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the nature of randomness
    #3378631 -

I personally believe that randomness cannot be an existing phenomenon. I think randomness is merely the lack of understanding of a system from one reference frame. In another greater reference frame, that system may be fully explainable.

For example an ant is walking along in a woodpile doing his ant business like it has done before. This ant perceives the wood pile as some great mountain in equilibrium such that nothing is occuring to the woodpile. A human comes along and then starts that woodpile ablaze, the ant being so small cannot perceive the human who is of much larger reference set the wood ablaze. The ant perceives his woodpile as randomly setting ablaze. The ant cannot understand why the pile is ablaze, because more likely it cannot understand the principle of fire for one, as well as the ant cannot understand why the human if it even can perceive the human would start a fire which it doesn't understand in the first place. The ant just observes the destruction of his pile as well as most likely himself to complete randomness. The ant cannot fathom the whole reasoning behind the event, so if the ant could even possibly understand the concept of randomness, that is what he would attribute his as well as the wood pile's demise to.

My point is I don't believe anything can truly randomly occur. There is always a reasoning for something, whether or not the reason is understandable from one frame. The possibility of infinte largeness as well as infinite smallness contributes to infinite reference frames.

Anybody have any thoughts on this subject?

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: relativexistance]
    #3378751 -

Anybody have any thoughts on this subject?

Yes. We are only really beginning to understand non-linear systems, from which most "random" processes come.

I think the same thing: "random" doesn't actually exist...we just don't understand the rules of non-linear systems so we call them "random".


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: relativexistance]
    #3378884 -

".




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Anxiety is what you make it.

Edited by LunarEclipse (11/21/04 03:46 PM)

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3378969 -

"the randomness of nature is not random, it is nature"
-unknown :P


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Disclaimer!?

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3379000 -

I disagree. Randomness is everywhere in nature. You are walking down the sidewalk. You step on an ant or two who never saw you coming and vice versa. Where is the intent or purpose there? Sure, you had purpose to walk down the street, and the ants were looking for some crumbs on the sidewalk, but which ants you crushed and which you didn't was randomness.

Randomness is NOT the mere absense of conscious intent or purpose.

The Universe did NOT come into existence the moment before your foot squishes those ants. They weren't all of a sudden randomly placed on the sidewalk, and neither were you. The ants were there for a reason, just like you were walking down the sidewalk for a reason.

I find a lot of people who support the ideas of randomness, or especially free-will, like to look at events WITHOUT taking a look at the events which lead up to the one in question. From nothing...nothing comes, right? You cannot look at a specific situation and say "See! The ants who got squished were completely random! It could have been any other ant!"

But it wasn't. The ants who got squished...were the ants who got squished. Perhaps they were part of an ant raiding-party, off to find some dead bugs to bring back to the Hive. Perhaps you were on your way to a friend's house, or walking home from an errand. In both cases, you end up where you are for a reason. It isn't random.


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: trendal]
    #3379036 -

""I personally believe that randomness cannot be an existing phenomenon. I think randomness is merely the lack of understanding of a system from one reference frame. In another greater reference frame, that system may be fully explainable.""

find the pattern in prime-numbers, and get it act? :P


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Disclaimer!?

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3379052 -

LunarEclipse said:
I disagree. Randomness is everywhere in nature. You are walking down the sidewalk. You step on an ant or two who never saw you coming and vice versa. Where is the intent or purpose there? Sure, you had purpose to walk down the street, and the ants were looking for some crumbs on the sidewalk, but which ants you crushed and which you didn't was randomness.



but see i never mentioned anything about purpose, there is no purpose. you dont step on those other ants because you just physically dont. your foot lands where you were walking, those ants that got crushed were in your path. theres no purpose to that, it is just an occuring event. your purpose was to get somewhere the ants purpose was to collect crumbs. a purpose to the event doesn't exist it was just occuring events. there was no motive for the event, there was a motive for you and there was a motive for the ants, but that is not randomness there is reason behind you not crushing the other ants you were walking in a path and the other ants just didnt happen to be in your path.

LunarEclipse said:
Conception - millions of sperm in search of one egg. Sure, it may be a boy and maybe there are things people can do such as diet or sexual position to try to influence the randomness by getting a girl instead of a boy. Still, it is a random event and there are about 50% boys and girls born.



50% boys and 50% girls is due to mass action the body produces the sperm with varying genetics but if you took a group as a whole there is about half and half. the reason is life needs males and females to continue the human race. sex/reproduction is just the act of procreation. it is just the motive to continue the human race. so it would make sense that the human genetics would create roughly equal amounts of sperm that would be for each sex. the human genetics are designed to continue the human race and the best way to do that would be if their are equal number of males and equal number of females. then just through a mass action of the sperm seeking the egg, some are deffective some arent there still exist reason why some get in and others dont. there is motive in the production of the sperm, but there is no motive in the results they are just an occurance.

LunarEclipse said:
Flip a U.S. quarter several times. If it comes up heads ten times in a row, what are the odds it will come up heads on the eleventh toss?


first off if you went down on a small enough scale and observed the amount of force applied on every spot of the quarter you could determine its trajectory, spin and so forth using things like weight distribution. you would then know how a quarter lands. also by determining odds you are trying to predict a future occurance, that has nothing to do with the reason why a past occurance has occured. probability is just predicting the outcome of a system based off of previous results, you cant determine the reason of why previous events occured from the prediction of future results.

the only place where i dont see us able to understand the reason of exactly why something has happened is at the quantum level, well other than the obvious outerspace/ whole beginnings level, because that is out of our observable reference frame. i still believe there are reasons why they occur.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: relativexistance]
    #3379424 -

".


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Anxiety is what you make it.

Edited by LunarEclipse (11/21/04 03:45 PM)

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: relativexistance]
    #3379484 -

The element of randomness in standard quantum mechanics only occurs when a measurement is done, else the theory flows deterministicly.

In the 'de Broglie-Bohm quantum theory of motion' there is no measurement, and all is causal. It is a theory that takes into account the effect of the whole upon the individual. What standard quantum theory preaches is 'no-order' Bohmian theory lifts to a higher order. This is a theory that actually makes sense (not at least to those spiritually inclined).

The message of quantum theory read this way, is not that the world is fundamentally acausal, but that the world is fundamentally whole.


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There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3379524 -

That still sounds pretty random, or the "reasons" not mysterious or particularly meaningful. There could be several "reasons" I didn't crush the other ants. I left when I did and not before or after. I walked as fast as I did, not slower, not faster. I took the particular path I did. Perhaps I walked to the right to avoid walking into another person, and hit some ants I wouldn't have otherwise. Perhaps someone dropped a french fry on the sidewalk an hour before which attracted ants that otherwise would not have been there.

Who said a "reason" had to have meaning? Meaning is entirely a human concept. Your entire description of the events surrounding the squished ants speaks of reasons, not randomness. You left when you did for a reason. You walked at the speed you did for a reason, even if it is something as "trivial" as it was the comfortable speed for you to walk at. You took the path you did for a reason. You stepped to the side to dodge another person, which is the reason you stepped to the side.

Which brings me to another point: the reason for a thing happening the way it does is not limited to YOU or anyone/anything else in SPECIFIC. Reason is closely related to cause and effect. The tree of cause and effect has more branches on it than any of us could ever hope to imagine.


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: trendal]
    #3379558 -

.

.


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Anxiety is what you make it.

Edited by LunarEclipse (11/21/04 03:44 PM)

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: relativexistance]
    #3379582 -

Anybody have any thoughts on this subject?

What can be said about a human who derives pleasure from messing with ants' minds?


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The proof is in the pudding.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: trendal]
    #3379601 -

"Who said a reason had to have meaning? Meaning is entirely a human concept."

I agree 100%. And as a human concept, meaning is flawed by human thinking and the human tendency to anthropomorphize, to ascribe human characteristics to things not human.


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Anxiety is what you make it.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: Gomp]
    #3379620 -

!


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Anxiety is what you make it.

Edited by LunarEclipse (11/21/04 03:44 PM)

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3379686 -

Meaning is being!

Not meaning about something...

The way a bird sings is the birds meaning unfolded...

An electron travels its path according to its meaning. It is in the electrons nature to do so.


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There are no differences between men and gods,
one blends softly causal into the other.
-Frank Herbert, Dune.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3379705 -

LunarEclipse said:
Evolution is randomness refined by natural selection.

Zebra who got randomly acquired "fast" genes = zebra that outruns the lion and lives to reproduce to pass the fast genes on to the next generation of zebras. Result = more faster zebras = better survival chance for zebras as a species.
Zebra who randomly acquired "slow" genes = more likely to be lion lunch. Slow zebra gene not as likely to be in the gene pool, as no reproduction after death. Result = less slower zebras = better survival chance for zebras as a species.

The multitude of genetic possibilities creates randomness and mutations which when combined with natural selection are the driving force of evolution.


its not random if you observed the production of sperm and egg cells in all of the zebra over the entire time of said evolution. you could watch the change in genes and therefore its not random it happened for a reason. its cause and effect like trendal said it cant just poof oneday genes appear. mutation occur like you say but there are also reasons for mutations.

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: The_Visionaire]
    #3379733 -

Quote:
The_Visionaire said:
An electron travels its path according to its meaning. It is in the electrons nature to do so.



there are alot of reasons why an electron travels the path that it does, but there is no meaning just cause and effect. if you are talking about its travel in a wire there are reasons for that. they travel due to thermal energy transfer, diffusion due to charge concentration gradients and such. speaking in terms of inside an atom we cannot possibly fathom determining its path and therefore we attribute it to random motion, because we cannot possibly deduce its path from our reference frame. The only way we can see on such a small level is by shooting other electrons at something and watching the scattering. But by doing so to an atom you have already altered the system so you can therefore never observe the natural working of the system to deduce reasoning behind it. Which still sticks to my theory that randomness is just the inability to full observe a system in one frame.

Edited by relativexistance (11/18/04 01:54 PM)

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: The_Visionaire]
    #3379738 -

.


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Anxiety is what you make it.

Edited by LunarEclipse (11/21/04 03:43 PM)

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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: LunarEclipse]
    #3379755 -

agreed, randomness is a concept based around a lack of understanding, with no actual basis :smile:


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Re: the nature of randomness [Re: relativexistance]
    #3379893 -

".


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Anxiety is what you make it.

Edited by LunarEclipse (11/21/04 03:43 PM)

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