Does True Randomness Actually Exist? ( ^&*#^%$&#% )

😂

Yeah, it's a bit random.

Maybe a dumb question, (yes, yes I remember what Dad said about dumb questions) naive might be a better choice of words, but here goes… if true randomness exists, is there an over arching structure to it that we are unable to comprehend? 

lol as opposed to an INN N OUT structure? 

Probability theory is the quantitative study of randomness. We understand it rather well, even though it seems so difficult to pin down.

As a simple example, we all have some sort of intuitive concept of an event that has two outcomes where the outcomes are equally likely. This can be viewed as the unique symmetrical probability distribution for two outcomes, or as the highest entropy state of knowledge (the greatest uncertainty, or "randomness").

But it seems impossible to pin down exactly what it means for an event to have two equally probable outcomes when, in the real world, the only possibilities are that one or the other happens.

To see why it is so difficult to pin down, we should try to do so. We say what it means is that, if the event were repeated many times we would get very similar numbers of each event.  But how similar? Any number of each is possible, but unbalanced numbers are increasingly unlikely. But what is unlikely?  We we could say that if you toss a coin 1,000,000 times there is only some small probability that the difference in the number of heads and tales is more than 10,000 (1%). and the probability of this is much smaller if we do it 1,000,000,000 times.

But now we have defined what one probability (those for one coin) means by using the probability of some more complex event.  But that leaves the question of how we define the probability of this more complex event, which is no simpler than the question we are trying to answer.

Of course to do this properly you would imagine doing it for an infinite number of tosses and say the limit of the proportion is the probability.  Well, at least it is so with probability 1. It is not impossible to toss a fair coin an infinite number of times and have the proportion of heads always more than 1% higher - it just has probability zero.

So the ground keeps vanishing. Yet we know it makes sense.

No, not MacD’s or St. Louis either. I’m just contemplating if we are able to know with certainty.

lmao haven’t pinned it down yeah over 191 pages 

Thank you @Elroch. If the analogy disproves randomness, what would the universal structure or organizational hierarchy that makes it so?

Lmao what hierarchy, of the ignorance of its whole pretense?

I don’t know, at least not with certainty. There are a lot of things I think I know. Some with certainty, others with a sense of possibility. Some with wishful thinking. I rather doubt I’ll understand this one, but felt urging to ask.

lol perhaps by the roll of twice that of 191 pages your answer 😂

Assuming that randomness truly exists, does that remove reason? By that, I mean to ask what impetus exists to effect randomness? I’m not pressing for a design, or a Designer, but if randomness exists, what is the cause? If there is a cause, is it truly random? 

Randomness is basically that which is not known. I know that sounds too simple but it is justifiable.

a priori, this allows the possibility that, while not everything is known, it would be possible to know everything. To say true randomness really exists means that you can't know everything.

And that latter possibility is a conclusion of quantum mechanics, in that partial knowledge is the most it is ever possible to have, because the more precise knowledge you have of one quantity, the less you can possibly know about the dual quantity.

I fully acknowledge that my lack of knowledge limits my understanding on this topic, but i find it interesting to consider. As a child, i used to lay awake in bed and wonder what existed before the earth was created (what I was taught in Sunday School). Then i wondered what existed before the entire universe, and so on, until I reached a point where nothing existed. Nothing but darkness. But then, darkness existed and i had to figure that out as very small child. I simply believed that darkness existed because light did not. When i asked, i was taught that the designer always existed. However, I never got an answer to how long he just sat around in the dark. But something existed. 

So, to follow “randomness is basically that which is not known” causes me to wonder how we can know what truly exists (randomness) without knowing all things. How can we discern and prove that unpredictability exists without knowing that which occurs randomly without predictability?

I’ll not derail the discussion further, i just don’t understand, and maybe I’m not capable of doing so. I probably cannot even formulate a proper question from my limited knowledge of such things. I’ve enjoyed the points of both @Eroch and @Optimissed. A very refreshing diversion from the typical discourse in the forums. Thank you.

No

…is consciousness known? What if I said all IS Consciousness, yet as there’s rated and unrated games so do we have the majority of consciousness in the un sense.. Why, you ask? That answer entails delving into what’s very sadly not allowed, therefore we continue on with such random pages of lmao asking whether if randomness exists. 😂

Lol pg 193….

There is a difference between discrete quantization (eg energies in a bound system) and fundamental limits of resolution (eg the Planck time, Planck length).

I have a comprehension problem regarding the latter because of the fact that distances and times are frame-dependent. Thus the Planck distance as a quantity may be universal, but it is entirely possible for two points to be more than the Planck distance apart in one frame and not so in another.