The Definition of Random
 

the definition of "Random":
anything that is incalculable by the human mind.
When you roll dice the only reason that it is considered "random" is the fact that the human rolling the dice is not able to calculate all the factors involved (wind, hand motion, table surface etc.) and determine which side it will land on.
download the program found here
http://dmwdev.com/downloads/cocoa/Re...g%20Circle.zip
Once you launch a few circles in this small program called "Rebounding Circles" it almost appears that these circle are moving at "random"..........


"True Random":
I don't about you, but it I seems to me that there must be "True Random"
somewhere....
Surely there is something truly random out there; that isn't just a complex function of a few hundred (or million) variables.

Smack dab in the center of the universe
There is "True Random"
some glob of goo thats just spurting out random pieces of atoms..
or.. dirt
true random..... right

do we have rules about posting while really freaking high?

The definition of suspicious is 'a man doing push-ups in long grass'

very cool app though.... makes me wish I still took acid :)

Certain devices for which "true" randomness is required use a radioactive substance and give their result based on the number of ions which are produced in a given timeframe (although the half-life is roughly constant, over a small enough timeframe the radioactive decay cannot be predicted).

Hehe, really nice app, lol, it would make a nice game too, pretty addictive (see attach) :p :)
Is that some kind of of ancient drug? ;)

the cat is both alive and dead hluahgluahglaughlaug

Conclusion: The cat is a zombie :p

Call me a nerd, but I think I can see a use for this program. You could use it to explain why gases expand as their temperature increases. The window is resizable, you see. So you can show how when the movement gets a bit to schizophrenic, you can expand the sides and it calms down again.

As far as being on acid, and drugs and what not. I'm not sure how this would be all that exciting. Now...if all of the little circles changed to a random color whenever they contacted each other...

your showing signs of a mis-spent youth Zalister... :D

Oh man I think that circle just looked at me.

lol, that's a great idea Zalister!
it could also be used to demonstrate the movement of molecules in a solid, liquid or gas...
You could have a whole bunch of "particles" together, hitting against each-other, and barely moving in a solid, moving some in a liquid (less circles), and moving a lot in a gas (even less circles) :p

Wait!! you found true random???

Here is my attempt to summarize your words.

There are certain devices that require true random.
These devices use a radioactive substance.
The random number is based off the number of ions which are produced in a given timeframe.

Dice cant be predicted either can they?
I don't know of any device that can calculate the way dice will land.
Now i don't know anything about this "radioactive" substance in which you are referring to, but would you actually argue that it is "True Random"... no variables involved whatsoever?

How about some sort of shared application where users are assigned a bit which is set to 0 or 1 depending on their mouse clicks or something. I guess clicks would be skewed more toward 0 but you'd get pretty close to random.

Edit: Did have one thought re click-skew. If mouse-down toggles the user's bit rather than set's it to the mouse-down boolean state that would eliminate the skew.

well, first, you don't quite have brownian motion in your app - speed should not be a constant, but should vary according to the angle of impact (conservation of momentum, yah?). and changing colors would be cool. lot of fun things you could do with an app like this. care to post the source code so we can have a little alteration competition? :)

with respect to 'true' randomness... that's a mathematical abstraction (a limit function) like infinity or the 'true' value of pi. its only real value is in establishing norms where there are no other applicable norms. so, when a ship is sinking, women and children get in the lifeboat first (because that's the cultural norm) and any left-over men flip a coin (because randomness implies fairness in an otherwise undecidable situation). you might see that a coin's not fair if you tossed it a few million times, but you only get to toss it once, and that's as random as you need it to be.

totally agree with tw, lol. Posting the source would make a fun threat contest :)
Speaking of which, I was just building a qc based cocoa app the other day, that simulated a coin being flipped in the air, and it would tell (and show) you on which side it landed on. It's supposed to be totally random. It uses the "Math.floor(2*Math.random())" javascript function in a qc javascript patch to generate a "0" or "1", which is translated into a index value, which will determine wether tails or heads is displayed.. Im having some problems resetting the qcview object, but that's for a new threat in the dev forums.. Back to my point though.. anyone knows how the "Math.random()" actually generate a random number? I mean, it can't actually be random, can it ;)?

http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase...oitevineau.pdf

Good question... :)

I would agree with this, but it's very hard to fit a dice-rolling random-number generator in a laptop... :D

I don't think it's "true random", since measuring all the forces involved in the decaying substance could probably predict the outcome. However, whether or not it is even possible to measure the variables involved remains to be seen.

I think I was using a slightly different view of "true randomness" that you defined in your original post. I was using the definition that, given a sequence of items output by the random generator, they provide no information that will allow you to predict with any greater accuracy the next item in the sequence.

I've just realised that this is known as statistical randomness, not "true randomness".

So, back to your original question:

Being of a mathematical disposition, I am biased to believe that there is order in everything. Sadly, this also means that I do not believe in "true" non-determinism, consequences of which include no free will*.

* If our thought processes are fully deterministic, then the 'choices' we make are dependant on the current 'state' of our brains, our environment, etc.

This Wikipedia article should explain it a bit. Or this Java documentation page.

hahahahhahahahahaha best post EVER

When you talk about randomness, you must include probability of occurrence because randomness does have predictability when it's done frequently, this predictability is known as the probability distribution function p(y).

Even the seemingly random motion of molecules are governed by intermolecular van der wal forces of nature which gives rise to a distribution function.

Randomness in any case is itself a complex rule. Everything is a rule. The matter is, that human mind cannot recognize some of them

weeeeeellllll... I'm not sure quantum physics would agree. everything there is a probability function; there's nothing that's not truly random.

Flipping a "fair" coin is only random if its starting position is not known. If the starting position is known, the odds change from 50:50 to 51:49 (for or against, depending on which side is called), assuming the flipper is not attempting to cheat.

Yes, if the initial velocities and physical properties of the dice and objects they contact are known, then the results can be calculated.

There exist craps players who can manipulate (without cheating) their dice throwing well enough to give themselves a slight advantage over the house.

Until we can reconcile the very large with the very small, the only thing we can know with certainty is that we don't fully understand quantum physics (or perhaps relativity, or both). We can only predict on the quantum scale using probabilities, but that is not evidence that there is no deterministic rule dictating whether a particle will be observed here or there.

Well, what if the starting position is also random:rolleyes:..

But what are the odds, however minuscule, of the coin ending up standing on edge? And how would this be computed? Define the parameters of the landing surface, size and weight and thickness of the coin, and any other factors as you please. :confused:

The principle of true randomness has nothing to do with how hard it is to calculate something, because if it can be calculated, it is not random, no matter how difficult the calculation might be.

talk about the force exerted on the coin, that causes it to flip, the angle of the force, the coin's distance from the ground, the coin's mass (mass, distance from the ground and the gravitational force would make up the coin's potential energy), the density of the air around the coin (which could affect the coin's air resistance, and therefore the side it falls on), and there would probably be a whole lot more, lol :p

I don’t think that’s true.
If we flip a coin one hundred billion times, we can accurately calculate that the percentage of heads will be almost exactly 50%, and likewise the number of tails.

In fact, randomness demands that this calculation be accurate. ;)

The only factors that I can see influencing that are:

1) Non-random tossing methods
2) Coin markings (such as a significant convex decoration on one side) that significantly shift the coin’s centre of gravity

What the odds are that at least one of those tosses resulting in the coin standing on edge, however, I haven’t a clue.

Hahahahaha, man this reminds me of a lot of conversations I have had, but since this is a family forum I will leave it up to everyone's imagination...

Depending on what level of randomness you are looking at and observing I think depends on the definition.

For example, in programming RNG (random number generators) actually aren't technically random at all. Instead they are a string of presets in which the string is picked randomly by whatever algorithm the developer has made.

In human social behavior, we have extreme levels of randomness I think. The way we act, interact, react, socialize, etc I think as a whole can be seen as random depending on perspective. There aren't really any ways of predicting or understanding some human behaviors.

True randomness, I think can be found in the universe, like the big bang theory. Though true randomness is chaos, with no system of control. Other forms of randomization are those which do have some sort of system of control but still can randomize things.

However, we all can probably agree on if you study any one thing for a long enough time you will start to see patterns. Once you see those patterns you can start to hypothesize answers, which takes away the randomness. Even in nature we can study patterns and try to predict what is going to happen. Much like our weather we have, and how the meteorologists study the patterns to deduct what weather we are going to have. It is not an exact science by any means, but it does also take away the randomness we once had of not knowing the weather.

I think if you were able to sit around and watch a bunch of gases interact in space for 100s of millions of years you could probably deduct patterns and probably even start to take away from the randomness.

Did you hear about the blitzed Swede at a party who was being introduced to somebody? All he could stutter forth was:

“How, hi are you?”

.

Do Norwegians favor Swede jokes? :eek: Here in Nova Scotia, it would be a blitzed Newfoundlander. :)

The big problem with recreating "random" has always been the frequency range -- ideally, a random signal, for example, would have a flat spectrum from 0 to infinity (don't know how to type the symbol).

Somewhat random factoid: Years ago one of the best random signal generators (white noise generator for testing electronics) on the market relied on thermionic emission: electrons radiated in an electric field by a hot filament. By itself, thermionic emission is not "flat" being clipped both low and high, so this company used two tubes and subtracted the output of one from the other to get very low frequencies. The high end was still limited by the physics, but was high enough to be useful in the radio/tv spectrum.

Here in America it would probably be an Irishmen or Polish person

One thing I would say is always random is physical competition. When I was training martial arts on a regular basis my teachers were big on saying there is no set system to fighting and that fighting was completely chaotic. You can fight the same opponent 100 times and never once have the same exact fight.

I think the same can be applied to sports.

Well, I have a confession to make. This was a true story – but it wasn’t a Swede. It was an American. From which state or of which ethnic background I do not know....

Someone from Marin County? A Texan in detox? An Arkansan who did not inhale? You’ve got me there. :D

Very interesting comparison. It is said that when two players sit down to play a game of GO, the number of possible games far exceeds the number of atoms in the universe.

actually, in this era it would be a blitzed liberal. but I'm not sure the liberals would complain. :D

I don't think that's quite the way QM works. it's not that there's some particle that might be here or might be there or might not; supposedly all you have is a wave function. to bastardize an old parable, it's like saying you have a 20% chance of grabbing the elephant's trunk, a 30% chance of grabbing its leg, a 10% chance of grabbing his tail... when in reality the elephant isn't actually there at all, we just think it's there because we're looking for an elephant.

damn, I need a beer.

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I am not as thunk as some drinkle peep I am!

It doesn't matter if it's random or not, so long as the person making the call knows its orientation. It could always be heads up, or it could always be heads down, or it could be completely random. All that matters is what is known.

Okay, let's modify the experiment. We're only interested in the tosses that do not land on edge. :rolleyes:

The rest shouldn't matter, provided it is a "fair" coin (defined as a coin that will land heads or tails with equal probability if no additional information is given to observers (and flippers).

You're on the right track. It's the physics involved in the flip that allow someone to make the correct call 51% of the time. You're looking too deep though.

The scientists that did the studying had to use high speed photography to observe a boatload of flips before they understood what was going on.

Your explanation is probably more accurate than mine. I didn't much care for my QM class. Nonetheless, I maintain my assertion that just because we can only observe it as random or probabilistic is not evidence that there is not an underlying order that we don't yet understand.

In fact, chaotic behavior is sometimes mistaken as random.

Can you elaborate a bit on this? I see chaos as random.

I think that chaotic behavior would be something like what you get when you break a rack in billiards. The balls behave chaotically, but they are governed by the rules of physics and their actions could be predicted if you accurately measured all the factors.

Chaotic events are those that, as CWT points out, are predictable but horrendously sensitive to their initial conditions. The weather is probably the best example which is what makes long-term conditions specific to a location so unpredictable -- the smallest variation upstream can change them completely.

deterministic chaotic systems are systems that have simple and well defined rules, but where small changes magnify rapidly to produce large deviations over time. the result is that prediction of end-states becomes highly dependent on the degree of accuracy of your measurement of the initial state. in the pool table example, a variation of a fraction of a degree in the initial angle of the cue ball (even ignoring variations in force and spin), can produce very large deviations in the final arrangement of the table, because deviations in the initial angle of impact tend to magnify over subsequent impacts. the laws of inertia are simple, but sensitive. this isn't random in the sense of random that you're looking for - it's random in the statistical sense of 'unpredictable'. literally, you can not ever predict the outcome of a pool shot unless you can measure the initial pool-cue/cue-ball contact with an infinite degree of precision.

but let's boil this down to the real debate here, which is spiritual in nature. is the universe clockwork mechanics (in which case we are mere clockwork dolls winding our inevitable way down entropic paths), or is there some force outside the deterministic mechanisms of the universe (doesn't matter whether you call it randomness or a soul) that saves our existence from being pre-ordained?

nor is it evidence that there is an underlying order.

The fringes of random occurrences
 

No, no. Instead, let’s say we’re only interested in the coin tosses that do land on edge. Or in freakishly large waves at sea (long considered a myth or a sailors’ exaggeration, until satellite photographs revealed that they were more common than once thought). Or two bullets from opposing sides colliding in mid-air (which they actually did during one Civil War battle).

I think that sort of fringe manifestation of randomness is far more interesting.

Ok, how do we go about predicting the odds?

True. I didn't claim it was. I just pointed out that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Personally, I believe a Unified Field Theory will eventually be found, eliminating probability functions from advanced study of particle behavior, even if they are still used for the same reasons that Newton's equations are still used despite Relativity Theory giving more accurate results.

faith is a good thing. :) but it's worth questioning what leverage you get from this particular article of faith... why would you rather have a deterministic world than a non-deterministic one?

Who says that a unified theory means that the universe is deterministic? Couldn't a unified theory help describe how a soul controls the matter it's contained in, or even what a soul is, without requiring the soul to be pure mechanism?

I'm guessing you don't play much pool (not an attack, just an observation). The break shot is far better understood than you might think. Very good players can get pretty consistent spreads, break after break. It's not uncommon to see shortstops and pros sink the same ball (by position in the rack, not necessarily the same number) into the same pocket a substantial proportion, albeit not necessarily the majority of the time, especially in nine-ball, where sinking the nine on the break wins the game. Heck, even I can get the eight ball within a few inches of the same side pocket a decent percentage of the time (when I'm trying; since it doesn't win the game I don't typically try unless I'm just messing around) on a tight eight ball rack, and I'm nowhere near shortstop or pro level.

I'm not saying the balls always end up in the exact same positions every time, but the positioning is consistent enough to not be considered random or chaotic. OTOH, when bangers (as opposed to players) play, almost every shot could be considered chaotic.

A common break in 14.1 results in all the balls returning to their original positions (or very near) in the rack. (Note that 14.1 players typically break very softly, and are concerned with the end location of every single ball.)

For non-break shots made by top players, rarely will any ball end up more than a few inches from where they intended/anticipated.

The pool table is the single best math and classical physics lab I've ever come across, for students from kindergarten to grad school. The physics of the game are well understood by those who have taken the effort to learn them. There are indeed a lot of variables involved, but better players are able to keep most of them static with consistent practice and play.

The underlying property of a Unified Field Theory (aka Theory Of Everything) is that it can be used to predict or explain anything and everything, including its own discovery.

I think the chances are pretty low that UFT (or TOE) is discovered within my lifetime. But I think the chances are pretty high that it will eventually be discovered. (I also believe that someday there will exist a human culture that understands how to divide by zero, but I don't anticipate ever acquiring that understanding myself.)

It's not a matter of preferring a deterministic world over a non-deterministic world. I simply believe that the universe is deterministic, even if we don't fully understand it.

if the theory describes what the soul is, then the soul is deterministic; if the theory doesn't, the the theory is useless, because its outcomes are predicated on something it can't define or control.

please notice that the skill here involves good control over the cue (reducing variations in the initial state) and a soft touch (which minimizes the time that chaotic effects have to manifest themselves). and even with those qualities, there is visible deviation from shot to shot. now imagine a table without pockets, and without friction, so that the system was ongoing - even with the best players, the table would be complete chaos after a minute or so.

and I used to win money at pool. ;)

I have to say, this is something (one of several things) that annoys me about science. somehow we've gotten it into our heads that we can make evaluative statements about the world without paying any attention to the evaluations we've made, because we've couched it in scientific terms. it's like that killer from "No Country for Old Men" who keeps going on about how everything in the universe has led up to that one moment when a coin gets flipped to determine whether or not he kills someone.

I don't know whether the world is ultimately deterministic or not, but I am pretty darned sure we have to act as though it isn't.

No! I don't wanna! Do you realize how boring the game would be under those conditions? :eek: :D

Me too. Of course I ended up spending it all (and a lot more :rolleyes:) on custom cues. I found out the hard way that they're a lot like Lay's potato chips. You can't have just one. :D I wish I had room for a table these days. There are several very close to my apartment, but they are of dismal quality, poorly maintained, and placed too close to one another. I had to (temporarily) stop playing to avoid picking up bad habits compensating for lousy equipment.

Hmmm … I don't believe I've seen that one.

I agree completely.

What if the theory describes the soul as an outside force? One that comes from a fourth, fifth, or other dimension? Where is it written that the same laws of physics that we observe in our three dimensions must be present in the other dimension(s)? Isn't it possible that randomness and the existence of free will might not be intertwined in another dimension whose laws are different from ours?

I don't think that would help, because I'm not sure it makes sense. a simplistic example: let's say we're trying to predict what's going to happen in a room, and what happens is determined by our friend Ben flicking one of five different switches. if we have a theory that can determine precisely which switch Ben will flick (even if that theory uses all sorts of weird and esoteric dimensions) then Ben's behavior is completely deterministic, because it is completely contained within our theory. you can't write a theory that explicitly refers to things it can't account for. that would be like saying that the equation for a line is 'y=mx+b+S' where S is unknown; fine where S is a constant, not so good where S is 'x^2'.

I'm not suggesting that you can have a theory describing what switch Ben will flick. I'm suggesting that you might have a theory describing how Ben is able to flip a switch in his room and have an effect in your room. Your room is completely deterministic, with predetermined responses to the switches Ben flips, but Ben's room may not be! It might be completely random, or Ben might have free will.

;)

cool. in which case you have a theory that tells you absolutely nothing. :) well, that's not quite fair... you have a theory of the form "once I know A, I can determine B", but since you can't ever know A, what can you do with it?

Well, since A is the mind's will, you can decide what it is that you want to accomplish, and bring that about.

I'm just offering hope that we can have a unified theory of everything and free will as well!

This was super fun to read myself talk about determinism more than a year ago before I had any determinism vocabulary or physics background. I cant believe determinism was spinning in my head like that before I knew how to describe it.

pro-determinism)Everything (Including human actions) is a function of antecedent states of matter.
anti-determinism)Everything (Including human actions) is completely random.

the truth is, determinism or pure stochasticity.. both leave a picture of reality in which humans have no control of their actions.

Name a vegetable :D

Wow... that is a really great conclusion. though I don't hear it from people very often.

this is great I can understand what everyone is talking about now.
University Physics departments are great for this.

Has anyone seen the Dilbert cartoon where an accounting troll shows him their random number generator? It's a troll who keeps saying "Nine, nine, nine ...".
Dilbert asks if it's really random. The troll concedes that, with random numbers, you can never be sure.

Gödel, consciousness and the Unified Field Theorem
 

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I don’t see why that follows. I’m not a physicist, but I understand that a Unified Field Theory would be a coherent understanding of the structure of things. That does not in any way imply that it can "predict everything".

Perhaps Kurt Gödel’s Completeness Theorems have some relevance here...

I find it difficult to imagine that a Unified Field Theory can explain consciousness. But perhaps you see consciousness as an unproven hypothesis? :cool:

-- ArcticStones


PS. Perhaps determinism can only apply to systems without conscious elements? In other words, an individual can be free only to the extent he/she is conscious. To not be aware is to be reduced to a sleepwalker, whose path and behaviour is determined uncontrolled factors.
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What I always find interesting about determinism discussions is the way the entire issue has morphed into a physics question when in fact (historically and philosophically) it's a spiritual question. The problem of determinism starts in middle-ages Christian philosophy, when theosophists had to try and rationalize God's (assumed) perfect omniscience against man's (assumed) perfect free will - i.e., how can God be all-knowing when humans can make free (unknowable) choices. in fact, almost every other culture and faith has taken the reasonable and pragmatic approach to the issue, thinking that people make conscious choices bounded by contextual circumstances. This is neither fully deterministic (though it is constrained by deterministic forces) nor stochastic (since it is always assumed that people make their choices through some form of moral apperception, not through random processes).

Honestly, I think this whole realm of philosophy is guilt-driven: the idea that we humans can make bad, immoral decisions triggers guilt-anger in nearly everyone, because it implies that we should put more effort into and take more care with the decisions we do make. it's much easier (mentally) to believe that stuff just happens and we don't have any control over it. that way (in one of the more peculiar and common twists of human logic) we all can feel free to choose to do what we want to do - regardless of consequences - because we don't really have any choice about what we choose to do, so we might as well do what we want to do because it's what we were going to do regardless.

and yes, tat will make your head explode if you think about it too much.

Alternatively, perhaps an individual's claim not to be a sleepwalker is a phenomenon deterministically created by pre-existent states of matter?

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In some cases, undoubtedly. Isn’t that what “religion as mood making” is all about?

Ah, yes. Life is but a question of mind and matter...
Someone once phrased this as: “You don’t matter and I don’t mind.” ;)
.

Snarkier the other way round.

Or:
What's matter? Never mind.
What's mind? No matter.

Not that I believe this; I regard 'mind' as an emergent state of brain activity, and as such, deterministic. It has been demonstrated that the electrical phenomena leading to bodily movements commence before the conscious acts of volition that the owner of said body imagines launches the show. This suggests a system in which the movement and the act of volition are parallel effects of a common antecedent, not effect and cause.

I favor this viewpoint except for its assumption that people actually think about what they do. It's been my long experience that a huge swath of humanity avoids thinking (or are too emotional/dumb/drunk/drugged/etc. to think clearly) and their actions are therefore somewhat semi-random.

really, the word 'random' doesn't fit right in this discussion. people who are too emotional/dumb/drunk/drugged/etc are actually far easier to predict than people who aren't (making them - statistically speaking - far less random), but people who think soberly and clearly are not by any means random (despite the fact that they are not statistically easy to predict). The problem here is not randomness, which would by definition be neither good nor bad in the long run, but irrationality, which is as a rule harmful to the person in question or to others. and irrationality is often very highly structured. in sort:

• irrational people react, and their reactions are consistent and insensitive to context. as they old saw goes, they keep doing the same thing expecting to get a different result.
• rational people respond, then their responses vary widely according to what's appropriate in the situation. to reverse the above quip, they keep doing different things expecting to get the same result.

I think it was J Krishnamurti (though he is by no means the only spiritualist to say this) who used to go on about the insanity of the conventional mind: that it takes an experience from the past, imposes it as the outcome of any similar future situation, and then ties itself in knots in the present trying to avoid what it has already decided can't be avoided.

I wish we had those forums were you could thumb up a comment.

@tw; I agree that rational/irrational is a much better descriptor than deterministic/random.