On Fri, Oct 12, 2018 at 1:53 AM Nanograte Knowledge Technologies via AGI <[email protected]> wrote: > > 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.
Most observed data sources have some predictability that we try to remove. A popular way to create pseudo-random bits is to iterate the SHA-256 hash of a video of some lava lamps. This is not true randomness because if you had unlimited computing power (a Turing machine) then you could invert the hash by brute force and simulate the physics of the lava lamps to predict bits with probability greater than 1/2. In fact you could get perfect prediction (in spite of the chaotic movement of lava lamps) by simulating the universe at the quantum level. This would require 10^120 qubit operations (Lloyd), or more if you had to search for initial states that produced some observed data, so it would be impossible on any physically realizable computer, of course. > 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? I believe Gell Mann is defining randomness as unpredictability. If I flip a coin and look at it without showing you and then ask you the probability that it came up heads, then the answer is different for me than it is for you. Kolmogorov removes this difficulty by removing the observer from the definition. -- -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T55454c75265cabe2-M858fc4ff34531447d933ec7a Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
