
How dice changed over 2k years to be more fair (2018) - Hooke
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180130140246.htm
======
smogcutter
> Gamblers may have seen dice throws as no longer determined by fate, but
> instead as randomizing objects governed by chance.

Going by the principal that people in the past weren’t dumb, just different,
and had less access to information, I’m not convinced by the conclusion “they
didn’t understand the odds, it was up to the gods”.

That may be true for Joe Legionary losing his pay every week over dice, but
you can bet your ass that the guy running the game, who probably supplied the
dice and maybe even made them had a _very_ good idea of how unfair they were.

~~~
wahern
A few years ago a philosopher wrote an article in the New York Times that
suggested that maybe the gods were real in antiquity, on the tacit presumption
that belief in gods was then universal, such universality being a consequence
of common and widespread divine manifestations that eradicated doubt.

Of course, he was trying to be provocative, but I took issue with the
presumption of universality. When I wrote to remind him that Plato briefly
discussed atheists in The Laws, implying that atheism among young adults was
common, though invariably transitioning to adherence to the local faith as
they grew older and wiser[1], he replied with, "Oh, yeah, I forgot."

[1] Of course, there's multiple ways to interpret Plato's argument, including
1) older, wiser people came to see the truth of the existence of the gods and
2) older, wiser people came to see the _usefulness_ of shared belief in the
gods, regardless of the actual existence of the gods.

~~~
glandium
Sounds related to Julian Jaynes's book/theory: The Origin of Consciousness in
the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

~~~
dhosek
When I was taking psych classes in the late 90s, it seemed every single psych
prof had a copy of this on their shelves. I saw it cited in some of the text
books as well so I grabbed a used copy to read.

It's an interesting hypothesis, but seems roughly as valid as Erich von
Däniken's _Chariots of the Gods?_ , that is, not valid at all. Were there any
validity to the claim at all, we should be able to find supporting evidence
in, say, the brain function of lower primates. It ain't there.

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abiogenesis
I was expecting to read things like rounded edges and corners but the article
seems to mostly discuss the configuration of numbers on opposite faces.

> When dice reappear around 1100 they are predominantly in the "primes"
> configuration, where opposite numbers tally to prime numbers (1-2; 3-4; 5-6)

Does this have really anything to do with primes? It looks like they simply
chose sequential numbers.

~~~
Talanes
The "sevens" configuration could also be arrived at by the opposite approach
of splitting up the largest and smallest numbers, with everything adding up to
seven being a by-product. I took the names as more a classification than
actually ascribing intent.

~~~
abiogenesis
But adding up to seven is something that is expected, and a generic by-product
(they would've added up to 9 with a 8-faced dice). The "prime" explanation
only works with a 6-faced dice and it's purely accidental.

~~~
mc32
Yeah the prime explanation is just the result of successive numbers.

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cachvico
This Reddit post is much more informative:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4t4o3a/do_the_h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4t4o3a/do_the_holes_on_a_dice_which_represent_the/)

~~~
shawndumas
[https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4t4o3a/do_the_h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/4t4o3a/do_the_holes_on_a_dice_which_represent_the/)

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kgwgk
A few blog posts on the subject of dice fairness:
[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zd89utY4afA59p58k/wolf-s-
dic...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/zd89utY4afA59p58k/wolf-s-dice)

[https://books.google.ch/books?id=pGRsCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA258&lpg=P...](https://books.google.ch/books?id=pGRsCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=wolf+dice&source=bl&ots=9lgmeQE-
tk&sig=ACfU3U1yNXs81m9hz8W4-HKXJ1KWTt2UlA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjNu6v5n_rpAhXGxMQBHQU7BxEQ6AEwC3oECAYQAQ#v=onepage)

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seesawtron
I don't really understand if the difference in two configurations of numbers
appearing on the dice is related to the dice being biased?

Nevertheless, the role of geometry in probability became clear to me when I
read about Fano Planes and their role in winning Transylvania lottery [0,1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania_lottery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania_lottery)
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fano_plane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fano_plane)

------
jhallenworld
I've been trying other non-roman dice:

Indian four-sided dice:

[https://averweij.web.cern.ch/averweij/india.htm](https://averweij.web.cern.ch/averweij/india.htm)

Two-sided dice (cowry shells) for Indian Pachisi- they are terrible!

[https://joyofplaying.wordpress.com/play-by-
rules/164-2/](https://joyofplaying.wordpress.com/play-by-rules/164-2/)

More binary dice for the Royal Game of Ur:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040I)

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ARandomerDude
> Dice are very rare between 400 and 1100, corresponding to the Dark Ages.

How dark these ages weren't. I'm always a bit sad to see such an obviously
polemical term used to describe the period.

~~~
dfee
Curious if you’d share more? Is there a faction of historians who don’t share
this viewpoint?

I’ve always been curious as I studied the Classics (Greece and Rome) and then
European History (which in American high schools is 1400AD+).

I have no insight into that intermediate period.

~~~
bedobi
I'm also interested in this.

Apparently recently there's an aversion to using terms like "dark ages",
because they imply the period between antiquity and the renaissance was poorly
recorded or objectively worse, and historians shouldn't make value judgements,
they should just accurately account for what happened in any given period.

I do get that, and I'm no expert, but... It sure seems to me like things were
a whole lot objectively worse during the dark ages. Literacy, trade and all
kinds of other objectively good things were replaced by more or less complete
chaos, constant fighting between countless warlords, plagues...

Like yes the large empires of antiquity did their own share of fighting and
other bad things but regular people within any given empire seem to have had
better lives than more or less anyone during the dark ages.

Would love to be corrected because I love learning about history!

~~~
maurys
Another reason why it's less fashionable to call it the Dark Ages is that
that's a more Western centric look at that time.

It was actually an interesting time to be in Asia around then.

John Green does an excellent "Crash Course History" video on the topic if
you're interested.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Couldn't the same be said of any era name? You wouldn't rename the "Warring
States Period" because Europe was actually fairly peaceful at that time.

~~~
maurys
I hadn't heard of the Warring States Period before but after a quick search I
see your point.

I guess "The Dark Ages" evoked a more universal idea that there was no
progress anywhere while the "Warring States" period is understood to be more
local.

But personally, I was bringing to light arguments I've heard against calling
it the Dark Ages.

Don't have a personal axe to grind either way.

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lihaciudaniel
The history of dice is older than that. I would say around three times as
long, since earliest dice were found in pyramids

~~~
bmm6o
It's not clear in TFA but the paper it's based on focuses on the history of
dice in the Netherlands and doesn't claim that dice didn't exist elsewhere
earlier.

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simik
What's "unbalanced" about the 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 arrangement of numbers? And how is
"primes" superior?

~~~
mcv
That arrangement is primes. The other arrangement is sevens: 1 and 6 opposite
each other, 2 and 5, and 3 and 4.

Both of them can be unfair. Assuming rolling high is better, when 1 and 2 are
opposite each other, those faces could be slightly smaller and therefore have
a smaller chance of landing on them. This is especially easy with hand-made
dice, which are bound to be somewhat irregular.

With "sevens", 1, 2, and 3 meet in a single point. If that point is somehow
heavier than the opposite point, you're more likely to roll 4, 5 or 6.

I think I'd actually consider the "primes" arrangement to be superior to the
modern one. No idea why that switch was ever made.

