True Randomness?, Is anything ever truely random? Options

[maximus242]

Okay I am putting forth the question can anything ever be truely random? I hope most of you already know that all casino games are not perfectly random and can be predicted. What else appears to be random but fails to be truely random? Computer random algorithms base themselves off of time or else they would continually repeat but we know time is not random, it follows a strict code, so is anything ever really random or just appear to be so?

[lucid_dream]

anything that appears random is really pseudorandom

[maximus242]

hmm intresting, I was getting the same idea, but I wonder what sort of effects this idea creates. Because if nothing is random and everything can be predicted then doesnt that mean "fate" should exist?

[OnlyNow]

Can you say, "determinism"?

[maximus242]

Detequinism Dammit! no I cant! LOL

[OnlyNow]

Maybe quantum mechanics renders something random.

[OnlyNow]

Detequinism Dammit! no I cant! LOL

LOL, maxi. Neither can I.

[maximus242]

hmm thats an intresting concept, im not sure if it would work to make something random though.

[rhymer]

The one thing I have come across that seems to be pretty random is the logic of women.
The only predictable thing about them is the incidence of their unpredictability.

[OnlyNow]

The one thing I have come across that seems to be pretty random is the logic of women.
The only predictable thing about them is the incidence of their unpredictability.

I'm so relieved--you were the one man on this forum I feared might have figured us out.

[maximus242]

Well what im wondering here is that if it is true that no randomness exists, technically we are simply fufilling a giant mathematical equation. If this is so then prehaps things are therefore prediactable? one would simply need to solve and equation ahead of time to figure out the outcome..

[rhymer]

Whilst possible future events can be predicted, I suspect that the prediction of when they will occur is the difficult bit. That is where randomness comes in.

[Hey Hey]

surely time travel will enable everything to be predictable. so we should get on with it as I desperately need to win the lottery! come on you physicists!!

[HiddenVariable]

"Predictability" is different from determinism. If physical reality is deterministic, then our own bodies with the multitude of cells are as well. And so are computers, the internet, etc. But - to predict something, a human or a computer must do a calculation in this case. This type of calculation might not be possible because of our limitations ...

[maximus242]

Scientists are already working on predicting neural equations in humans. They have a prize for whoever does it first..

[Casey]

Scientists are already working on predicting neural equations in humans. They have a prize for whoever does it first..

That begs the question: are some things best left undiscovered? Can ignorance be bliss?

Imagine the potential for abuse of that sort of technology. Have you seen the movie Minority Report?

[maximus242]

Ignorance is bliss but Understanding is enlightenment.

I understand what you are saying, it may very well be a tragedy if they can predict neural patterns - but if it is not neural patterns today then it will be predicting the future of the world tommorow. Either way it questions one thing - free will.

Think of the mouse who eats his cheese, he does not contemplate the realitive structure of the object nor question its relation to himself and the rest of the universe. Nor does he contemplate the possibility of the cheese being a mental illusion and therefore non existant or at least something other than the cheese which he is so fond of...

He thinks only of the cheese and how yummy it tastes.

The mouses ignorance is bliss, the mouse is not bothered by such worries or contemplations, he is happy just having his cheese.

It is a question of security over freedom - Security is ignorance, you will be happy, secure and blissful, even if you are ignorant. Freedom is understanding, you will be given many things which you may or may not want to know, but they will all heighten your understanding of yourself and the world you know. Whether or not that leads you to a freedom unknown to those with security or a miserable existance - is up to you.

Freedom is hard to achieve, security is easy. Security may make you happy, freedom will open up a world of possibilities beyond what those with security know.

You must be willing to loose everything before you can gain anything.

[Casey]

You must be willing to lose everything before you can gain anything.

Very well said...

[Flex]

Well what im wondering here is that if it is true that no randomness exists, technically we are simply fufilling a giant mathematical equation. If this is so then prehaps things are therefore prediactable? one would simply need to solve and equation ahead of time to figure out the outcome..

I totaly believe that anything and everything could be predicted if all variables could be taken into account. There are just so many variables out there though for any given event that it seems to be impossible.

[Casey]

I totaly believe that anything and everything could be predicted if all variables could be taken into account. There are just so many variables out there though for any given event that it seems to be impossible.

I agree, there are too many variables to be measured.

Of course, to believe that every vector could be measured would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal as well.

It may be possible on a theoretical level, but I don't think it will ever be applicable to our lives.

[lucid_dream]

even if all variables were known, there's always chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics to contend with, with the result being that knowing the state of a system (i.e., the values of its variables at arbitrarily high, but not infinite, precision) does not imply being able to compute the dynamics or future states of the system.

[HiddenVariable]

It is interesting to see everyone touching on the subject of uncertainty with respect to exact physical predictions in a philosophical manner. Flex said that there are too many variables to take into account, which is congruent to what lucid_dreams has to say about the infeasible computability of chaotic/dynamic systems, especially those such as our own reality. Also, lucid_dreams, I would like to point out that even nonlinear dynamics can give rise to infeasible computability. Given big enough matrices and coefficients then even linear algebra can't reduce the problem for a plausible approach.

But I'd like to touch on another thought, as I hinted to with my previous post. Not only would numerically or qualitatively analyzing different states of systems within reality be out of reach, but that it is also extremely noteworthy that the very things that would be analyzing the systems of reality would be systems and parts of systems within reality as well.

This relates to Heisenberg's uncertainty principal that Casey was talking about. This principal states that the the product of the uncertainties of the measurements of the position and momentum of a single particle must be greater than a constant (about 0.52728).

For those who are more mathematically inclined, see the Wikipedia articles on the uncertainty principle and Planck's constant.

This principal tells how observing an object affects the object itself directly. But when theorizing about the predictability of systems in general, think about how the act of observing a system or a part of a system changes you, the observer, and you are also a system. It's great recursive thinking for you.

From Wikipedia: "The word random is used to express lack of purpose, cause, order, or predictability in non-scientific parlance."

The notion of randomness leads one into questioning the real definitions of causation and relation. Because if you don't reduce the philosophical problem to those ideas, then you are stuck at the idea of arbitrariness, which doesn't follow the mathematically intuitive properties of what we may think of as random. (Like probability)

[Casey]

You know, Flex/Lucid's argument may be more valid than the Uncertainty Principal argument though.

Heisenberg said we cannot measure the position and momentum at the same time. Well, that may be true, but that wouldn't necessarily mean we couldn't infer it. Much like our observations of black holes, we may not be able to see/measure something, but we can still perform calculations by observing neighboring bodies.

I wonder if we'll be able to apply the same tactics to the quantum world sometime. If we knew everything we could, could we calculate that which we didn't know? It wouldn't violate the principal.

This could potentially take care of the measurement problem as well.

Besides, quantum mechanics is incomplete anyway. Maybe it is truely random, and maybe it's not. I think it would be as difficult (or possibly more difficult) to measure all vectors.

On a side note:
Hidden, you're obviously a mathematics buff, but that's about all we know about you. I must admit, you've piqued my curiosity. I believe an introduction thread is in order. (http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showforum=2)

Does anyone else agree?

[Enki]

Okay I am putting forth the question can anything ever be truely random? I hope most of you already know that all casino games are not perfectly random and can be predicted. What else appears to be random but fails to be truely random? Computer random algorithms base themselves off of time or else they would continually repeat but we know time is not random, it follows a strict code, so is anything ever really random or just appear to be so?

Dogma # 1: Any Noise has source even Telegraph one.

Dogma # 2: Whirl of wings of a single butterfly in a long run can change the course of events.

You think time cannot fluctuate?

Time can be defined as a sequence of events, one happening after another. Some events are possibly happening at the same time. But if time fluctuates (or other important parameter, it does not matter), then ... Hehe.

Then the sequence of some events can be questioned. So we will have cause and effect problem e.g. on atomic level. Right?

So God rules the world via fluctuations.

[Enki]

It is interesting to see everyone touching on the subject of uncertainty with respect to exact physical predictions in a philosophical manner. Flex said that there are too many variables to take into account, which is congruent to what lucid_dreams has to say about the infeasible computability of chaotic/dynamic systems, especially those such as our own reality. Also, lucid_dreams, I would like to point out that even nonlinear dynamics can give rise to infeasible computability. Given big enough matrices and coefficients then even linear algebra can't reduce the problem for a plausible approach.

Very familiar words you know, especially "congruent". Have you noted that?

Brain patterning. Spark, creates new spark etc. Dynamic/chaotic fluctuations.

[Casey]

Time can be defined as a sequence of events, one happening after another. Some events are possibly happening at the same time. But if time fluctuates (or other important parameter, it does not matter), then ... Hehe.

So, you're suggesting that you are a separate Enki in every instantaneous fragment of time?
I suppose that would explain a bit about your randomness

[HiddenVariable]

You know, Flex/Lucid's argument may be more valid than the Uncertainty Principal argument though.

Heisenberg said we cannot measure the position and momentum at the same time. Well, that may be true, but that wouldn't necessarily mean we couldn't infer it. Much like our observations of black holes, we may not be able to see/measure something, but we can still perform calculations by observing neighboring bodies.

I wonder if we'll be able to apply the same tactics to the quantum world sometime. If we knew everything we could, could we calculate that which we didn't know? It wouldn't violate the principal.

This could potentially take care of the measurement problem as well.

Besides, quantum mechanics is incomplete anyway. Maybe it is truely random, and maybe it's not. I think it would be as difficult (or possibly more difficult) to measure all vectors.

On a side note:
Hidden, you're obviously a mathematics buff, but that's about all we know about you. I must admit, you've piqued my curiosity. I believe an introduction thread is in order. (http://brainmeta.com/forum/index.php?showforum=2)

Does anyone else agree?

So, you're saying that even with the uncertainty of individual pieces of information about physical properties, it may be possible to solve a grand system of equations? A light mathematical analogy:

You know x = y + 1 and x = y * y, therefore you can solve the system of equations as
x = (3+√5)/2 and y = (1+√5)/2, or
x = (3-√5)/2 and y = (1-√5)/2
This is a contrived example, but you get the point.

You see, even if we "knew everything we could" know, it may not be enough to guarantee a unique solution, or even any solution seeing how we don't even know the types of equations to work with initially; all of physical science's equations are contrived to match with observation data and sometimes accompanied by a theory to explain or understand these equations. And to add on to this, if such equations in question involve randomized quantities, then we will not be able to know all current information about physical reality, nor would we be able to predict all future information of an instant in time even if we were somehow given all information about our current instant.

So you see, it may not be Heisenburg's uncertainty principal working here, but there seems to be a definitive brick wall when it comes to omnignosis [I made that word up for entertainment]. Besides, what's to say that there even exists our intuitive notions of more "mechanical" logical heuristics for how reality works. There's no ironclad "proof" that the earth will continue orbiting the sun tomorrow, what's to say it doesn't just go off on it's own for no reason?

Very familiar words you know, especially "congruent". Have you noted that?

Brain patterning. Spark, creates new spark etc. Dynamic/chaotic fluctuations.

Ugh, it seems I'm not as original of a person as I had gathered.

[Hey Hey]

From Wikipedia: "The word random is used to express lack of purpose, cause, order, or predictability in non-scientific parlance."

The notion of randomness leads one into questioning the real definitions of causation and relation. Because if you don't reduce the philosophical problem to those ideas, then you are stuck at the idea of arbitrariness, which doesn't follow the mathematically intuitive properties of what we may think of as random. (Like probability)

Random thoughts make for enlightenment ....

[Enki]

Time can be defined as a sequence of events, one happening after another. Some events are possibly happening at the same time. But if time fluctuates (or other important parameter, it does not matter), then ... Hehe.

So, you're suggesting that you are a separate Enki in every instantaneous fragment of time?
I suppose that would explain a bit about your randomness

Figaro here, Figaro there.

[Casey]

So you see, it may not be Heisenburg's uncertainty principal working here, but there seems to be a definitive brick wall when it comes to omnignosis [I made that word up for entertainment]. Besides, what's to say that there even exists our intuitive notions of more "mechanical" logical heuristics for how reality works. There's no ironclad "proof" that the earth will continue orbiting the sun tomorrow, what's to say it doesn't just go off on it's own for no reason?

You realize that you just used a formal logical fallacy as an argument, correct? (Appeal to probability)

I still agree with you, it's highly unlikely (but not necessarily impossible) that we could simultaneously measure/infer all needed vectors in a closed system. However, I do think that it's nearly impossible to measure all needed components in the universe.

Figaro here, Figaro there.

Enki, you're a riot. You know that right?