good luck is bad luck. Lucky to be alive is the ultimate stroke of good luck I would assume. Seems like luck has only one direction to go after that.

[Secular Sanity]

I don’t think that it stems from survival guilt, though, because it also occurs in almost any situation where the person feels lucky to be alive.  A heart attack, for example.  Luck and agency detection attribute some form of meaning, purpose, or cause to the experience.