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

quote: "Well, anyway.. I still don't believe in pure randomness. Cloaked intervention of some sort has always been with us"

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I like it even more if you take the word 'intervention' out of it : )

but even within the realm of matterialsm, there are some prominent scientists that believe the universe make choices that are neither random or deterministic.
in other words they believe that particles has the ability to make choices.

so there is a third possibility which is different from randomness and determinism.
personally, i dont give it much weight. but mostly because i dont have a good understanding of it and never had the chance to talk about it with someone knowledgeable that can answer some fundamental questions that i have about it.

Just as the terms:

Random

Chance

Are often used interchangeably, have very similar definition and description, they are quite different when applied to a specific event - especially in scientific discussion.

Yes, it is important to recognise that common understanding of words is often vague and ambiguous, while definitions in mathematics, hard sciences, computer science, communication science, even statistics (  ) are generally precise and unambiguous, and can be quite different to common usage.

I am rather accurate. I have many years of working in areas dealing with randomness and have also taken an unusual course on randomness (given by an Italian quantum physicist and author who covered randomness in several contexts and addressed the relationship to philosophical questions about "free will"). It was the most difficult course on which to achieve a high mark out of those that I have done on Coursera (and I have done many). Ironically, one reason was a clever randomisation technique used in the test questions! With all due humility I am not aware of anyone getting a higher mark on this course.

it would be nice if someone coin a new word for 'true random' that will enter the english language. if any other language has such a word, it can be used too. but i have no idea how to search for it.

When someone comes up with such a word it can be used for propositions like this:

If a photon passes through a vertical polarisation filter and then reaches a polarisation filter at 45 degrees to the vertical, does it pass through?

Also:

Will this carbon-14 nucleus in a box decay in the next 5730 years?

i dont think so. it has to go deeper than that. polarization assumed to be truly random, but we don't know that for a fact. such a word has to be reserved only for the proposition of true randomness

Flashes of light, flashes of might, is this the way to tame the night?

Lucid dreams of better seams, doesn't clash with what it means. 

The difference(s) between mathematics and word definitions is well taken. Math would seem to be cold, hard and absolute. Yet it is necessary,  and beautiful in its own way. 

The communication of word definitions, and or sentence structures, to me anyway are warm and infinite. If one cannot, or will not 'read between the lines' then what shall be said about that.. Understanding transcends muddy definitions, isn't that obvious?

I didn't agree with Elroch's definition. I agree that a good definition is as simple as possible, so all we have to do is discuss the idea of "pattern", maybe.

Review

the concept of randomness is what is used to describe that which is not known, i.e. is uncertain. To quantify this uncertainty, the tool called Probability Theory was designed (and can be shown to be, in quite a strong sense, the only one suited to the job). (It happens that the mathematical theory has (at least) two entirely separate applications, where the same mathematical model is used to model two separate sets of concepts, but as long as you know which is the one being used, all is well).

Example

For example, from your point of view, you might not know if it is going to rain tomorrow. To you tomorrow's weather is random. You might care to quantify your uncertainty, in which case you are using the basic idea of Bayesian probability, where numbers quantify beliefs, according to some very natural axioms. If you have seen the weather forecast or have other information, you quantification may be different. If your information is extremely reliable and definite, the randomness may be almost gone.

Making it general

Some are thinking this notion of a "viewpoint" (which may have partial information) is just a distraction from "real" randomness, which lacks this. But when you go into the details what you find is that "absolute" or "general" randomness really means randomness to the combination of some set of viewpoints, which can be considered a single viewpoint that combines all their knowledge. The best I can do to make the notion of "absolute" or "irreducible" randomness concrete is to note that it describes the combination of all viewpoints that are not in the causal future of some event in space-time.

For example, all viewpoints earlier in time than the roll of a die can be combined and we may still have no idea about what number will come up. (If some special viewpoint knew the die was lopsided, or had very specific information on how it was to be rolled, the probabilities might be different). And if you add a viewpoint after the die has been rolled, the randomness has vanished as surely as the collapsing of a wave function.

Who on Earth wrote that? The problem with it is that the writer is using words like "viewpoint" symbolically for something we are not aware of. The meaning of "viewpoint" in the context of the passage seems to be described by the combination of all viewpoints that are not in the causal future of the use of the word "viewpoint" in space-time.

It's obvious that the writer is immersed in academia and hasn't managed to get his nose out of it in order to get an overview. I'm afraid it doesn't beat discussing what is required of a "pattern".

I'd suggest your Example:For example, from your point of view, you might not know if it is going to rain tomorrow. To you tomorrow's weather is random. 

Is limited in scope. What may happen, as weather patterns, describes a possible future event. The debate of randomness will revolve around how much information was known before the event and after the event - do new observations made make for explanation?

I'd rather suggest, when determining if something is random, we need to exam events in the present and not wait till the future to reexamine. This is where the dimension of Time muddles everything up.

Mathematics is not random, but this is abstract thinking. If one thing is known to exist in a random state, in the present, then perhaps it can be concluded everything must also be random. Are some things that are happening now random and some things not? Mustn't it be all or none? One set of laws? Again, the Time phenomenon muddles the whole picture, as by the time the present is observed -it's the future. Perhaps this can never be known, it's the nature of reality. 

Perhaps a very clever experiment will be devised, one that observes a single point in time, independent of the future.

One set of laws, certainly. But, for instance, cryogenics is a very interesting field that is just starting to come to the forefront. Out in deep space between the galaxies, it's possible that an entirely different pattern of behaviour regarding the interaction between fundamental particles and space predominates, but that would be due to the temperature and to the almost complete lack of gravitational fields.

Natures laws are not applied randomly. It's rather about determining if the effected matter behaves randomly in response.  I just don't see whereby some matter would respond one way while other matter another - not when we think of all matter being the same, just in different form. But perhaps this is the case, making for a very chaotic place. Or perhaps, everything is chaotic, which exists as it's own state of order !

I anticipate the point - a Law of Nature would not be a Law, if matter reacted differently. 

Different elements, for instance, behave according to their atomic structure. Numbers of free electrons and so forth. And as the atomic weight increases, there's a steady change in the behaviour of each set that fits a particular atomic structure. Then, you can make alloys in order to get different behaviours. Some behaviour is more predictable than others. It seems to be chaos and order inter-twined.

king, i like the way you think. reading between the lines is often more important than the text itself. for example your comment about the cloak.. it was obvious, and i did like the way you said it. what i meant is that there is a similar idea that i like even more... thats to say it could be set in a way that does not require any intervention once it all set and done. call it a lazy cloak : )
back to reading between the lines.. the main problem with it? often it leaves you with too many possibilities, and sometime its hard to narrow them down. at least for me.

elroch, your definition sux. lol. it is so broad, that everything can be considered random.
take a well planed surprise party for example. just because the birthday boy can't see it coming doesnt make it random. it makes it a surprise. can you see the difference?
as for you bringing back Copenhagen interpretation as true randomness after i explained to you in details why its wrong? i'll leave it at that.. : )

jester, your words didn't go unheard. speaking for at least some of us..

Silver, I think Elroch's attempt was better than that, but for me it was way too technical, as though it had been constructed by an elephant's foot specialist because he was too small to even know it was attached to an elephant.

At one time not so long ago, I would have concentrated and forced myself to work out exactly what it meant in plain language and then decided if, in my opinion, the plain language version actually meant anything and if it did, whether it made sense and accurately defined randomness. These days I think I have become so sceptical of the way that scientists or theoreticians close ranks to protect themselves that I tend to reject things maybe without a fair trial. But I definitely did get the impression that at the very least it was vague and ambiguous.