Why argue so hard? I''m going to take 3 numbers and if somebody can tell me what those will be, I''ll admit there''s no true randomness. But otherwise...
(and don''t start talking about my brain cells, childhood, etc.)
What exactly does this code mean?
Yeah. You just found the reason why we *can* use pseudo-random numbers: a normal individual just doesn''t have enough information about what these numbers would be. If one could read your brain, he *could* determine the numbers. If one knew the algorithm for making pseudo-random numbers in a PC, _and_ could calculate it quickly enough, he *could* tell what the next random number will be.
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"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." (Albert Einstein)
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ZE - radioactive decay is completely random as far as physics today can determine. The reason why it is random, is that is it is quantum process and Quantum Mechanics itself is fundamentally a probablistic theory.
You can say radioactive decay isn''t random if you wish, but in doing so, you are also denying QM, and placing yourself against all the modern evidence science has managed to gather in the last 70 or so years since Quantum Mechanics was theorized. You are no better than those people who go around claiming the Earth is flat, and deny everything modern science has proved.
In Quantum Mechanics, there are truly random variables. If you haven''t taken QM, I can understand why you might want to say everything is deterministic, especially since QM is so counterintuitive to common sense. Lots of students have big problems with this intuitive leap, since it leads to odd things like the double-slit experiment and such. QM is one of the biggest successes of modern physics in the 20th century. It has been tested to very high accuracies, it has predicted many phenomena that were subsequently discovered, and there is no experiment that has ever been done that has proved it wrong.
There are several variations of QM, where things aren''t random, but as I said, such theories have the status of philosophical debates right now in the physics community because they can''t be proved or disproved by experiment.
Btw, I have a M.Sc. in Physics, where I specialized in high energy physics - so I have a very strong QM and GR background.
You can say radioactive decay isn''t random if you wish, but in doing so, you are also denying QM, and placing yourself against all the modern evidence science has managed to gather in the last 70 or so years since Quantum Mechanics was theorized. You are no better than those people who go around claiming the Earth is flat, and deny everything modern science has proved.
In Quantum Mechanics, there are truly random variables. If you haven''t taken QM, I can understand why you might want to say everything is deterministic, especially since QM is so counterintuitive to common sense. Lots of students have big problems with this intuitive leap, since it leads to odd things like the double-slit experiment and such. QM is one of the biggest successes of modern physics in the 20th century. It has been tested to very high accuracies, it has predicted many phenomena that were subsequently discovered, and there is no experiment that has ever been done that has proved it wrong.
There are several variations of QM, where things aren''t random, but as I said, such theories have the status of philosophical debates right now in the physics community because they can''t be proved or disproved by experiment.
Btw, I have a M.Sc. in Physics, where I specialized in high energy physics - so I have a very strong QM and GR background.
WARNING-long post
I think that unpredictable and random go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing. To me, random is just something that cannot be predicted in the present conditions and/or viewpoint . Sure, in a completely controlled and monitored scientific experiment, you might be able to predict, say a nanosecond into the future, by calculating the positions of all the molecules in the area, their momentums, etc. (Also, chaos theory makes this difficult, there is so much matter in the universe that every particle could be minutely effected by something light years away)
Anyway, take the game of yahtzee as an example of randomness. When you are about to roll the dice, and you put your hand over the top of the cup, and shake in a "pseudo-random" pattern (if our brains are really pseudo random, the pattern that our arm makes should be able to be predicted), and drop the dice, there are so many factors that none in the room playing the game would be able to calculate what the roll would be. Also, how long do think it would be before the exact same game would be played again (same rolls, same order, same points choices, etc) and would it be possible for any of the players to predict it? I think not. Therefore when someone wins, it would have been possible to tell who would have won, from the laws of nature, but to the players, it is completely random, because they cannot tell what will happen from their current viewpoint and conditions. However, given the amount of time necessary and the amount of data necessary, it would be possible to take a "snapshot" of the universe at the start of the game and recreate it through the span of the game in enough detail to predict who won, therefore "predictable", yet to the players, random.
Also, I believe we will never be able to perfectly predict anything, because 1.) chaos theory 2.) difficulty of complex physical concepts in procedural terms (relativity, radioactive decay) and 3.) I believe that to completely simulate the universe, we would need a computer larger the universe itself in order to store the data for every factor and also compute it, or else we will always lose detail and our calculations will become inaccurate.
So as long as the factors are sufficiently pseudorandom, does it really matter if they are truly random. Under what circumstances would it be necessary or practical to generate a completely random number?
500 error
I think that unpredictable and random go hand in hand, but they are not the same thing. To me, random is just something that cannot be predicted in the present conditions and/or viewpoint . Sure, in a completely controlled and monitored scientific experiment, you might be able to predict, say a nanosecond into the future, by calculating the positions of all the molecules in the area, their momentums, etc. (Also, chaos theory makes this difficult, there is so much matter in the universe that every particle could be minutely effected by something light years away)
Anyway, take the game of yahtzee as an example of randomness. When you are about to roll the dice, and you put your hand over the top of the cup, and shake in a "pseudo-random" pattern (if our brains are really pseudo random, the pattern that our arm makes should be able to be predicted), and drop the dice, there are so many factors that none in the room playing the game would be able to calculate what the roll would be. Also, how long do think it would be before the exact same game would be played again (same rolls, same order, same points choices, etc) and would it be possible for any of the players to predict it? I think not. Therefore when someone wins, it would have been possible to tell who would have won, from the laws of nature, but to the players, it is completely random, because they cannot tell what will happen from their current viewpoint and conditions. However, given the amount of time necessary and the amount of data necessary, it would be possible to take a "snapshot" of the universe at the start of the game and recreate it through the span of the game in enough detail to predict who won, therefore "predictable", yet to the players, random.
Also, I believe we will never be able to perfectly predict anything, because 1.) chaos theory 2.) difficulty of complex physical concepts in procedural terms (relativity, radioactive decay) and 3.) I believe that to completely simulate the universe, we would need a computer larger the universe itself in order to store the data for every factor and also compute it, or else we will always lose detail and our calculations will become inaccurate.
So as long as the factors are sufficiently pseudorandom, does it really matter if they are truly random. Under what circumstances would it be necessary or practical to generate a completely random number?
500 error
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