/sci/ - Science & Math

>>4356340
Does order exist?

Nothing is truly random, but because certain things are very unpredictable, we can treat them as random for all intents and purposes.

>>4356346
There goes harriet again, thinking she knows shit.

>>4356343
yes.

>>4356346

you obviously don't know shit. so please be so kind as to shut the fuck up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_random_number_generator

>>4356353
Proof? (You can't so don't try)

>>4356361
>based on noise
>noise is caused by events
>??????????
>not random

>>4356368

lol learn2physics fag

>>4356361
There is no need to be rude.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistically_random
(Linked from the first line of the page you linked to me)

This is not true randomness, it is just unpredictable.
When you roll a dice, the number that appears on top is not truly random, it depends on the orientation of the dice before you threw it, and how high you throw it, how much spin you put on it, etc.
It just do happens that all these variables are far too complex for us to be able to use them in any meaningful way and be able to predict the outcome (in a traditional dice throw style; not a controlled roll, which is a skill that can be learned, and is sometimes used to cheat some games of chance)

>>4356368
Indeed, not truly random, but the noise that is used as the input is complex enough and unpredictable enough that it can be used to generate statistical randomness for human intents and purposes.

>>4356381
but, its not "true" randomness in the sense that OP was referring to

>>4356388
Correct.

>>4356376
>>4356381
You do not understand quantum uncertainty. The reason that anon linked the article on hardware random number generators is that some of them are based on truly random physical processes including radioactive decay and partial reflection of laser light by incompletely silvered mirrors.

>>4356390
This is just a vast increase of the complexity in which the statistical randomness is obtained. It makes it even less predictable, but this is still not 'truly random'
Things like radioactive decay do not happen randomly and for no reason, it is a natural physical process.
For any single atom in the sample, you can not know when it will decay, but for a sample of a particular radioactive element as a whole, you can know how long it will take for half of all the atoms to decay, but you will not know which specifically.

Randomness thread
Randomness thread
Randomness thread
Randomness thread
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Randomness thread


Good heavens, just look at the time.
Randomness is more complicated than most science philosophers think.
You gotta invent alot more to define randomness from scratch.

Consider the following:
The hyper-cosmos (multivariate and everything else) could have:

1) always existed
2) created out of nothing

Both are paradoxical to our intuition.

If something is created out of nothing then "nothing" isn't nothing, thus the hyper-cosmos always existed.
And please dont confuse "nothing" in the way Lawrence Krauss is using it, he never implied pure nothingness, just space and low level QM.

The only current sensible answer is that universe always existed, which is a struggle with infinities.
Adding God in the big picture only complicates things further.

But then again, all the above is just human intuition and all those concepts are arbitrary, it may be that the answer lies well beyond our mental grasp.

So does, "absolute randomness" exists?
So far we dont have any proof of that.
And if you think Uncertainty Principle constitutes as "true randomness" then you should study actual physics instead of getting hyped over new age shit.

Also sage cause i's randumb

>>4356395
>This is just a vast increase of the complexity in which the statistical randomness is obtained.
What complexity? The radioactive decay of an individual atom has no proven dependency on any externalities, so I don't see where your alleged "complexity" comes from.

>It makes it even less predictable, but this is still not 'truly random'
mere assertion

>Things like radioactive decay do not happen randomly and for no reason, it is a natural physical process.
non sequitur

>For any single atom in the sample, you can not know when it will decay, but for a sample of a particular radioactive element as a whole, you can know how long it will take for half of all the atoms to decay, but you will not know which specifically.
Red herring, because we're talking about individual decay events and not bulk properties.

>>4356346
this is true

when we don't know or care about the precise "mechanics" of some event we just call them random and pretend we can do meaningful math on them

like a coin toss's outcome wouldn't be random if you could model precisely your hand movement, the characteristics of the air etc, but that's not the fucking point

>>4356406

thanks anon for explaining so that I don't have to do it.

>>4356390
"truly random" is a codeword for "we don't yet understand how that shit comes about"

>>4356406
The precise mechanics of the event are not fully understood, but it does not happen for no reason. There must be a cause and an effect, but it will be on the quantum scale and is therefore unpredictable to humans which is why we can use these events for the purposes of statistical randomness.

>>4356412
>>4356420
These two understand.

something is random if it is unpredictable.
therefore anything that is sufficiently complex that it its outcome is unknowable before it happens can be considered random.
what is random and what is not random changes with our level of knowledge yet there do exist truly random things. These truly random events require knowledge of every possible variable and physical rule in the universe to correctly predict

>>4356412
>>4356420
>>4356421

Thing is, nobody has observed that there are any antecedent causes that definitively predict an individual instance of radioactive decay. You state confidently that they exist, but that's just as unscientific as saying "Radioactive decay is not random because Jesus decides when each atom decays." Science is evidence-based. No proof? Fuck off.

>>4356431
I am advocating the cause to be due to scientific naturalism. It will be natural, but complex, process.

Your alternative of 'magic' will not stand up to scrutiny.

>>4356395
That's where you're wrong.
I recommend the lectures "Science and Humanism" given by Schrodinger.

>>4356431
funny that you mention Jesus there

because you could replace god with randomness -- same shit

>>4356436
>I am advocating the cause to be due to scientific naturalism.

This is a reification fallacy. Scientific naturalism is an idea, not a physical thing that causes events.

>>4356439
This is correct.
In the past, people thought that earthquakes were truly random, and were caused by god, and could appear anywhere at any time for no reason.
Now we understand Geology and Seismology and we understand the processes that cause earthquakes, and now we can predict when and where they will happen.
It turns out that they were not truly random after all.

Nothing is.

>>4356442
If an effect has a natural cause, it is not truly random.
If you are stating that true randomness is a possibility, then you are suggesting that events can happen with no cause, and for no reason.

For events to magically spring into existence with no cause, what else would you call it than magic?

>>4356444
>In the past, people thought that earthquakes were truly random, and were caused by god, and could appear anywhere at any time for no reason.
oxymoron

>Now we understand Geology and Seismology and we understand the processes that cause earthquakes, and now we can predict when and where they will happen.
>It turns out that they were not truly random after all.
People never thought they were. You're rewriting history for the purpose of your false analogy to quantum phenomena.

>Nothing is.
"Earthquakes are not random, so nothing is." I don't think you'll be winning any awards for forensics any time soon.

>>4356469
I do not think you understand what an oxymoron is.

"Earthquakes are not random, so nothing is."
That is not what I was saying, and is a strawman.
Read this post. >>4356447

>>4356481
>I do not think you understand what an oxymoron is.

Here it comes: here's the "you do not understand what words mean" post. That's my cue to leave you to your own stupidity. Enjoy your shitty tripfag thread, your fallacious logic and your lack of understanding.

>>4356490
You know there are more graceful ways to exit an argument after you have lost, but I suppose that will do.

>>4356505
He exited the argument because you can't argue with women, this is a well known fact.

>>4356512
Clearly you can, it is just that in this particular case my side of the argument is the correct one.

>>4356515
How have you come to that conclusion by defeating a single opponent?

>>4356469
What are the consequences of physics being truly random or deterministic at the core of physics?

Do you believe in dualism?

>>4356523
Because I already understand that 'true randomness' is an impossibility, so anybody who argues in favour of it must be wrong.

>>4356525
What about quantum particles?

>>4356527
They are unpredicatble, but they are still part of the physical world and are still bound by the same laws of cause and effect that also affect the macro-scale.

>>4356535
You're walking on thin ice here. Quantum particles are not deterministic and occur at random, at least in measurement.

>The rules of quantum mechanics are fundamental; they assert that the state space of a system is a Hilbert space and that observables of that system are Hermitian operators acting on that space; they do not tell us which Hilbert space or which operators. These can be chosen appropriately in order to obtain a quantitative description of a quantum system. An important guide for making these choices is the correspondence principle, which states that the predictions of quantum mechanics reduce to those of classical physics when a system moves to higher energies or, equivalently, larger quantum numbers (i.e. whereas a single particle exhibits a degree of randomness, in systems incorporating millions of particles averaging takes over and, at the high energy limit, the statistical probability of random behaviour approaches zero).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics#Interactions_with_other_scientific_theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dingers_Cat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

>>4356579
>>4356564
Bell's theorem was first developed to prove that there was a non-local force/connection between particles- Entanglement.

If you accept that then you must accept that there is something non-local that is affecting the "random" paths of particles.

Which completely throws the randomness into garbage.
And yes randomness is a silly concept, people use it often but they seem never to understand the weight of this proposal.

If something is truly random then it implies action with no source, which is magic, which is stupid.

By saying QM particle behavior is random you are literally implying that you know ALL physics.
Lets for argument sake assume that you know all laws, if something is behaving weirdly THEN you can safely say its random, since it doesnt follow laws that can fully predict that action.

But we DONT know all physics, so assuming something is random because we can't determinite is completely retarded.
And i agree, without proof we can't assume.
So officially we can't say it QM are deterministic but we can definitely can't say its random.
I hope you now understand why "true randomness" is nonsense.

The more we learn about the universe, the more we realize our ways of understanding it fail. There is no order or logic to the universe, logic and order is simply our way of understanding it, and we shouldn't place too much faith in it to accurately portray us 100% of anything truthful or meaningful, as that is beyond it's purpose.

That's because things like uncertainty, and things like randomness aren't "human constructs", they are derived from the actual universe, they are a part of natural, objective universe.

Science always tries to put models or explain things in a frame of reference, our minds instinctively attempt to do this because of our inability to satisfy our existentialism logic.

as can be demonstrated with shit like this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_cause_argument

we must have order, we cannot accept the idea that there just isn't "nothing there"

another example would be, our inability to see past things like binomial logic, say we are presented with a problem.

"where did the universe come from"

human mind will automatically assume it has either been here, or started, it can't accept anything else, but as time passes and science because more advance we are slowly realizing that the answer to the question is a false premise, and that maybe both of these are just assumptions, and they are both false.

Very obvious, with things like bell's theorem, and Godel's incompleteness theorem that are way of understanding hte universe is flawed, not because we are flawed, but because the universe is flawed, it is chaotic and unpredictable, it has no true order or symmetry, and that all these things are just our way of rationalizing it which may or may not be an accurate representation of anything at all.

>>4356535
Age:
Country:
Major:
Relationship status:
Looks: ?/10

>>4356603
>>4356603
>>4356603
this.
Exactly my point.

>>4356609
Wrong.
Everything in the universe is mathematical.
Which implies order/structure/pattern.

>>4356621
Wrong. Mathematics is an assumption of a perfect universe. Little of mathematics holds ground in the real world.

>>4356623
Wrong.
So far everything in nature speaks mathematically.
This is the reality.

>>4356603
you haven't shown that true randomness is impossible

>>4356629
I'm afraid you don't understand the fundamental principles of mathematics.
Take the coordinate system for example. How is a dot defined? A circle? These two objects in the plane directly contradict our own universe. Mathematics assumes a perfect world, where everything fits into its axioms. The applications of mathematics is an approximation of said calculations, not the direct result of it.
For example, how does one walk exactly 10 meters? It's impossible. You'll always wak a little farther than that, or a little shorter.
To give another example, circles do not exist in the real world. There are APPROXIMATIONS of circles, you might for example draw an imperfect circle on an imperfect coordinate system on a piece of paper. But a real circle, there is no such thing.

>>4356638
>he doesn't understand that mathematics can account for uncertainty in measurements and other imperfections

>>4356643
I understand that very well, as I'm a mathematician. What's your point?

>>4356638
But...that WAS my point, didn't you read the entire post?

Randomness or determinism haven't been proved.
Saying one or the other implies that you know all physical laws, cause only then you'd be sure if either of them is happening.

And that determinism has better chances than randomness.

Thats the point of the whole post.

>>4356653
Determinism doesn't have better chances than randomness. How can you come to this conclusion?

>>4356650
Not him, but you're stupid.

Because everything that exist is pretty much the result of something that performed an action without a source, therefor everything we do is stupid and magical? that is just pure ignorance. The idea that something's effect can predate it's cause, or the idea that actions can predate their sources it's not stupid, it is actually rational if you only stop to think for a moment and ask questions we've yet to answer, in a world with no order and no logic.

>>4356621
>>4356623

The second is correct,

google -> foundational crisis of mathematics -> Godel's incompleteness theorems, ontology and natural philosophy.

You guys need to understand that math, and logic, are not a stand alone practice, they both originate from natural philosophy, onthology, and things like number theory, and the theory of logic, and these things have very known problems, theories like Godel's incompleteness theories pretty much prove our attempts at doing anything 100% are not possible.

you treat math, and logic like they are 100%, absolutely empirical and unable to be broken, when these things are broken at the very core, any true scientist knows this as fact, and also knows that any attempts at completeness, perfection, and order are only things a fool chases, and will ultimately flush their sanity down the drain.

It's not because our mind is flawed either.

the answer is obvious, it's because the universe is flawed, and it's nature, ultimately random and unpredictable. Because there is no way something that is flawed at it's fundamental level would have ever gotten us this far if it weren't consistent with the reality of nature.

The sooner we accept this as the truth, or at least accept it as a possible truth, the sooner we can understand how things like quantum gravity, and general relativity reconcile with the bigger picture of things, until then we are just running around in endless cycles. Trying to compete for a perfectionism that was never there.

>>4356603
You didn't read my quote from the Wikipedia article. At a certain point, the particles aren't just unpredictable, they're literally random, as their predictability approaches zero.

>>4356658
>>4356658
Because physical laws are happening.

>>4356668
of which we have little understanding when it comes to the core of it...

>>4356675
Yes, but they are happening.
Why doesnt planets explode into tea cups?
Why didn't laws of gravity took vacations yesterday?
Why electromagnetism works all the days of the week and not eat clown feces?

They work constantly.
Do you understand when am getting with this?
Laws of physics= things will happen they way laws dictates.
Which is determinism in a nutshell.

Randomness is just another thing we dont fully understand yet.
I mean there is entanglement, which is a bond through non-local means, but you still think UP is non-causal?

How much of a retard can anyone be to not connect those dots?

>>4356695
I understand where you're coming from, but our laws break when we try to fuse the microscopic world with the macroscopic one. Our laws are far from being complete, and so many questions remain unanswered. Calling for a deterministic world or a randomness one is too soon.

it doesn't exist. everything is predetermined. its just impossible for us with our current technology and knowledge of the universe to calculate and account for every possible variable, hence why we use the buzzword "random" to explain this crap.

Am I wrong if I say that quantum phenomenons are random?

i balieve randomness is a result/effect of the fac that there is no perfect system,everything has a flaw=>nomperfect random organization of things

>>4356723

>2012
>still thinks random is a buzzword
>i seriously hope you guys don't do this

Physics PhD here: it cannot, and does not exist. What do exist are unknowables in proportions which statically mirror random probabilities.
You cannot prove me wrong, but nor should you.
This interpretation of physics has zero impact on the application of physics or our ability to understand the universe.

>>4356794
Explain quantum superposition without true randomness, then.

>>4356796
Suppose there exists an infinite level of detail that transcends anything we currently understand. But our ability to understand or perceive this detail is fundamentally limited.
Since we cannot know all of the information perfectly, it is possible that the impacts of these infinitesimal details exist in, or contribute towards chaos, which at the level we are able to perceive, coincidentally appears random.

I can now continue to explain quantum superposition or any other phenomena in terms of totally non-random phenomena, because I have defined randomness as the observable manifestation of chaos.

This has no impact on our implementations or uses for 'randomness'.

>>4356809
You're assuming there isn't a thing called true randomness in your very proof to defy it, you fail.

Suppose it seems a phenomenon is random. To find out we would have to understand the phenomenon perfectly. To understand it perfectly well we would require all knowledge of everything that can influence this phenomenon on top of knowledge of it itself. Suppose have this knowledge it's still "random", meaning we're not able to calculate it's behavior. We're now in a situation where we don't know it's behavior, so the assumption that we knew everything was wrong. Which means we will never have an answer.

PHD-A in "modern" physics comes from time A, which is the year 1890.

PHD-B in "modern" physics comes from time B, which is the year 2890.

What's the difference between these two pHd's?

They both became masters of the same thing? do they disagree with each other? does PHD B ever even exists? or will humanity end before his time was suppose to come?

We do not know, and it can be anything, because the means to determine the answer haven't happened yet,

because it's nature is random,

if it weren't random, we could eventually deduct the answer as the means to predict anything in principle would be possible, but it isn't. because the nature of today is also random.

>>4356867

No, you couldn't predict everything. To predict you would require instruments to record with. These instruments would have to record themselves and each other. They would then need to take into account the result of this information (prediction). They would then need to gather information on knowledge of that on the universe. They would then need to gather information the new situation. The recursion would go on infinity.

>>4356841
What is statistics?
An estimated guess, to suit physical behaviour in the best possible way.
Results become consistent with many observations and calculations.

Why can't one simply just except that:
1- Our understanding of nature is far from complete/finished
2- We as observers and interpreters are imperfect, biased and unable to "feel" every parameter of the observed intuitively.

Let's say a particle is in every state possible at any given time. How do we observe this? Is it possible we influence the behaviour of this particle because we observe it? What happens when we look on a higher scale? Do things change their appearance when you look at them a certain amount of times? Can we even start to comprehend every interaction every atom in every state is going through and keep this in mind 24/7? What about the things we can observe, but can impossibly test or verify?

Claiming randomness now is hopping on conclusions like bad scientists do. Our road down to these extremities of reality has been very consistent and deterministic, even though they were non relativistic nor quantum mechanical. My best guess would be: more research is needed.