What Are Chance and Luck?

We often say things like “I was lucky” or “That was bad luck.”
When we succeed, we attribute it to luck being on our side.
When we fail, we blame it on a lack of luck.
But what exactly is this thing we call “luck”? Does it truly exist in the external world?

The answer is simple.
Luck does not exist.
And neither does chance—at least not as a phenomenon in itself.

What actually exists is only one thing:
an unbroken chain of causality.

Everything that happens in the world arises from interconnected causes and effects.
Yet we still call certain events “chance.”
Why?

The reason is straightforward.
Human cognition has limits.

We cannot trace every cause.
At some point, our understanding breaks down.
And to that gap in understanding, we attach a label.
That label is “chance.”

In other words, chance is not a property of events.
It is a state of perception.

This structure becomes clearer when we look at certain cultures.
The Pirahã people of the Amazon are known to have a highly limited numerical system.

They distinguish only “one,” “two,” and beyond that, simply “many.”
This is not because they are incapable of understanding numbers,
but because finer distinctions are unnecessary for their way of life.
They compress complexity into simpler categories.

This reveals something fundamental.

Humans compress information when it exceeds what they can handle,
and replace it with simplified labels.

Just as numbers can collapse into “many,”
causality can collapse into “chance.”

Then what is “luck”?

If chance is causality truncated by cognitive limits,
then luck is the meaning we assign to the outcome.

The same event is called “good luck” when it benefits us,
and “bad luck” when it does not.
But the underlying causal structure remains unchanged.

What changes is only the observer’s interpretation.

Luck, therefore, is not a feature of the external world.
It is a narrative constructed within the human mind.

Seen this way, the world looks very different.

Chance is not something that exists,
but a marker of where understanding fails.
Luck is not a force,
but a tool for making sense of outcomes.

And from this perspective, our behavior also shifts.

To rely on luck is to abandon causality.
To reject luck is to pursue causality.

Of course, complete understanding is impossible.
That is precisely why we must design our thinking
with the assumption that some parts will remain unknown.

Chance does not disappear.
It simply reflects what we do not yet understand.

Luck does not exist.
It is a concept we created to assign meaning.

We call what we cannot understand “chance,”
and what we wish to accept “luck.”

Only then does the world become just a little easier to grasp.