Does True Randomness Actually Exist?

cheese

Actually lots of people do that every day. Every professional who deals with randomness, which is a heck of a lot of people.

and what do they discover ?

You say that you approve of my project of freeing my mind from preconceived opinions - and
indeed no-one could find fault with it. But you would have preferred me to carry it out by saying
something ‘simply and briefly’ - i.e. in a perfunctory fashion. Is it really so easy to free ourselves
from all the errors we have soaked up since our infancy? Is it possible to be too careful in carrying
out a project that everyone agrees should be pursued? Presumably you meant only to point out
that most people, although verbally admitting that we should escape from preconceived opinions,
never actually do so because they don’t üput any effort into it and don’t ücount as a preconceived
opinion anything that they have once accepted as true. You make a fine job of acting the part of
such people here, omitting none of the points that they might raise, and saying nothing that
sounds like philosophy. For when you say that there’s no need to imagine that God is a deceiver
or that we are dreaming and so on, a philosopher would have thought he should supply a reason
why these matters shouldn’t be called into doubt; and if he had no such reason - and in fact none
exists - he wouldn’t have made the remark in the first place. Nor would a philosopher have added
that in this context it would be sufficient to ‘point to the darkness of the human mind or the
weakness of our nature’. We aren’t helped to correct our errors when we are told that we make
mistakes because our mind is in darkness or our nature is weak - this is like saying that we make
mistakes because we are apt to go wrong! It is obviously more helpful to focus as I did on all the
circumstances where we may go wrong, to prevent our rashly giving assent in such cases. Again,
a philosopher wouldn’t have said that ‘treating everything as false seems more like acquiring a
new prejudice than relinquishing an old one’; or at least he would have first tried to prove that
regarding everything as false might create a risk of some deception - ·because if it doesn’t do that
it shouldn’t count as a ‘prejudice’·. You don’t do that. . . . A philosopher wouldn’t be surprised at
such suppositions of falsity, any more than he would be surprised if we tried to straighten out a
curved stick by bending it in the opposite direction. ·Of course the proposition that everything I
have hitherto believed is false is itself false; but· a philosopher would know that such assumptions
of falsehoods often contribute to bringing the truth to light, for example when astronomers
imagine the equator, the zodiac, or other circles in the sky, or when geometers add new lines to
given figures. Philosophers frequently do the same. Someone who calls this ‘resorting to artifice,
sleight of hand and circumlocution’ and says it is unworthy of ‘philosophical openness and the
love of truth’ merely reveals himself as wanting to indulge in rhetorical display rather than being
philosophically open and wanting to give reasons.
[Gassendi published a book containing his Objections to the Meditations and his answers to Descartes’s Replies.
Descartes didn’t think the new material was worth answering; but his friend Clerselier asked some of his friends to
read Gassendi’s book and select points that they thought Descartes should attend to. Descartes replied to those, in
French, in a letter to Clerselier, doing this ‘more in recognition of the work your friends have put in than through
any need to defend myself’. These replies concern the first three Meditations; the points Clerselier’s friends raise
about Meditations 4-6 have already been answered, Descartes says. Here is what he wrote in answer to the points
concerning the first Meditation:]
Your friends note three criticisms made against the first Meditation.
 In wanting us to give up every kind of preconceived opinion, they say, I am asking for
something impossible. This reflects Gassendi’s failure to understand that the term ‘preconceived
opinion’ applies not to all the notions in our mind (I admit we can’t get rid of all those) but only
to all the present opinions that are residues of previous judgments that we have made. And
because, as I have explained in the appropriate place, it is a voluntary matter whether we judge or
not, this is obviously something that is in our power. For, after all, all that’s needed to rid
ourselves of every kind of preconceived opinion is a policy of not affirming or denying anything
that we have previously affirmed or denied until we have examined it afresh, though still retaining
all the same notions in our memory. I did say that there was some difficulty in expelling from our
belief system everything we have previously accepted; partly because üwe can’t decide to doubt
until we have some reason for doubting (which is why in my first Meditation I presented the
principal reasons for doubt), and partly because üno matter how strongly we have resolved not to
assert or deny anything, we easily forget this unless we have strongly impressed it on our memory
(which is why I suggested that we should think about it very carefully).
 In thinking we have given up our preconceived opinions, they say, we are in fact
adopting other even more harmful preconceptions. This rests on an obviously false assumption. I
did say that we should push ourselves to the point of denying the things we had previously
affirmed too confidently, but I explicitly stipulated that we should do this only at times when our
attention was occupied in looking for something more certain than anything that we could deny in
this way. And obviously during those times one couldn’t possibly adopt any preconceptions that
might be harmful.
 They say that the method of universal doubt that I have proposed can’t help us to
discover any truths.This is mere carping. It’s true that doubt doesn’t on its own suffice to
establish any truth, but doubt is nevertheless useful in preparing the mind for the establishing of
truths later on; and that is all I used it for.

You say a great deal here to give the appearance of contradicting me, but in fact you don’t
contradict me at all, because you reach exactly the same conclusion as I do. But your discussion
includes many assertions that I strongly disagree with. You say that the axiom ‘There is nothing in
the effect that didn’t previously exist in the cause’ should be taken to refer to material rather than
efficient causes; but it’s obviously unintelligible that perfection of form should ever pre-exist in a
material cause; it can do so only in an efficient cause. [There is a note on page 6 about these different
kinds of cause. An example of what Descartes is getting at here: If we want to explain the inscription on a coin (its
‘form’), we must look at the die that stamped the coin out of the silver plate (the coin’s ‘efficient cause’); we
couldn’t explain it by investigating the nature of silver (the coin’s ‘material cause’.] Nor do I agree that the
intrinsic reality of an idea is a substance, and so on.

I suppose this question boils down to if you believe the universe is predetermined. If the universe is predetermined then randomness does not exist. What seems random is just a predetermined sequence playing. On the flip side if the universe is not predetermined then there is room for true randomness. While most seemingly random events in our reality are not truly random due to outside influence some mechanics of reality such as quantum fluctuations are truly random.

Heliocentric theory(s) is as random as it gets !

the first sundials came out abt 1500 bc. they say abt 300 bc is when s/o started saying that the earth was round. applying some finger-toe arithmetic ? ...and we find that sundials worked just fine w/a assumed flat earth.

and so did waterclocks. they came out abt 1400 bc. ...so when it was snowing ? (wait - does it snow in egypt ?) ...they used their gravity clocks lol ! flat earth...round earth...who cared back then ? ...it all worked good.

the theorists #1 problem is they dont know WHEN to use common sense. sooo much can be found on the back of a cereal box right ?...and here:

my father got me this book when i was 12. and i still have it. its a wonderful reference !

On the flip side if the universe is not predetermined then there is room for true randomness.

but is random-not random actually binary ? ...what if some parts are & some parts arent ? ...or if some parts were and arent now ...or werent and ARE now ?

that's what makes theoretical heliocentrism so fascinating , bedazzling & mesmerizing -

ANYTHING GOES !!!!

yes ! ...1:36:13 is a good place if for n/w else.

An ignorant, grossly false claim.

The relevant reasoning is almost all mathematical, and mathematics is very fussy about what is true and what can be deduced. You, with all due respect, seem to have scarcely any understanding of mathematics, which is a huge barrier to your understanding of its applications.

I don't believe you can even understand that to a very good approximation (an arc second or so ) the appearance of the sky at all times in all places is a rotation of the same "celestial sphere", with all such rotations being observed, depending on the location and time.
i.e. No angle between two given stars changes if you move to a different place at a different time. (Barring very, very small corrections due to an even more precise understanding ).

That fact in bold is only consistent with something very similar to the correct model of the world, and is what makes exposes anyone who believes in a flat Earth as being utterly incompetent at high school geometry.

Do you accept the facts in bold? Do you even understand what an angle is? Do you understand that valid models of reality have to be consistent with such clearcut observations?

one can create a mathematical formula to "prove" unicorns live on Pluto !

Was that meaningless blurt successful in protecting your ego from the facts that show you are foolishly wrong?

Let's start gently. Do you understand what an angle is?

do you understand what an "assumption" is -

like when Copernicus woke up one morning and walked outside and "Assumed the sun was 3 million miles away and the earth was spinning & traveling around the sun" despite NO sensible nor observation "angle" of proof whatsoever !

or when Eratosthenes "assumed the sun was distant and the earth was round and thus assumed his little sticks & shadows "angles" were proof of his assumptions being correct !

one can create a mathematical formula to "prove" unicorns live on Pluto !

sooo true right ? lol !

No, that is not the correct answer: it is another example of the fanatical evasiveness that you need to prop up comical beliefs. It doesn't help protect you - we know what you believe.

To remind you, the first question was "do you know what an angle is?" Yes or no, not burdensome.

Iydisy