Chances

One of the few things that I can recall from my college days at THE Ohio State University was a philosophy discussion about the worth of life. The reasoning went that because the likely hood of any of us being brought to life at all are so infinitesimally small, life must be cherished. Consider that the likely hood of any of us being born in our current genetic make up, given the 23 paired chromosome sets in males, are 2 X 10 to the 31st power. That is a number so large only politicians are capable of contemplating it, and then only in terms of it being other people’s money that they can spend building a bridge in their district to nowhere. The number is so large that that it is inconceivable – barring twins – that there have been or ever will be two humans born naturally with the exact same genetic make up. So yes Dick Gephard we are all winners of life’s lottery. “Winners of life’s lottery” was how Dick used to describe people who earned more money than Dick did or more money than Dick thought they should.

But 2 X 10 to 31st power is dwarfed and made insignificant by the number of missed opportunities. That is the chance of the one female egg and the one male sperm that make each of us who we are getting together at all. Given the world’s population and the life cycle of a human sperm and/or egg, that likely hood probably exceeds the largest number I could find on the Internet – a duotrigintillion or 10 to the 99th power. So if you could pick you own mother and father you might be able to improve your chances of being born to 2 X 10 to 31st power. If mom and dad have to find each other, conceive you at precisely the right cycle, have the exact sperm meet the exact egg, and that those exact circumstances have to be carried out over generation after generation, the chances of any us of being here probably have to exceed 2 X 10 the 99th power times10 to the 99th power.

So what’s the point? I don’t know. The thought just struck me as I was watching Lex jr. and his buds tear across the street with their plastic swords in hand battling some imaginary enemy. Given the odds, we are truly blessed to have him and when we count our blessings, I guess we should start with the fact that we and the ones most dear are here at all.