A discussion centered around pseudo randomness. As a private experiment on randomness, I once took published data of cosmic noise and tabled it in an appropriate way. Within less than 54 iterations, emerged a consistent, embedded pattern. My conclusion was that cosmic noise was pseudo random. Would my experiment destroy the lava-lamp theory of true randomness? Possibly.
Recently, someone quoted Gell Mann. His established view on randomness is most enlightening. As far as I can tell, true randomness cannot be observed, because the instant it is observed the energy of observation destroys the purity (or truth) thereof. Unless you're a remote viewer, or supernatural observer it would seem that science has fallen foul of its own need for empirical evidence. Solve the problem: How does one observe without observing at all? Matt, I think you have earned an olive branch in that within a bridging, scientific theory (Existentialism) you may call any thing whatever you want, for as long as you have it clearly objectified; defined in terms of meaningfulness and applied in a consistent, semantic manner. I think the prior statement contains a hidden key. If so, then you may rely on the probability of your accepted version of that thing. Further, to ensure it would remain correct and complete within your particular system. How do you do that? Still, easy to translate across boundaries as well. *One's shoe may be another's steak. That is the nature of true relativity in motion. Rob ________________________________ From: Jim Bromer via AGI <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, 12 October 2018 3:34 AM To: AGI Subject: Re: [agi] Compressed Algorithms that can work on compressed data. Matt said, "A string is random if there is no shorter description of the string." That is a conjecture, or a hypothesis. Matt said, "... but there is no general algorithm to distinguish them in any language. "Encrypted data appears random if you don't know the key. But it is not random because it has a short description (compressed plaintext + key). Kolmogorov proved that there is no general algorithm to tell the difference." if there is no general algorithm to distinguish or detect them then the hypothesis cannot be validated. While you might present a string and declare it to be "random" the fact that you cannot prove that it is the shortest description of the string and therefore purely random, or random, then the conjecture cannot be sustained. Jim Bromer On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 1:37 PM Matt Mahoney via AGI <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 12:38 PM John Rose <[email protected]> wrote: > > OK, what then is between a compression agents perspective (or any agent for > > that matter) and randomness? Including shades of randomness to relatively > > "pure" randomness. > > A string is random if there is no shorter description of the string. > Obviously this depends on which language you use to write > descriptions. Formally, a description is a program that outputs the > string. There are no "shades" of randomness. A string is random or > not, but there is no general algorithm to distinguish them in any > language. If there were, then AIXI and thus general intelligence would > be computable. > > > From an information theoretic (and thermodynamic) viewpoint in your mind > > what happens when you see the symbol for infinity? Semi-quantitatively > > describe the thought processes? > > The same thing that happens when you see any other symbols like "2" or > "+". Mathematics is the art of discovering rules for manipulating > symbols that help us make real world predictions. > > -- > -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T55454c75265cabe2-Mb162ece05c697e7f68694969 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
