The challenging discipline of designing systems, devices, or life plans that are intended to function correctly only a certain percentage of the time. It's the art of building a bridge that might hold, a toaster that might not burn your house down, or a relationship that will probably work out. It's the field responsible for "this computer has a low probability of crashing" and "this plan has a high probability of success." In practice, it's the engineering behind everything that mostly works, most of the time.
Example: "My phone's battery indicator is a marvel of probabilistic engineering. It claims to be at 15%, which according to their system means there's a 70% chance it'll die in the next two minutes and a 30% chance it'll last another three hours. It keeps me guessing."
by Dumu The Void February 14, 2026
Get the Probabilistic Engineering mug.Any device or piece of software that functions based on the principle of "eh, good enough." This includes autocorrect, which has a high probability of changing "I'll be there soon" to "I'll be a racoon," and voice assistants, which understand you with a probability inversely proportional to the importance of your request. These technologies don't aim for perfection; they aim for a statistically acceptable rate of not making you throw them out a window.
Probabilistic Technologies Example: "I asked my smart speaker to play ' classical music for focus' and it started playing death metal. When I shouted 'NO!' it said, 'Adding "No" to your shopping list.' This is probabilistic technology at its finest: wrong most of the time, but confident always."
by Dumu The Void February 14, 2026
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The umbrella term for all fields of study that have given up on the idea of "facts" and now deal exclusively with "highly probable guesses." It's the scientific method after it's had a few drinks and decided that certainty is overrated. From probabilistic medicine ("These symptoms are probably just allergies, not the plague") to probabilistic meteorology ("There's a 60% chance of rain, which is meteorologist-speak for 'we have absolutely no idea'"), this is the science of keeping your options open.
Probabilistic Sciences Example: "After three different doctors gave him three different opinions, the patient realized he wasn't in the world of hard medical fact. He was a subject of the probabilistic sciences, where his illness was diagnosed as 'most likely something, possibly treatable with something else, maybe.'"
by Dumu The Void February 14, 2026
Get the Probabilistic Sciences mug.a phrase used to make fun of ap statistics. it started out as a misunderstanding and turned into a phenomenon.
by ptaradactyl October 18, 2007
Get the silly probability mug.by xd vap0ur February 8, 2019
Get the theoretical probability mug.The likeliness of you or someone you know being set on fire for being aggravating, stupid or being simply annoying.
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Get the Flammability Probability mug.The unified continuum where location, duration, and likelihood are all the same thing. In this framework, an event isn't something that happens at a specific place and time; it's something that flickers in and out of existence based on a cosmic probability score. Your keys aren't somewhere in the house; they exist everywhere in the house simultaneously, but with a 90% probability density in the last pocket you'll check. It explains why lost items are never truly lost, just existing in a state of low observational probability.
Example: "According to the principles of spacetime-probability, my car keys aren't lost. They're just currently occupying a region of the spacetime continuum where my perception of them is unlikely. In other words, they're in my hand, but I'm just not looking at my hand yet."
by Dumu The Void February 14, 2026
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