[ExI] aaahnold's hidden message

[spike]

....
> > Rolling a six on a die a hundred times in a row is very 
> unlikely, but 
> > not impossible. I don't really care either way about 
> Arnold's message, 
> > but if you start looking for patterns you will find them everywhere.
> 
> The probability of any *particular* configuration of the 
> Universe coming about may be incredibly small, but the 
> probability that the Universe will be in *some* configuration 
> may approach one...

Ja!  Using Claus' notion, the odds of rolling a 6 a hundred times in a row
is astronomically small, (about 1 in 10^78).  But one could take 100 dice in
a cup and spill them out on the table.  Regardless of the chaotic outcome,
the odds of that particular outcome is equal to the odds of them all coming
up 6.  The sum of the odds of all possible outcomes is still 1.  The odds of
a particular easily recognizable pattern is very small.
....
> 
> It is different if the unlikely event is pre-specified. If a 
> series of stars went nova so as to spell out "I am the Lord 
> your God, so fuck you, atheists" then I would have to admit 
> that something unusual was going on... Stathis Papaioannou

Here is how one can tell the difference between a typical extropian type
person versus pretty much all normal people in the world.  In the event that
the novae spelled out such a message as Stathis describes above, the normal
people would immediately conclude there is a supreme being and fervently
worship accordingly.  We extro and transhumanist types, on the other hand,
would have an alternate explanation.  We would conclude that it isn't
necessarily a supreme being exactly, but rather that we are all simulations
(or at least I am, you guys may be avatars), and that the
not-necessarily-supreme programmer has a sense of humor.

spike