https://braininspired.co/podcast/175/
seems like a good place to start digging into kevin mitchell’s mind when time permits 
Does True Randomness Actually Exist? ( ^&*#^%$&#% )
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i was hoping a fresh look at mitchell’s work would change my mind, but as soon as i ran into statements like ‘given the evidence from physics that the universe is not in fact deterministic’, i lost interest again.
evidence? what evidence exactly?
physics gives us observations. none of which is conclusive as to whether reality is deterministic or indeterministic.
i mean.. mitchell should argue for true randomness as if his life depends on it if he likes, he just shouldn’t present it as settled science, especially because most of his readers are laymen.
more interesting today is that spaceX finally went public, and with 10 minutes to the bell, it has a volume of almost 500M shares.. hate it or love it, you can’t deny it
Jun 12, 2026
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#4404
Randomness exists, however we can’t debunk it because we can’t see into alternate timelines of parallel worlds and universes.
Jun 12, 2026
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#4405
Not TRUE randomness, if randomness is extremely random, is it not still predictable in it's randomness? This is not a mathematical question, but a philosophical one.
Frost_Wolf88 wrote:
Randomness exists, however we can’t debunk it because we can’t see into alternate timelines of parallel worlds and universes.
what do you mean? the many worlds interpretation is 100% deterministic, so bringing up parallel worlds doesn’t allow true randomness, only observer uncertainty.
and bear in mind that we don’t play definition games or obfuscation here. you can read the OP for reference to what true randomness means exactly. well maybe not exactly, but exactly enough.. lol
Jun 12, 2026
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#4407
There is always predictability to match sn infinite level of randomness, certainty that the outcome will be random is not true randomness
theredlazersword wrote:
Not TRUE randomness, if randomness is extremely random, is it not still predictable in its randomness? This is not a mathematical question, but a philosophical one.
yes, if randomness is random, than the taste of ice cream must be determined by how silly we can be. right?
theredlazersword wrote:
There is always predictability to match sn infinite level of randomness, certainty that the outcome will be random is not true randomness
Think of True Randomness as pregnancy.. she either is, or she’s not. There’s no level of true randomness. and as for predictability.. true randomness is never predictable. you can get very close using probabilities, but never predict a single event.
P.S. It should go without saying but.. the fact that True randomness is never predictable doesn’t imply that unpredictable events are truly random.
Jun 12, 2026
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#4411
#4405 Your right, mathematically, randomness is basis on which math is built upon. However in philosophy, is random… really random?
.. she either is, or she’s not.
feeling sooo ...hmm not sure. like a lamp ??
just water under the bridge..
theredlazersword wrote:
Wdym
Ahh, I was just being silly because I didn’t understand your post. but yea, ultimately this thread is about determinism, which is a philosophical question. exactly like asking whether the future is fixed..
hey sunshine, I need you to help me explain the difference between ontic and epistemic, and keep it super simple for people who are new to the topic of determinism.
“Ontic = how things really are, whether or not anyone knows.
Epistemic = what we know about things.
A coin under your hand: it is already heads or tails (ontic), you just do not know which yet (epistemic).
So when we talk about determinism, we are making an ontic claim about whether the future is fixed by the state of the world and the laws of nature. That is different from whether anyone can predict it. Conflating the two is a common mistake.”
I don’t understand. what do you mean?
18 days ago
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#4418
to me, the title says “Does True Randomness Actually Exist?” then a string of random punctuation in brackets
There are 2 threads with the same title. And I don't remember posting in this one 6 years ago lol
tag wrote:
to me, the title says “Does True Randomness Actually Exist?” then a string of random punctuation in brackets
Ahh.. that! lol. Its been there from day one, but there's also an imitation thread with the same title copied by someone who got banned and his loyal followers.
Long story short, that man had the nerve to demand that the OP conform to his own definitions, which are about predictions and have nothing to do with the actual context of this thread.. Determinism!
I personally tried to reason with him for years, but he continued with a persistence only matched by noodles. lol
going back to the paper about sapolsky’s and mitchell’s books, i first assumed it was another case of a compatibilist conflating free will with agency. i was even lazy about it and ran the paper by gpt, and it agreed, but we were wrong.
because on my morning walk, while listening to a long conversation between sapolsky and mitchell, i realized that he actually believes in genuine free will. and even if he hasn’t made a strong case for it, he made some interesting points that i’d like to dig into.
to my surprise i found out that he’s actually one of the three authors of the last paper i reviewed, the one with the silly attacks on deterministic interpretations. but physics is not his field, and this time he seemed more balanced and didn’t drown himself in philosophy of physics.
it’s so rare to find respected professionals who actually defend genuine free will that i’ll definitely have to dig deeper into his work..