John, I think there are a couple of senses in which the word "random" can be used:
1. Uncompressibe (maximum entropy) for some information, sequence, or data 2. Unpredictable in theory or practice a. When in theory, a non-deterministic process such as such as with wave-function collapse or first person indeterminacy b. Unpredictable in practice, such as chaotic, or pseudo-random processes (the weather, or the output of modern ciphers). 3. A variable whose value has a some probabilistic distribution (especially when the distribution is uniform) Jason On Sat, Dec 28, 2013 at 5:15 PM, John Mikes <[email protected]> wrote: > List: > Is there a 'well' acceptable definition for "R A N D O M"? (my > non-Indo-European mothertongue has no word expressing > the meaning - if I got it right. My 2nd mothertongue (German) calls it > "exbeliebig" = kind of: whatever I like) > My position as far as I got the right semantic meaning would be: > non-explainable by circumstances leading to it, what > is an agnostic marvel since in the next second I may learn HOW to explain > and that would be the end of randomity. > I accept one (nonscientific?) random-use: in math puzzles the "take any > number" - however many of these are joking. > I had some discussion with Russell and he was willing to molify his brisk > 'random' into a 'conditional' random within the > circumstances of the topic. > > John Mikes > > > On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 11:40 PM, Edgar L. Owen <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Replying to Liz and Jason in a new topic as they raised the important >> topic of the source of randomness that deserves a separate topic. >> >> As I explain in my book on Reality, all randomness is quantum. There >> simply is no true classical level randomness. There is plenty of >> non-computability which is often mistaken for randomness but all true >> randomness at the classical level percolates up from the quantum level. >> >> At the fundamental computational level all computations are exact. >> However the way space can emerge and be dimensionalized from these >> computations is random which is the source of all randomness. This quantum >> level randomness can either be damped out or amplified up to the Classical >> level depending on the information structures involved. >> >> To use Liz's example of how do computers generate random numbers, they >> don't in themselves. As Jason points out they draw on sources of (quantum) >> randomness from the environment, but the code the computer itself uses >> contains no randomness as the whole point of digital devices is to >> completely submerge any source of randomness because that would pollute the >> code and/or data. >> >> Of course eventually everything, including computers, is subject to >> randomness and fails.... >> >> Edgar >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
