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

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Avatar of Elroch
MustangMate wrote:

Whether or not True Randomness exists in nature - I've presented both views.

Without ever clarifying the definition, and while ignoring the half of physics that implies perfect knowledge of state is impossible, so randomness is always present at the quantum level!

My position has been is something is found to be truly random, than everything else must be so.

 Somethings are random and some things are not ? Sorry ... can't work that way.

There is no reasoning behind that guess/proclamation. You can safely predict that charge will be preserved. You cannot be as precise about the future position and momentum of an electron.

So, it can work that way.

MustangMate wrote:

My take is Elroch is yanking your chains with his dribble. Nobody actually believes that stuff ... come on really? He's gatcha going sideways. 

Yeah nobody believes in science and the scientific method. The whole world is ignorant.

Avatar of Sillver1
Optimissed wrote:
Sillver1 wrote:

theres another idea that i do like, but it has nothing to do with many words.
the multiverse.. how do you even imagine a single universe? like a dust ball floating in nothingness? it just doesn't make any sense to me : )

You're trying to place yourself outside the universe to imagine that, though, which you can't do. So what's outside the universe? Well, nothing. To say that the universe is floating in nothingness makes the nothingness into something but since the universe is all that exists, there's a different kind of nothing that isn't the universe and it isn't outside the universe because there is no outside since the universe is all that exists and that's all we need to know.

you are right. at some point you must have an 'edge' with nothing, or infinity. whichever you like to believe. because 2 bodies can never have 'nothing' between them otherwise they would be attached?

If there were, hypothetically, other universes then that isn't science because it isn't provable, because to prove it would mean an interaction between that universe and this one, which would mean that they were not separate and different.

why would you limit yourself to science? this is just a thought experiment, and theres nothing wrong with it.

Another objection is that you are imagining the different universes ... an infinity of them ,,,, as separated spatially. But why should that be, since the hypothesis is that they are really in different existences altogether. Not all set out in rows or anything like that. So your intuitive problem with "the outside of a universe" isn't resolved.

i wouldnt say infinity of them, because i didnt have the chance to count them yet : )
let me try this differently.. i can think of two major categories..

A. there's only one universe.
B. there are several uni's. but something have to 'separate' them, either its some material, forces, dimensions, or whatever.

i hope this makes sense : )

Avatar of Sillver1
Elroch wrote:
MustangMate wrote:

Whether or not True Randomness exists in nature - I've presented both views.

Without ever clarifying the definition, and while ignoring the half of physics that implies perfect knowledge of state is impossible, so randomness is always present at the quantum level!

My position has been is something is found to be truly random, than everything else must be so.

 Somethings are random and some things are not ? Sorry ... can't work that way.

why do you pick up on him? there's nothing wrong with his statement.
are you 'truly' not understanding him, or is this an indication of manipulative and bully behavior?

as for yesterday.. and i'm not sure if i even want to go there, but..
i never questioned your qualifications or knowledge, so why did you list them? how do they relate to what i said?

Avatar of Sillver1

king, i like your story.. you got me thinking ; )

Avatar of Elroch
Sillver1 wrote:
Elroch wrote:
MustangMate wrote:

Whether or not True Randomness exists in nature - I've presented both views.

Without ever clarifying the definition, and while ignoring the half of physics that implies perfect knowledge of state is impossible, so randomness is always present at the quantum level!

My position has been is something is found to be truly random, than everything else must be so.

 Somethings are random and some things are not ? Sorry ... can't work that way.

why do you pick up on him? there's nothing wrong with his statement.
are you 'truly' not understanding him, or is this an indication of manipulative and bully behavior?

as for yesterday.. and i'm not sure if i even want to go there, but..
i never questioned your qualifications or knowledge, so why did you list them? how do they relate to what i said?

I didn't pick on him, but I agree my response was too argumentative in character. I will try to express responses in a more positive way. A replacement for the above is:

Physics implies the existence of randomness that cannot be removed, but also the existence of (very close to) perfectly predictable phenomena (i.e. phenomena where the randomness is very tiny).

Avatar of Elroch
zborg wrote:

What is more rhetorically persuasive -- Elroch's tortured prose, or the Ghostess Lola's picturesque feet and prose?

Let's the Readers Decide, or just flip a coin?  LOL.

Clear opening for a third option!

Avatar of the_chess_zebra

Guinea pigs are actually very smart.  They have a complex language, they all know their names, and you can teach them commands.  That said, thank you for your kind words happy.png

 

Avatar of MustangMate-inactive

https://medium.com/intuitionmachine/there-is-no-randomness-only-chaos-and-complexity-c92f6dccd7ab

Deconstructing Randomness as Chaos and Entanglement in Disguise

Here’s a question the perhaps needs to be asked, but hasn’t been asked enough. What is randomness and where does it come from?

This is one scary place to venture in. We take for granted the randomness in our reality. We compensate for that randomness with probability theory. However, is randomness even real or is it just a figment of our lack of intelligence? That is, does what we describe as randomness just a substitute for our uncertainty about reality? Is randomness just a manifestation of something else?

What is the motivation for examining something seemingly as fundamental as the notion of randomness and ultimately probability? The motivation is that given Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has been a problem that is unsolved in decades of attempts, that we must at a minimum perform the due diligence to see if there are any flaws in the tools that we employ. I’ve written about the flaws of Bayesian inference. In this piece I will explore in greater detail our understanding of randomness and ultimately probability.

Avatar of MustangMate-inactive

Physics implies the existence of randomness that cannot be removed, but also the existence of (very close to) perfectly predictable phenomena (i.e. phenomena where the randomness is very tiny). -Elroch

This will get you laughed out of the hall ! "phenomena where the randomness is very tiny" ?? 

Randomness is an abstract concept like infinity that exists only in concept and has no physical basis.

Is absolute randomness possible?
According to mathematics and computer science, absolutely not. There is no way to describe randomness (regardless of what language, system or algorithm you try). Therefore if you can't describe it, it doesn't exist.
Avatar of Sillver1
Elroch wrote:
Sillver1 wrote:
Elroch wrote:
MustangMate wrote:

Whether or not True Randomness exists in nature - I've presented both views.

Without ever clarifying the definition, and while ignoring the half of physics that implies perfect knowledge of state is impossible, so randomness is always present at the quantum level!

My position has been is something is found to be truly random, than everything else must be so.

 Somethings are random and some things are not ? Sorry ... can't work that way.

why do you pick up on him? there's nothing wrong with his statement.
are you 'truly' not understanding him, or is this an indication of manipulative and bully behavior?

as for yesterday.. and i'm not sure if i even want to go there, but..
i never questioned your qualifications or knowledge, so why did you list them? how do they relate to what i said?

I didn't pick on him, but I agree my response was too argumentative in character. I will try to express responses in a more positive way. A replacement for the above is:

Physics implies the existence of randomness that cannot be removed, but also the existence of (very close to) perfectly predictable phenomena (i.e. phenomena where the randomness is very tiny).

i liked your original comment better than the edited one. it seemed sincere.

now im not sure what you mean by this phenomena of very tiny. or how it relate to his statement?

Avatar of MustangMate-inactive

A true fence sitter - "very close to perfectly predictable phenomena (i.e. phenomena where the randomness is very tiny".

In other words, it means whatever Elroch wants it to mean. A ready made explanation is at hand.

So - everything is near perfect, except for that tiny bit of randomness that exists?

 

Avatar of Elroch
Sillver1 wrote:
Elroch wrote:
Sillver1 wrote:
Elroch wrote:
MustangMate wrote:

Whether or not True Randomness exists in nature - I've presented both views.

Without ever clarifying the definition, and while ignoring the half of physics that implies perfect knowledge of state is impossible, so randomness is always present at the quantum level!

My position has been is something is found to be truly random, than everything else must be so.

 Somethings are random and some things are not ? Sorry ... can't work that way.

why do you pick up on him? there's nothing wrong with his statement.
are you 'truly' not understanding him, or is this an indication of manipulative and bully behavior?

as for yesterday.. and i'm not sure if i even want to go there, but..
i never questioned your qualifications or knowledge, so why did you list them? how do they relate to what i said?

I didn't pick on him, but I agree my response was too argumentative in character. I will try to express responses in a more positive way. A replacement for the above is:

Physics implies the existence of randomness that cannot be removed, but also the existence of (very close to) perfectly predictable phenomena (i.e. phenomena where the randomness is very tiny).

i liked your original comment better than the edited one. it seemed sincere.

now im not sure what you mean by this phenomena of very tiny. or how it relate to his statement?

Both were entirely sincere. The second is not directed at anyone in particular, nor refers to what anyone has said.

There is enormous uncertainty in every small quantum system (small total energy).

An example of what I meant by tiny is that the motion of the centres of mass of a (macroscopic) gravitational 2 body system (eg a couple of asteroids in a huge empty space) can be predicted with great precision, because the objects involved are very heavy (uncertainty in position is reciprocal to mass).

An example with (in principle) no uncertainty is the conservation of quantised charge. If a closed system has a fixed number of electron charges, it always will. However, in the real Universe there is interaction with the outside and one would have to avoid charge entering or exiting the region. This can be achieved with very high reliability in practice.

Avatar of Sillver1

without getting into the details to avoid sideways..

are you claiming that you found a 'hole' in MWI that is not absolutely deterministic?

Avatar of Optimissed
Elroch wrote:

Could you give an example of what you mean about theoretical physics? I have arrived at a position of absolute objectivity. Where I like a hypothesis (like the Everett multiple world concept, itself inspired by Feynman's beautiful sum of all possible paths interpretation of quantum mechanics, which has an intuitive "aha" that Schroedinger never managed. ) I accept only what is tested as scientific truth and the machinery as only possibly more than that.

I think there is room for confusion about this. There are several different issues here: only one is about scientific truth - the testable predictions. Positive views of the aesthetics of a model are something else, not to be confused with certainty in its truth.

See you when you pass by.>>

I'll look forward to that but have no idea when it might be.

Fair comment but I do not believe that MWH is testable because that would indicate that one branch can alter others. If it were testable it would therefore alter the hypothesis so the hypothesis is for the birds.

Since experimentation follows hypothesis and since hypothesis springs from theory then theoretical physics, to me, is all that physics BEFORE any "objective", i.e. empirical validation. I can ask Edmund what it is to him next time we speak. We do feed off each others' ideas somewhat. My slight complaint is that you get too excited about MWH and that is misunderstood by others. However, there is something about a nesting set of hypotheses that are mutually supportive. I just made the last bit up but I know it won't fool you.

Avatar of Elroch

"Nesting" implies ordered, "Mutually supportive" implies at least one loop. So not sure what to make of it.

Avatar of Elroch
Sillver1 wrote:

without getting into the details to avoid sideways..

are you claiming that you found a 'hole' in MWI that is not absolutely deterministic?

Not at all. It is quantum mechanics as a scientific theory of what happens in our observable world that is not deterministic. That is the scientific part of the MWI (which is an interpretation of QM which makes all the same predictions as the others, but has a different underlying model).

The only source of randomness appears to be the branching which we can consider to have happened to get us where we are

Perhaps a simple analogy will help one or two of the people who might read this. Imagine you have a kind of pyramid of symbols. The symbols in the n'th level have n binary characters.

Level 0 has the string ""

Below this string there are the two strings "0" and "1"

Below "0" there is "00" and "01". Below "1" is "10" and "11".

From then on, below every string there are the two strings with 0 and 1 appended, respectively.

This pyramid and the order you traverse it from the top is a very simplified analog of the Multiverse.  A real universe has a history which is a path down through the pyramid always going to one of the two strings below a string.

Physicists in one of these Universes ( happy.png  for these physicists to actually exist, we clearly need more structure than this) find that at every stage the probability of 0 is 1/2 and the probability of 1 is a half. So physics in their Universe is non-deterministic. But in their Multiverse it is all deterministic - at every time, everything possible happens (in terms of bits being added to strings).

Avatar of MustangMate-inactive

Ain't it Grand ... Everything possible happens ! Coming to a theater near you, sometime in a far off Galaxy, in another dimension, in another mind ...

Thanks to the holy bits and vibrating strings, a mathematical model tells us of the 10th dimension, or the 11th, depending on which Physicist suits your fancy.

Avatar of Elroch

Amen to that.

Avatar of KingAxelson
Sillver1 wrote:

king, i like your story.. you got me thinking ; )

Ahh good, I was going to give you a slice of cheesecake for saying that, but I didn't want to get you in trouble. happy.png

This tune has been with me half the day for some reason, maybe if I pass it on to you it will go away. : )

Avatar of Sillver1

"Not at all"

 you owe me one ; )