Does randomness exist?

>radioactive decay is deterministic
I'd be interested in seeing where you heard this.

>Stealth dubs thread

>Makes a thread asking about randomness with a picture of dice
>move the goalposts all the way down to quantum mechanics

Okay bro, have it your way.

I don't see where the OP said "does randomness exist, speaking exclusively about non QM phenomena." He asked, "does randomness exist," to which the answer is yes, unless you can show otherwise.

Again, do you have a source?

Rolling

Did you not read my original post?

I said it is about epistemological knowledge.

If you could know the position of every(I said atom in my original post, but that's really irrelevant), particle or mass in the universe, which is something you could do, hypothetically, where is the randomness?

He's not op I am. I made that the picture so people could recognize the theme of the thread.
The goal posts can't be moved because it's all connected. I was interested in discussing whether anything truly random could exist, not just that we can't predict complex things.

Yes but it's all about epistemological uncertainty. More precisely, you doesn't know in what branch of the multiverse, that contain all possiblities you would end.

>I said atom in my original post, but that's really irrelevant
No, it is actually extremely relevant, because you implied that knowing the position of every atom would eliminate the illusion of randomness. It wouldn't, because radioactive nuclei would still actually behave in random ways, without illusion.

I'm not going to repeat myself once again.

If you can't understand what I'm saying, there is no point in continuing in this discussion.

> where is the randomness?
You literally wouldn't know the speeds of particles and without speed, it would be like totally random what happens like second after.

...

You haven't produced an actual argument either.
The answer is not yes by default, so lets see your logic, otherwise you look like a hypocrite.

>it would be like totally random what happens like second after.

No, it wouldn't, because you can continue measuring position until you have the information you want.

Stop trolling.

You couldn't even do it hypothetically. Assuming in addition to position you also meant all relevant information actually needed to accurately predict the behaviour of every particle, it is impossible even hypothetically to know all that information at once. Knowing some of the information would prevent you from knowing some of the other information.

You can't just decide QM doesn't matter. And you never pointed out where came from. I'd appreciate if instead of repeating yourself you actually answered something.

Radioactive decay of nuclei, as I originally mentioned. It is impossible to know or predict when a particular nuclei of an unstable species will decay, as the actual process occurs randomly.

>You couldn't even do it hypothetically

How can you possibly know what humans could do after hundreds of thousands or even millions of years of technological progress?

Okay, we can rephrase. If humanity someday completely overturns everything we currently know about physics at that scale, it is perhaps possible under that completely new theory of how things work you could know speed and position at once. Hey, you never know, right? But as it stands now, would indicate that it is actually impossible.

Yeah, but if you *could* do it at some point in the future, then that means that the randomness only exists as a matter of time and space, e.g epistemological uncertainty for people like us living in the 21st century.

In 5 million years, if humans are around, they'll probably be laughing at such a notion, because they'll probably know everything there is to know about the physical universe.

>but if you *could* do it at some point in the future,
Yes, but that's a massive "if." Just because some things humanity used to think were impossible are now possible does not mean that everything is possible within the universe. Things that we currently can't even conceive of in the first place, or things that have always been thought impossible turn out to be so.

Again, for this to be true, you would have to overturn every thing we know about physics at that scale. Maybe that will happen once we have a Theory of Everything, who knows? But, currently, the best answer we have is yes, randomness exists.

that's all that exists

If the decay of an atom was a truly random event, by effect everything else would be random as it would be influenced by a thing that is not deterministic.
So where is the evidence of actual randomness elsewhere outside of this seemingly random event?

The actual decay event is random. The interactions that follow are either random or not, depending on exactly which interaction you are looking at. I'm not sure why a random seed would inherently produce more random events "down the line."

It seems like everything in the classical model is deterministic, however things could still very likely be at least partially random on quantum level, though it might be or at least seem like a contradiction, we cannot determine the outcome yet.

> imagine X being possible in theory!
> what if people in future could do X?
> X totally explains how things work.
I can't follow that logic. Maybe people in the future would totally be able to defy uncertainties law, but it is pure speculation. You can say that random is real too from this logic. Imagine if people in future, and they invented chance-meter that allows you to know probability for any events. How do you know that the position-and-speed-meter is more realistic future invention than a chance-meter?

How can anything be predicted if there is a truly random cause existent in this world?

I'm just not sure randomness and order can coexist. Any order that would be present in the world will be influenced by randomness negating its order.

Yeah but it's a more reasonable expectation that knowledge will continue accumulating forever, assuming that we don't destroy ourselves.

I think you lack imagination more than I am being naive.

There is no evidence that the behavior of any particle is "random" or not. The fact is that there is not practical way of determining whether randomness exists or not, and there probably never will be, unless someone designs a super computer the size of a galaxy or something absurd like that.

Let's imagine for the moment a computer algorithm. It's a pretty simple one that just takes the previous output as input and then adds two. So if the previous output was 14, it would take that as input, add two, and output 16. You would probably say that the course of the algorithm is pretty predictable, right? So let's introduce a wrinkle. Let's imagine that instead of starting at one particular point, the algorithm accepts any integer as its initial value. So it could start at 14, 15, 16, 3, -74, etc. Even with this wrinkle, once you have the initial "seed", you would probably agree that the algorithm is predictable and ordered, right?

So we introduce another wrinkle. Instead of choosing some specific integer as the starting point, the starting point is a really and truly randomly selected integer. Let's say that 67893 is selected. Having accepted this initial seed, the algorithm is turned on. Can you predict what the output will be, or does the presence of randomness mean it is completely unordered?

> knowledge will continue accumulating forever
Yes. With all that knowledge we would know what events are truly random ones. Anything that aren't random would be figured out eventually but for the truly random events there just zero knowledge for anything, beyond their probabilities. It seems like possible future for me.

>There is no evidence that the behavior of any particle is "random" or not.
The search for a trigger or cause for the decay of an unstable nuclei has been extremely long and fruitless. As it stands right now, the statistics and the physics models indicate that it is actually random. There are other examples but that is the most clear.

>Can you predict what the output will be, or does the presence of randomness mean it is completely unordered?

The fact that it is hard or difficult to know something doesn't mean that it is in principle impossible to know something.

You do understand that right?

I'm not sure you quoted the right person. Could you explain exactly what you mean here?

That's not what we were talking about, imagine a hypothetical absolute randomness in what he was saying

I mean, adding multiple levels of complexity to a computer algorithm does not mean that it is in principle impossible to know every single operation with certainty, even though it might be tremendously difficult when something gets sufficiently complex.

Right, so the presence of some amount of randomness (in this case, the initial seed) doesn't mean that the whole is inherently unordered, contrary to .

Now that doesn't mean that every thing is predictable. For example, before the seed was generated, you would have no way of knowing whether the series would be even or odd, and you wouldn't be predicting so much as guessing. But after the seed is generated, you would know, because the algorithm is ordered.

>Right, so the presence of some amount of randomness

Yeah but it isn't randomness. Because the system is intrinsically deterministic.

Just because we humans are not equipped technologically or mentally for that matter to predict what the result is, does not mean that it is randomness.

Take for example the idea of birds. There are probably 100 billion birds flying around the Earth at any given time, and in principle it is possible to know where they all are at the same time.

Is it likely that we will ever know where they all are? No, because the amount of energy and technology required to figure it out, is more than the gain(the knowledge), and hence we don't bother; but that does not mean that there isn't an answer, and it also doesn't mean that it is impossible to find out.

Define Randomness

>Yeah but it isn't randomness.
The seed, hypothetically, is. A completely randomly selected integer. The question is whether the random seed causes the system itself to behave in a non-ordered way.

The bird example isn't random, because in principle it is possible to know all the relevant information (if you only view them at the level of being animals.) Radioactive decay and the hypothetical seed are random, because even in principle it is not possible to know them ahead of time (unless someone comes up with completely new physics.)

It cannot be random if we accept the model of interaction between particles responds to causality, however complex it may be. In other it doesn't just happen, it happens for a reason when certain criteria is met.

That's a pretty good metaphor, I'll have to give it some more thought.
After the event has occurred it does seem that order can follow, but zoomed out in its entirety it is not ordered because of that seed of randomness. In its entirety it can only be considered random, so all results of the event are random even if a subsequent pattern is present. So if true randomness is real, physical existence must be founded on randomness, but that begs the question of why and how there are patterns that can follow.

But for the idea of the "seed" to work it requires the answer of the question to be yes and randomness to be intrinsic. There is no such thing as a truly random result as there is always some prior connection and some way of having knowledge of that connection, regardless of how absurdly difficult it would be to do so.

Your response is self-fulfilling

The causality of classical mechanics and everyday macroscopic existence is not the same as the causality of QM. You can predict the behaviour of large amounts of atoms because they act probabilistically, but any individual unstable nuclei examined in isolation is random.

Or following principles and reacting to forces we don't understand and can't observe.

But yes, if what I said turns out to be wrong then you are correct. It would come down to QM

His post was addressing a tangent I brought up where hypothetically if true randomness existed it could not coexist with order, because a random cause would influence the order making it non ordered.

Ah, sorry. But yes I agree with that, it is either one or the other. Whether we will ever have a definitive answer is unknown.

>but zoomed out in its entirety it is not ordered
Yes. If you zoom out to before the seed was randomly selected, you cannot predict the whole thing. Stepping back out from the analogy, that is why just knowing all the position of all particles wouldn't let you predict all of their behaviour: some random "seeds" would yet to have been generated.

>so all results of the event are random even if a subsequent pattern is present
But the patterns are ordered, just acting upon random input. Again, once the seed has actually been generated, the system acts in predictable ways. You can't predict everything from first principles, but locally you can identify reliable patterns.

The "seed" works because hypothetically we accept the existence of a truly randomly selected integer. This is to answer the question of whether the random and the ordered behavior can coexist, or whether the presence of anY randomness in the system invalidates the order. This is not to indicate that randomness actually exist, as that had been established earlier with the use of radioacrive nuclei. According to our physics, there truly is such a thing as a random result. This is just to examine the implications.

>why and how there are patterns that can follow.
Simple. Some things are random, others are not, and the universe is a mix of both.

I like propensity probability because it assigns objective properties to chance.

But that's whole point, randomness would either nearly immodestly stop order. Or a system would start at a random point/value and quickly follow a set of rules, an order.

Shit, no correction I think I understand what you are saying. If the starting point is random the system is random regardless of iff it follows an order after that initial point/value

>Or a system would start at a random point/value and quickly follow a set of rules, an order.
Essentially this happens, but over and over again. Some random event occurs, but once it has actually happened ordered events follow. Ordered events can even influence the actual conditions surrounding the next random event (for example, the position of the unstable nuclei) and so on. How much this actually influences macroscopic existence depends on the exact situation. It's a very messy, philosophically unsatisfying answer, but it appears to be the case.

The phenomenon of a pattern acting on a truly random event does not produce something both ordered and not, it is only random in its result.

So is the result of the final portion of not predictable?

In short, it's really fucking complicated on an actual phsical level and we may never known

It's a fucking spook. Thread overrr.

not a good meme

>not
>a
>good
>meme

ABORT-THREAD

(I actually really liked this discussion)

Uncertainty applies to those who are not omniscient.
Your question is equivalent to 'does blindness exist'.
Yes, humans can be blind to chance just as they can be blind to images.

If your definition of randomness means an output that is not factored by a self aware or sentient force, then it depends on your religious view, but yes
If your definition of randomness is an output that is unable to be tracked, charted, predicted, measured or otherwise observed, then mostly no except for on a quantum level (for now)