Let's think of this in another way. Let's say the lottery has been drawn. You don't know what the numbers were that were drawn, but you do know that at least one person won. What are the chances that you won the lottery? 1 in 146 million, right?
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Before reading the paper you had a 1 in 146 million chance. Now you have read it you have either a 1 in 1 chance or a 0 chance.
This, I think, is wrong. Perhaps I am simply reading these isolated sentences out of context and am missing your point. In that event, I apologize.
Once the lottery numbers have been drawn, the probability of winning with a ticket that you purchased before the drawing are either 0 or 1, depending on whether you matched. The fact that you do not know what the outcome is does not change the probability. It is something that has already happened. The probability for any past event is always either 0 or 1.
Consider a game of draw poker where you have the 10, Jack, Queen and King of spades. What is the probability of drawing the Ace to make a royal flush? Assuming that the deck has already been shuffled and no further mixing of the cards will take place, the probability is either 1 or zero, depending on whether or not the Ace is on the top of the deck. We treat the situation as if the probability is 1 in 47 because that's all the information that we have. But our lack of information does not make the actual sequence of cards set at the time of shuffling indeterminate, or a matter of chance. The order of the cards is what it is.
Edited by subbie, : No reason given.
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We see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat