I watched the Derren Brown show last night about luck. If you did not see it, the idea was to conduct an experiment on a small town over 3 months.
It was started by a reporter pretending to make a documentary on a "lucky" dog statue. Word began to spread and small bits of luck began to happen. Some of the chosen "victims" believed in luck, some did not. The non believer had no luck as a consequence. Opportunities were put literally under his nose but because he believed he was unlucky he either did not see them or did not bother.
The remarkable thing was that people actually had more good luck as a result of touching the dog, even the non believer came to believe by the end and bet his life savings on luck (he won).
This got me thinking; there was no foundation for the luck just belief initiated by a rumour, this reminded me of sports psychology; believe you are a winner, picture yourself crossing the line first.
I then thought of paralells with religion. People believe in a diety without proof of existance, yet this belief system appears to work for them.
I dont want to get into a theological argument here but the connecting point appears to be belief: believe you are lucky and you are.
This may be due to a positive outlook, selective memory, a willingness to take a chance, but it would appear that there is merit in the hypothesis.
So "do you feel lucky?"
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