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It's odd, as I start the final chapter of my educational path and start an actual whole and independent life, I should feel optimistic and ready. I passed some of the harder things in life as a kid and now I'm moving into a world that's full of wonder, discovery and proof that I can do something if I set my mind to it.
But every night, as I lay in my bed or reading old comics from Charles Schultz, I think about it. That haunting feeling. Not of death, but that moment before the whirling descent like I'm on a roller coaster. I can feel my stomach hollow out, my mind go blank and my hands get numb. I'm 23 now and I'm so young and still have a lot to go, but then I can only see myself towards the end of my days, no longer able to do much and just waiting out my time.
I'm not afraid of dying, believe it or not, I'm actually afraid that I didn't get to do what I wanted before my time is up. That feeling like I wasted most of my days in front of a computer, working towards a career I like or worst of it all; not exploring everything I can discover.
I'm also afraid of reincarnation. I'm not much of a spiritual person, but I sometimes get this sensation where I'll be someone else who isn't me, who can't appreciate the finer things in life, who'll lead a life that is full of pain, misery or simply less fortunate. I'm afraid I'll be someone who's ignorant then instead of being as open-minded as I am now. It's strangest sensation ever because it goes against my rational thought where I know I won't remember who I am now and it'll be another time, another being, another thought-process. I am only scared of being an ignorant and miserable person then, because of what I know now. But when I am him/her then, I won't know the me of now. It's all really irrelevant and pointless to think about. But I can't help it.
These aren't impulses, at night it comes up through eventual thinking or I can start thinking about it on the fly. Once I start, it's difficult to stop and it feels like being drained.
On the one hand, I want to just laze around and play games for awhile. On the other hand, I want to do what I can to experience everything I can reach. My parents gave me a lot of opportunities to do so and I squandered them with my immaturity and inability to value what was offered.
I guess in the end, this is a mix of regret with a fear of not being able to see what I can do before it's gone.
 
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Torte here read this
+ Show Spoiler +The chances of you existing:
If you go back 10 generations (250 years) the chance of you being born at all is at most 1 divided by 6 x 10100 or
1 in 60000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000.
In gambling, even a chance of 1 to 100 is not worth a gamble.
Are you ever lucky to be alive!!
If you go back 1 million years or 40 000 generations (each generation is considered 25 years), your chance of being born is at most 1 in 1.8 x 10403167 or
18 with 403,166 zeros after the 1.
In other words your chances of existing is essentially zilch, even if we were considering this possibility only a short 250 years ago.
Right now you do exist, so the actual chance is 100%, but the predicted likelihood in the past of you being born would be essentially zero.
The calculations of these numbers (calculations shown below) tend to overestimate your chances of being.
They only include numbers based on your father's contribution, his father's contribution, his father contribution, and so on. In other words the calculations are based only on the direct male line.
They do NOT include the following factors that would make the chances of your existence even less:
- your mother's contribution
- the men and women that died in war, famine, disease without or with fewer offspring-- in some generations 50% of humanity.
- the men and women that died from natural causes.
- children that died before reaching the age of reproduction.
- fetuses and fertilized eggs that died and were naturally aborted.
You are the result of many generations of survivors. One of the people that died prematurely could have been your Dad or your Dad's Dad and so on. Somehow, none of your forefathers died before passing on his genes to the next man in your lineage. Because of the deaths mentioned most human lineages died out, while luckily yours survived. Lo and behold, here you are!
Because of these deaths, your odds of existing were actually much less than the odds given below.
The Calculations:
As mentioned above, these calculations assume only your father, his father, his father, and so on. The number of sperm produced by your father is astronomical compared to the number of eggs produced by your mother, so this is a reasonable procedure to show how slight your existence chances were.
Also I am assuming that each separate reproductive generation consists of 25 years
Some background statistics based on the book "Sperm Wars" by Robin Baker, University of Manchester.
On average a man between puberty (I suggest age 15 y) and 30 years produces 300 million sperm/day (300,000,000).
On average a man between 30 y and 50 years produces 230 million sperm/day (230,000,000)
On average a man between 50 and 75 years produces 50 million sperm/day (50,000,000)
The last two sperm/day numbers were calculated as follows:
At age 50 years the average man produces 175 million/day -- so averaging 300 million/day and 175 million/day you get 230 million/day.
At age 70 years the average man produces 20 million/day -- so I could average 175 million and 20 million, but to be on the safe side I decreased it to 50 million/day (keeping my results on the conservative side -- I will round lower for the calculations that follow).
Each sperm has a unique set of DNA.
These sperm will appear in intercourse, masturbation, nocturnal emission. They all have to go somewhere.
On average 2 to 3 offspring survive that will reproduce. This average seems to be fairly constant in modern societies, agricultural societies and in hunter-gatherer societies. So, for all generations it hovers around 2 to 3 reproducing survivors. On average, 2 to 3 sperm will result in the fertilization of eggs that results in 2 or 3 reproducing individuals -- the rest of the sperm are doomed.
Kind of sperm:
An average man produces 3 kind of sperm:
(1) Killer Sperm constitute about 83% of all the sperm -- these are sperm that attack any sperm from another man that may be in the woman. These sperm carry a lethal dose of poison in their head, seek out foreign sperm and inject it with this poison, killing it. Apparently after a few injections the Killer Sperm has spent all it's energy and also dies.
(2) Blocker Sperm constitute about 16% of all the sperm -- these try to block entrances and storage places so that any sperm from another man cannot reach the woman's egg.
(3) Egg Getter Sperm constitute about1% of all the sperm -- these are the sperm that can possibly fertilize the woman's egg if they ever get there.
So 99% of sperm make war on other men's sperm to annihilate them so that they won't fertilize the woman's egg, and 1% have the potential to fertilize the woman's egg.
In our calculations we will only use the numbers for the Egg Getter Sperm.
The Actual numbers:
(A) The number of Egg Getter Sperm produced by an average man in his lifetime:
In the following calculations I will round off the numbers lower to be even more conservative.
(1) Between puberty (15 years old) and 30 years:
At a rate of 1% of 300,000,000 = 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
15 years has 5475 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 5475 days x 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(2) Between 30 years and 50 years:
At a rate of 1% of 230,000,000 = 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
20 years has 7300 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 7300 days x 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(3) Between 50 years and 75 years:
At a rate of 1% of 50,000,000 = 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
25 years has 9125 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 9125 days x 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 4 x 109 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (4,000,000,000).
On average, in a man's lifetime he produces 16,000,000,000 + 16,000,000,000 + 4,000,000,000 = 36,000,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm for a possible 36,000,000,000 unique offspring (3.6 x 1010).
(B) Fraction of Egg Getter Sperm that result in offspring that will reproduce:
Since an average man will have 2 to 3 surviving offspring (let's take 3 to be on the conservative side) the fraction of all the Egg Getter Sperm that will result in another person is: 3 x 1 / 3.6 x 1010
or 1 / 1.2 x 1010
or 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Let's be even more conservative and take this fraction to be your probability of being instead of the probability of 3 survivors.
In other words of all the Egg Getter Sperm your father produces, the chances are that the sperm with your name on it that will actually become you is 1 to 12,000,000,000 -- not great odds!
If you take 2 generations. Your Dad and his Dad. The chances that your Dad's Egg Getter sperm will become you is 1 / 12,000,000,000.
The chances that your Dad's Dad's Egg Getter Sperm will become your Dad is the same, that is, 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Considering your Dad's Dad, the odds that "your sperm" will successfully produce you after 2 generations will be
1 /12,000,000,000 x 1 / 12,000,000,000 = 1 / 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 to 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 / 1.44 x 1020.
If you take 10 generations (10 generations x 25 years/ generation = 250 years) you must multiply 1 / 12,000,000,000
ten times, or (1 / 1.2 x 1010)10 = 1 / 6 x 10100
or 1 to 6 x 10100. This is the number given at the beginning of this page for 10 generations.
If you take 1 million years of evolution (actually one should use many millions of years, but to be conservative we will limit our calculation to 1 million years):
40,000 generations
(1 / 1.2 x 1010)40000 = 1 / 1.8 x 10403167 chance that you should exist. (a lot of wasted sperm, eh?)
This is mind boggling odds of 1 to 18 with 403,166 zero's after it. In other words your chances of being are essentially zero.
(C) Try to visualize these numbers:
The age of the universe since the Big Bang is 13.7 billion years.
In seconds: 13.7 x 109 year x 365 day/year x 24 h/day x 3600 seconds/hour = 4.32 x 1016 seconds
or 43,200,000,000,000,000 seconds is the age of the Universe -- a very, very long time!!
If 1 Egg Getter Sperm were produced every second of the lifetime of the universe then it would take:
6 x 10100 / 4.32 x 1016 = 1.4 x 10 89 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you becoming, that is, if you calculate only 10 generations back (250 years).
14 with 88 zeros after it of universe lifetimes -- essentially an infinite time!
If you go back 1 million years it would take 42 x 10403149 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you.
42 with 403,149 zeros after the 42 of it lifetimes of the Universe!
All these numbers err on the side of caution -- a lot of caution.
(D) Aren't You lucky?
If you consider almost any time in the past and try to calculate the probability of you coming into being, even 2 generations ago, your possible existence is so low that it's almost not worth thinking about.
your one lucky motherfucker.
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On January 12 2013 03:57 Coagulation wrote:Torte here read this + Show Spoiler +The chances of you existing:
If you go back 10 generations (250 years) the chance of you being born at all is at most 1 divided by 6 x 10100 or
1 in 60000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000.
In gambling, even a chance of 1 to 100 is not worth a gamble.
Are you ever lucky to be alive!!
If you go back 1 million years or 40 000 generations (each generation is considered 25 years), your chance of being born is at most 1 in 1.8 x 10403167 or
18 with 403,166 zeros after the 1.
In other words your chances of existing is essentially zilch, even if we were considering this possibility only a short 250 years ago.
Right now you do exist, so the actual chance is 100%, but the predicted likelihood in the past of you being born would be essentially zero.
The calculations of these numbers (calculations shown below) tend to overestimate your chances of being.
They only include numbers based on your father's contribution, his father's contribution, his father contribution, and so on. In other words the calculations are based only on the direct male line.
They do NOT include the following factors that would make the chances of your existence even less:
- your mother's contribution
- the men and women that died in war, famine, disease without or with fewer offspring-- in some generations 50% of humanity.
- the men and women that died from natural causes.
- children that died before reaching the age of reproduction.
- fetuses and fertilized eggs that died and were naturally aborted.
You are the result of many generations of survivors. One of the people that died prematurely could have been your Dad or your Dad's Dad and so on. Somehow, none of your forefathers died before passing on his genes to the next man in your lineage. Because of the deaths mentioned most human lineages died out, while luckily yours survived. Lo and behold, here you are!
Because of these deaths, your odds of existing were actually much less than the odds given below.
The Calculations:
As mentioned above, these calculations assume only your father, his father, his father, and so on. The number of sperm produced by your father is astronomical compared to the number of eggs produced by your mother, so this is a reasonable procedure to show how slight your existence chances were.
Also I am assuming that each separate reproductive generation consists of 25 years
Some background statistics based on the book "Sperm Wars" by Robin Baker, University of Manchester.
On average a man between puberty (I suggest age 15 y) and 30 years produces 300 million sperm/day (300,000,000).
On average a man between 30 y and 50 years produces 230 million sperm/day (230,000,000)
On average a man between 50 and 75 years produces 50 million sperm/day (50,000,000)
The last two sperm/day numbers were calculated as follows:
At age 50 years the average man produces 175 million/day -- so averaging 300 million/day and 175 million/day you get 230 million/day.
At age 70 years the average man produces 20 million/day -- so I could average 175 million and 20 million, but to be on the safe side I decreased it to 50 million/day (keeping my results on the conservative side -- I will round lower for the calculations that follow).
Each sperm has a unique set of DNA.
These sperm will appear in intercourse, masturbation, nocturnal emission. They all have to go somewhere.
On average 2 to 3 offspring survive that will reproduce. This average seems to be fairly constant in modern societies, agricultural societies and in hunter-gatherer societies. So, for all generations it hovers around 2 to 3 reproducing survivors. On average, 2 to 3 sperm will result in the fertilization of eggs that results in 2 or 3 reproducing individuals -- the rest of the sperm are doomed.
Kind of sperm:
An average man produces 3 kind of sperm:
(1) Killer Sperm constitute about 83% of all the sperm -- these are sperm that attack any sperm from another man that may be in the woman. These sperm carry a lethal dose of poison in their head, seek out foreign sperm and inject it with this poison, killing it. Apparently after a few injections the Killer Sperm has spent all it's energy and also dies.
(2) Blocker Sperm constitute about 16% of all the sperm -- these try to block entrances and storage places so that any sperm from another man cannot reach the woman's egg.
(3) Egg Getter Sperm constitute about1% of all the sperm -- these are the sperm that can possibly fertilize the woman's egg if they ever get there.
So 99% of sperm make war on other men's sperm to annihilate them so that they won't fertilize the woman's egg, and 1% have the potential to fertilize the woman's egg.
In our calculations we will only use the numbers for the Egg Getter Sperm.
The Actual numbers:
(A) The number of Egg Getter Sperm produced by an average man in his lifetime:
In the following calculations I will round off the numbers lower to be even more conservative.
(1) Between puberty (15 years old) and 30 years:
At a rate of 1% of 300,000,000 = 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
15 years has 5475 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 5475 days x 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(2) Between 30 years and 50 years:
At a rate of 1% of 230,000,000 = 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
20 years has 7300 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 7300 days x 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(3) Between 50 years and 75 years:
At a rate of 1% of 50,000,000 = 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
25 years has 9125 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 9125 days x 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 4 x 109 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (4,000,000,000).
On average, in a man's lifetime he produces 16,000,000,000 + 16,000,000,000 + 4,000,000,000 = 36,000,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm for a possible 36,000,000,000 unique offspring (3.6 x 1010).
(B) Fraction of Egg Getter Sperm that result in offspring that will reproduce:
Since an average man will have 2 to 3 surviving offspring (let's take 3 to be on the conservative side) the fraction of all the Egg Getter Sperm that will result in another person is: 3 x 1 / 3.6 x 1010
or 1 / 1.2 x 1010
or 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Let's be even more conservative and take this fraction to be your probability of being instead of the probability of 3 survivors.
In other words of all the Egg Getter Sperm your father produces, the chances are that the sperm with your name on it that will actually become you is 1 to 12,000,000,000 -- not great odds!
If you take 2 generations. Your Dad and his Dad. The chances that your Dad's Egg Getter sperm will become you is 1 / 12,000,000,000.
The chances that your Dad's Dad's Egg Getter Sperm will become your Dad is the same, that is, 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Considering your Dad's Dad, the odds that "your sperm" will successfully produce you after 2 generations will be
1 /12,000,000,000 x 1 / 12,000,000,000 = 1 / 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 to 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 / 1.44 x 1020.
If you take 10 generations (10 generations x 25 years/ generation = 250 years) you must multiply 1 / 12,000,000,000
ten times, or (1 / 1.2 x 1010)10 = 1 / 6 x 10100
or 1 to 6 x 10100. This is the number given at the beginning of this page for 10 generations.
If you take 1 million years of evolution (actually one should use many millions of years, but to be conservative we will limit our calculation to 1 million years):
40,000 generations
(1 / 1.2 x 1010)40000 = 1 / 1.8 x 10403167 chance that you should exist. (a lot of wasted sperm, eh?)
This is mind boggling odds of 1 to 18 with 403,166 zero's after it. In other words your chances of being are essentially zero.
(C) Try to visualize these numbers:
The age of the universe since the Big Bang is 13.7 billion years.
In seconds: 13.7 x 109 year x 365 day/year x 24 h/day x 3600 seconds/hour = 4.32 x 1016 seconds
or 43,200,000,000,000,000 seconds is the age of the Universe -- a very, very long time!!
If 1 Egg Getter Sperm were produced every second of the lifetime of the universe then it would take:
6 x 10100 / 4.32 x 1016 = 1.4 x 10 89 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you becoming, that is, if you calculate only 10 generations back (250 years).
14 with 88 zeros after it of universe lifetimes -- essentially an infinite time!
If you go back 1 million years it would take 42 x 10403149 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you.
42 with 403,149 zeros after the 42 of it lifetimes of the Universe!
All these numbers err on the side of caution -- a lot of caution.
(D) Aren't You lucky?
If you consider almost any time in the past and try to calculate the probability of you coming into being, even 2 generations ago, your possible existence is so low that it's almost not worth thinking about. your one lucky motherfucker.
If personalized rational and logical thoughts are overridden by the fear of (the coming of) death.
Why would mathematical equations notating my existence before even consciousness of that existence have any effect?
No matter how much luck is within to create birth, none is needed to reach death. Doesn't that sense of power and default conclusion of a "lucky" life show how these mathematics are simply void?
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Whoa interesting blog, I've definitely experienced what you're talking about here in terms of wondering and pondering it all.
Also LOL Coagulation's post though :D
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...damn your right... fuck.
*goes off and sulks*
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On January 12 2013 04:10 Coagulation wrote:
...damn your right... fuck.
*goes off and sulks*
oh poop
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United Kingdom14464 Posts
^it was very interesting though, thanks :p
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I had a dream where I was told I was going to die the next day. It was extremely disturbing needless to say, I really wasn't filled with any 'oh cool I get to do all the things I was afraid to do!' feelings, just doom and a frantic search for a way to get more time.
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I find great comfort in inevitability. Since there's nothing I can do about death it's not something I need to deal with at the moment (or ever really). That nagging feeling is actually a quirk of the human psyche that sees our future demise as a threat to be dealt with.
But it's not, because death is inevitable. We are free to ignore it or just observe our thoughts without engaging with it.
Trying to experience or achieve stuff is not dealing with death or the ephemeral nature of human existence either.
They are valuable in their own but ultimately won't really make your life more or less worthwhile.
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What exactly is supposed to be the alternative to wasted time? Just "doing what you want to do"? I've done that in the past, it's over now. I'm still the same person and feeling the same way now. Everything we do is passing time, because what is the alternative?
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Aww  Ive been through these alot, and as sc4k, i dreamt I was dying. I decided the next day to fix some of the regrets i had (like apologizing to an old friend) and thinking about how I could try and be a better person.
Hope you conquer your fears!
PS: Why the hell are you not a featured blogger?
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On January 12 2013 04:41 ZeroCartin wrote:Aww Ive been through these alot, and as sc4k, i dreamt I was dying. I decided the next day to fix some of the regrets i had (like apologizing to an old friend) and thinking about how I could try and be a better person. Hope you conquer your fears! PS: Why the hell are you not a featured blogger?
I'm still in school, so I dont know if I can take advantage of my life just yet, I definitely want to start earning my own money and such. Really experience what everyone got to do (most at least).
Ask staff why I'm not featured. I'm not sure (I even leaked some Quantic stuff in my last blog)
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On January 12 2013 03:57 Coagulation wrote:Torte here read this + Show Spoiler +The chances of you existing:
If you go back 10 generations (250 years) the chance of you being born at all is at most 1 divided by 6 x 10100 or
1 in 60000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000.
In gambling, even a chance of 1 to 100 is not worth a gamble.
Are you ever lucky to be alive!!
If you go back 1 million years or 40 000 generations (each generation is considered 25 years), your chance of being born is at most 1 in 1.8 x 10403167 or
18 with 403,166 zeros after the 1.
In other words your chances of existing is essentially zilch, even if we were considering this possibility only a short 250 years ago.
Right now you do exist, so the actual chance is 100%, but the predicted likelihood in the past of you being born would be essentially zero.
The calculations of these numbers (calculations shown below) tend to overestimate your chances of being.
They only include numbers based on your father's contribution, his father's contribution, his father contribution, and so on. In other words the calculations are based only on the direct male line.
They do NOT include the following factors that would make the chances of your existence even less:
- your mother's contribution
- the men and women that died in war, famine, disease without or with fewer offspring-- in some generations 50% of humanity.
- the men and women that died from natural causes.
- children that died before reaching the age of reproduction.
- fetuses and fertilized eggs that died and were naturally aborted.
You are the result of many generations of survivors. One of the people that died prematurely could have been your Dad or your Dad's Dad and so on. Somehow, none of your forefathers died before passing on his genes to the next man in your lineage. Because of the deaths mentioned most human lineages died out, while luckily yours survived. Lo and behold, here you are!
Because of these deaths, your odds of existing were actually much less than the odds given below.
The Calculations:
As mentioned above, these calculations assume only your father, his father, his father, and so on. The number of sperm produced by your father is astronomical compared to the number of eggs produced by your mother, so this is a reasonable procedure to show how slight your existence chances were.
Also I am assuming that each separate reproductive generation consists of 25 years
Some background statistics based on the book "Sperm Wars" by Robin Baker, University of Manchester.
On average a man between puberty (I suggest age 15 y) and 30 years produces 300 million sperm/day (300,000,000).
On average a man between 30 y and 50 years produces 230 million sperm/day (230,000,000)
On average a man between 50 and 75 years produces 50 million sperm/day (50,000,000)
The last two sperm/day numbers were calculated as follows:
At age 50 years the average man produces 175 million/day -- so averaging 300 million/day and 175 million/day you get 230 million/day.
At age 70 years the average man produces 20 million/day -- so I could average 175 million and 20 million, but to be on the safe side I decreased it to 50 million/day (keeping my results on the conservative side -- I will round lower for the calculations that follow).
Each sperm has a unique set of DNA.
These sperm will appear in intercourse, masturbation, nocturnal emission. They all have to go somewhere.
On average 2 to 3 offspring survive that will reproduce. This average seems to be fairly constant in modern societies, agricultural societies and in hunter-gatherer societies. So, for all generations it hovers around 2 to 3 reproducing survivors. On average, 2 to 3 sperm will result in the fertilization of eggs that results in 2 or 3 reproducing individuals -- the rest of the sperm are doomed.
Kind of sperm:
An average man produces 3 kind of sperm:
(1) Killer Sperm constitute about 83% of all the sperm -- these are sperm that attack any sperm from another man that may be in the woman. These sperm carry a lethal dose of poison in their head, seek out foreign sperm and inject it with this poison, killing it. Apparently after a few injections the Killer Sperm has spent all it's energy and also dies.
(2) Blocker Sperm constitute about 16% of all the sperm -- these try to block entrances and storage places so that any sperm from another man cannot reach the woman's egg.
(3) Egg Getter Sperm constitute about1% of all the sperm -- these are the sperm that can possibly fertilize the woman's egg if they ever get there.
So 99% of sperm make war on other men's sperm to annihilate them so that they won't fertilize the woman's egg, and 1% have the potential to fertilize the woman's egg.
In our calculations we will only use the numbers for the Egg Getter Sperm.
The Actual numbers:
(A) The number of Egg Getter Sperm produced by an average man in his lifetime:
In the following calculations I will round off the numbers lower to be even more conservative.
(1) Between puberty (15 years old) and 30 years:
At a rate of 1% of 300,000,000 = 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
15 years has 5475 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 5475 days x 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(2) Between 30 years and 50 years:
At a rate of 1% of 230,000,000 = 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
20 years has 7300 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 7300 days x 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(3) Between 50 years and 75 years:
At a rate of 1% of 50,000,000 = 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
25 years has 9125 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 9125 days x 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 4 x 109 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (4,000,000,000).
On average, in a man's lifetime he produces 16,000,000,000 + 16,000,000,000 + 4,000,000,000 = 36,000,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm for a possible 36,000,000,000 unique offspring (3.6 x 1010).
(B) Fraction of Egg Getter Sperm that result in offspring that will reproduce:
Since an average man will have 2 to 3 surviving offspring (let's take 3 to be on the conservative side) the fraction of all the Egg Getter Sperm that will result in another person is: 3 x 1 / 3.6 x 1010
or 1 / 1.2 x 1010
or 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Let's be even more conservative and take this fraction to be your probability of being instead of the probability of 3 survivors.
In other words of all the Egg Getter Sperm your father produces, the chances are that the sperm with your name on it that will actually become you is 1 to 12,000,000,000 -- not great odds!
If you take 2 generations. Your Dad and his Dad. The chances that your Dad's Egg Getter sperm will become you is 1 / 12,000,000,000.
The chances that your Dad's Dad's Egg Getter Sperm will become your Dad is the same, that is, 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Considering your Dad's Dad, the odds that "your sperm" will successfully produce you after 2 generations will be
1 /12,000,000,000 x 1 / 12,000,000,000 = 1 / 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 to 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 / 1.44 x 1020.
If you take 10 generations (10 generations x 25 years/ generation = 250 years) you must multiply 1 / 12,000,000,000
ten times, or (1 / 1.2 x 1010)10 = 1 / 6 x 10100
or 1 to 6 x 10100. This is the number given at the beginning of this page for 10 generations.
If you take 1 million years of evolution (actually one should use many millions of years, but to be conservative we will limit our calculation to 1 million years):
40,000 generations
(1 / 1.2 x 1010)40000 = 1 / 1.8 x 10403167 chance that you should exist. (a lot of wasted sperm, eh?)
This is mind boggling odds of 1 to 18 with 403,166 zero's after it. In other words your chances of being are essentially zero.
(C) Try to visualize these numbers:
The age of the universe since the Big Bang is 13.7 billion years.
In seconds: 13.7 x 109 year x 365 day/year x 24 h/day x 3600 seconds/hour = 4.32 x 1016 seconds
or 43,200,000,000,000,000 seconds is the age of the Universe -- a very, very long time!!
If 1 Egg Getter Sperm were produced every second of the lifetime of the universe then it would take:
6 x 10100 / 4.32 x 1016 = 1.4 x 10 89 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you becoming, that is, if you calculate only 10 generations back (250 years).
14 with 88 zeros after it of universe lifetimes -- essentially an infinite time!
If you go back 1 million years it would take 42 x 10403149 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you.
42 with 403,149 zeros after the 42 of it lifetimes of the Universe!
All these numbers err on the side of caution -- a lot of caution.
(D) Aren't You lucky?
If you consider almost any time in the past and try to calculate the probability of you coming into being, even 2 generations ago, your possible existence is so low that it's almost not worth thinking about. your one lucky motherfucker.
And to add on to the super-luck, we now have super-the-fuck-luck! (Yay for rhyming)
The odds of being at the top of the food chain, and furthermore the privilege of being lazy, are pretty small. I'm lazy enough to not even bother looking up an estimate of that number. That means I have some sort of godly luck, or at least that's the way I like to look at it. 
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I think what you feel is something that all human beings feel. (RE: not accomplishing all you would like to). I too feel this way, and I think it's an important fear. A positive fear. It motivates you to do the things you're interested in, things that have personal value. I'm your age, and I already have these feelings of regret. Learn from life's mistakes and don't repeat them.
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On January 12 2013 05:16 FatChunk wrote:
I think what you feel is something that all human beings feel. (RE: not accomplishing all you would like to). I too feel this way, and I think it's an important fear. A positive fear. It motivates you to do the things you're interested in, things that have personal value. I'm your age, and I already have these feelings of regret. Learn from life's mistakes and don't repeat them.
agreed!
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Russian Federation119 Posts
Gosh, info about kinds of sperm was awesome.
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Another great blog from you sir.
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I don't know what's more amazing, Torte de Lini's blog or Coagulation's response.
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On January 12 2013 06:43 nooboon wrote:
I don't know what's more amazing, Torte de Lini's blog or Coagulation's response.
I like his response, but it doesn't exactly quell much in me ):
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On January 12 2013 03:57 Coagulation wrote:Torte here read this + Show Spoiler +The chances of you existing:
If you go back 10 generations (250 years) the chance of you being born at all is at most 1 divided by 6 x 10100 or
1 in 60000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000000000.
In gambling, even a chance of 1 to 100 is not worth a gamble.
Are you ever lucky to be alive!!
If you go back 1 million years or 40 000 generations (each generation is considered 25 years), your chance of being born is at most 1 in 1.8 x 10403167 or
18 with 403,166 zeros after the 1.
In other words your chances of existing is essentially zilch, even if we were considering this possibility only a short 250 years ago.
Right now you do exist, so the actual chance is 100%, but the predicted likelihood in the past of you being born would be essentially zero.
The calculations of these numbers (calculations shown below) tend to overestimate your chances of being.
They only include numbers based on your father's contribution, his father's contribution, his father contribution, and so on. In other words the calculations are based only on the direct male line.
They do NOT include the following factors that would make the chances of your existence even less:
- your mother's contribution
- the men and women that died in war, famine, disease without or with fewer offspring-- in some generations 50% of humanity.
- the men and women that died from natural causes.
- children that died before reaching the age of reproduction.
- fetuses and fertilized eggs that died and were naturally aborted.
You are the result of many generations of survivors. One of the people that died prematurely could have been your Dad or your Dad's Dad and so on. Somehow, none of your forefathers died before passing on his genes to the next man in your lineage. Because of the deaths mentioned most human lineages died out, while luckily yours survived. Lo and behold, here you are!
Because of these deaths, your odds of existing were actually much less than the odds given below.
The Calculations:
As mentioned above, these calculations assume only your father, his father, his father, and so on. The number of sperm produced by your father is astronomical compared to the number of eggs produced by your mother, so this is a reasonable procedure to show how slight your existence chances were.
Also I am assuming that each separate reproductive generation consists of 25 years
Some background statistics based on the book "Sperm Wars" by Robin Baker, University of Manchester.
On average a man between puberty (I suggest age 15 y) and 30 years produces 300 million sperm/day (300,000,000).
On average a man between 30 y and 50 years produces 230 million sperm/day (230,000,000)
On average a man between 50 and 75 years produces 50 million sperm/day (50,000,000)
The last two sperm/day numbers were calculated as follows:
At age 50 years the average man produces 175 million/day -- so averaging 300 million/day and 175 million/day you get 230 million/day.
At age 70 years the average man produces 20 million/day -- so I could average 175 million and 20 million, but to be on the safe side I decreased it to 50 million/day (keeping my results on the conservative side -- I will round lower for the calculations that follow).
Each sperm has a unique set of DNA.
These sperm will appear in intercourse, masturbation, nocturnal emission. They all have to go somewhere.
On average 2 to 3 offspring survive that will reproduce. This average seems to be fairly constant in modern societies, agricultural societies and in hunter-gatherer societies. So, for all generations it hovers around 2 to 3 reproducing survivors. On average, 2 to 3 sperm will result in the fertilization of eggs that results in 2 or 3 reproducing individuals -- the rest of the sperm are doomed.
Kind of sperm:
An average man produces 3 kind of sperm:
(1) Killer Sperm constitute about 83% of all the sperm -- these are sperm that attack any sperm from another man that may be in the woman. These sperm carry a lethal dose of poison in their head, seek out foreign sperm and inject it with this poison, killing it. Apparently after a few injections the Killer Sperm has spent all it's energy and also dies.
(2) Blocker Sperm constitute about 16% of all the sperm -- these try to block entrances and storage places so that any sperm from another man cannot reach the woman's egg.
(3) Egg Getter Sperm constitute about1% of all the sperm -- these are the sperm that can possibly fertilize the woman's egg if they ever get there.
So 99% of sperm make war on other men's sperm to annihilate them so that they won't fertilize the woman's egg, and 1% have the potential to fertilize the woman's egg.
In our calculations we will only use the numbers for the Egg Getter Sperm.
The Actual numbers:
(A) The number of Egg Getter Sperm produced by an average man in his lifetime:
In the following calculations I will round off the numbers lower to be even more conservative.
(1) Between puberty (15 years old) and 30 years:
At a rate of 1% of 300,000,000 = 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
15 years has 5475 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 5475 days x 3,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(2) Between 30 years and 50 years:
At a rate of 1% of 230,000,000 = 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
20 years has 7300 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 7300 days x 2,300,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 1.6 x 1010 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (16,000,000,000).
(3) Between 50 years and 75 years:
At a rate of 1% of 50,000,000 = 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day
25 years has 9125 days.
Therefore, on average a man will produce 9125 days x 500,000 Egg Getter Sperm/day = 4 x 109 Egg Getter Sperm during this time (4,000,000,000).
On average, in a man's lifetime he produces 16,000,000,000 + 16,000,000,000 + 4,000,000,000 = 36,000,000,000 Egg Getter Sperm for a possible 36,000,000,000 unique offspring (3.6 x 1010).
(B) Fraction of Egg Getter Sperm that result in offspring that will reproduce:
Since an average man will have 2 to 3 surviving offspring (let's take 3 to be on the conservative side) the fraction of all the Egg Getter Sperm that will result in another person is: 3 x 1 / 3.6 x 1010
or 1 / 1.2 x 1010
or 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Let's be even more conservative and take this fraction to be your probability of being instead of the probability of 3 survivors.
In other words of all the Egg Getter Sperm your father produces, the chances are that the sperm with your name on it that will actually become you is 1 to 12,000,000,000 -- not great odds!
If you take 2 generations. Your Dad and his Dad. The chances that your Dad's Egg Getter sperm will become you is 1 / 12,000,000,000.
The chances that your Dad's Dad's Egg Getter Sperm will become your Dad is the same, that is, 1 / 12,000,000,000.
Considering your Dad's Dad, the odds that "your sperm" will successfully produce you after 2 generations will be
1 /12,000,000,000 x 1 / 12,000,000,000 = 1 / 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 to 144,000,000,000,000,000,000
or 1 / 1.44 x 1020.
If you take 10 generations (10 generations x 25 years/ generation = 250 years) you must multiply 1 / 12,000,000,000
ten times, or (1 / 1.2 x 1010)10 = 1 / 6 x 10100
or 1 to 6 x 10100. This is the number given at the beginning of this page for 10 generations.
If you take 1 million years of evolution (actually one should use many millions of years, but to be conservative we will limit our calculation to 1 million years):
40,000 generations
(1 / 1.2 x 1010)40000 = 1 / 1.8 x 10403167 chance that you should exist. (a lot of wasted sperm, eh?)
This is mind boggling odds of 1 to 18 with 403,166 zero's after it. In other words your chances of being are essentially zero.
(C) Try to visualize these numbers:
The age of the universe since the Big Bang is 13.7 billion years.
In seconds: 13.7 x 109 year x 365 day/year x 24 h/day x 3600 seconds/hour = 4.32 x 1016 seconds
or 43,200,000,000,000,000 seconds is the age of the Universe -- a very, very long time!!
If 1 Egg Getter Sperm were produced every second of the lifetime of the universe then it would take:
6 x 10100 / 4.32 x 1016 = 1.4 x 10 89 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you becoming, that is, if you calculate only 10 generations back (250 years).
14 with 88 zeros after it of universe lifetimes -- essentially an infinite time!
If you go back 1 million years it would take 42 x 10403149 universe lifetimes to definitely result in you.
42 with 403,149 zeros after the 42 of it lifetimes of the Universe!
All these numbers err on the side of caution -- a lot of caution.
(D) Aren't You lucky?
If you consider almost any time in the past and try to calculate the probability of you coming into being, even 2 generations ago, your possible existence is so low that it's almost not worth thinking about. your one lucky motherfucker.
Throwing Quantum mechanics out of the window (Because I really don't understand it. I'm working on it, but I'm not there yet). Since *almost* everything is calculatable (apparently) and everything is a result from a past event (no matter how small and in our minds in significant) we could argue that the chances that we would come into existance is a 100%
Good read though. Who did the calculations?
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On January 12 2013 07:19 Torte de Lini wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2013 06:43 nooboon wrote:
I don't know what's more amazing, Torte de Lini's blog or Coagulation's response. I like his response, but it doesn't exactly quell much in me ):
He forgot to mention the number of eggs a woman produces in her lifetime and all their possible combination with all the sperm...
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From Chaung Tzu, Basic Writings Ch. 3: On the secret of caring for life:
"Your life has a limit but knowledge has none. If you use what is limited to pursue what has no limit, you will be in danger. If you understand this and still strive for knowledge, you will be in danger for certain! If you do good, stay away from fame. If you do evil, stay away from punishments. Follow the middle; go by what is constant, and you can stay in one piece, keep yourself alive, look after your parents, and live out your years."
I read it as advice to just live, instead of trying to cram an infinity of potential experiences into a finite lifespan. Things open up when you stop trying to force them and instead just observe their true nature. Depending on your personal point of view regarding Taoist philosophy, the entire quote may not resonate, but I think the basic observation that you can't fit THIS into THAT is profound. Accepting it resolved a few things for me at least.
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just keep on living. Let it be.
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You worrying about the future or past is as bad as those who find happiness in materialism. They're all temporary happiness.
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On January 12 2013 09:36 matiK23 wrote:
You worrying about the future or past is as bad as those who find happiness in materialism. They're all temporary happiness.
Yes! Finally, some spirtual advice. Material success will not solve anything in the long run.
Torte, I suggest you pick up The Power of Now by Eckheart Tolle. Its a simple, easy read about spirtualilty and has some great advice to do with fears, anxiety and life.
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TLADT24920 Posts
I get what you are saying. Feeling so young and worried that you will not get to achieve what you plan to in your lifetime is truly a sad feeling. I guess the best way to overcome it is to aim for those goals and don't let go. Of course, make sure they are reasonable goals otherwise you won't be able to reach them but at least you get the satisfaction of having tried even if you don't manage to reach them before the end of your life.
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I don't think it's anything to do with achievements unearned, or lingering regrets, or going through too much suffering and not enough joy. For me, it's more the utter desolation of oblivion - that totally incomprehensible notion that one day, the entity residing in your brain will not exist anymore, that this wonderful adventure will come to an end, and that you never see anyone or anything else ever again. It does not matter what came before - whether I've had a good life or bad, how others (and history) perceive my achievements, or even how I judge myself - at that moment, there is only the cessation of consciousness and the absolute loneliness it brings.
Being a gamer, I've related this feeling as the antithesis of that feeling of completeness you get when you finish a nice, long, immersive game. You'll know the feeling if you've ever finished an epic RPG - the satisfaction of completeing the story and finally returning to reality. However, when you finish the RPG of life, you don't return to a more fundamental reality - that's it, there is no more, you don't get to return to the warm safety of your nerdcave - everything just ends in emptiness.
I'm learning to be a scientist, so I usually try to force myself to look at every viewpoint and consider every possible truth (and I enjoy doing that anyway - it gives me more avenues to troll) yet I think this is the only thought I am actually afraid of having.
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I worry about this sometimes too.
I'm turning 25 in July and can't help but think about the fact that I am now officially 25% through my life optimally, and that the older I get, the more likely it is that I will pop a disease and die.
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Right now I have a cold and I can't stop thinking of the many children that have died from the flu epidemic in my country. It makes me wonder, did we just lose some potential James Adams? Maybe we lost an Abraham Lincoln, Maybe we lost a Steve Jobs. Maybe we lost a child that would've invented something to change the way we look at the world. That could've been me. I could've died instead. 
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EPT
