Is there any such thing as truly random? Or is it all just our inability to calculate?

There is such a thing as "truly random", but its within the domain of philosophy, not physics. Nothing happens truly randomly in the real world. We never have total certainty in how things will go, and we never fully understand the mechanics of the world, so there is always room for unexpected consequences. Random just means we dont know how things will go. A purely random single event has a 50/50 chance of happening. You can still say something with 20/80 chances of happening is random, with the qualification that you know it usually happens, or that such and such antecedent makes it happen more often than not. But there is still an element of randomness in something 20/80.

Fun tangent, Von Neuman invented a "randomness generator". If you have a coin that is heads 80% of the time, or any event of known probability P where P > 0.5. If you listen for instances of the event, or the coin flip, and record them. HT and TH will happen in equal proportion, therefore 50/50.

tldr; Bayesians are correct, frequentists gtfo.

>There is such a thing as "truly random", but its within the domain of philosophy, not physics.

Errr, this would very much depend on which model of QM you subscribe to. Mainstream physics states that there is something like a fundamental randomness, i.e. you'll never be able to predict which way a single photon goes when shot at a semitransparent mirror, even if you fully knew all the parameters involved.

But you know, models and all. Reality might be very different, but it seems to work out for us so far.

I dont think you need to buy into the whole "randomness is quantum mechanics" thing to accept quantum mechanics. The fact that that interpretation of physics is pushed so hard is a scientific failure. Its huge over reach. In law there is a concept of "judicial restraint", where Judges avoid answering big questions, and try to make small incremental changes to law. I think science ought to be the same way, where its better to be modest in your conclusions. Making strong claims about causality itself is way beyond what was a necessary.

My bet is that either quantum physics wont make any progress in the next century, or physicists will step back on some of their fundamental claims and interpretations of the observations.

nigga please

It is not possible to make the calculations you are thinking of because the measurements of all the variables that may cause randomness are truly impossible.

Every measurement destroys as much information as it gains. If this were not true, then thermodynamics could be broken by certain machines that use impossible sensors.

Basically, because it is a solid, established fact in physics that you could never know everything, there is true randomness.

No, randomness is just a human abstraction to approach incomplete information problems.

How random is a randomly generated number?

Nothing that can exist in the universe is truly random, non-deterministic or arbitrary.

"Random" means not adhering to a sense of order
"Non-deterministic" means not based on other factors
"Arbitrary" means one among other equally plausible, likely or valid choices

This axiom follows from the fact that space and time are infinite and that infinitely many possibilities exist.

You can't simply make up an infinite number of possibilities. To have a valid notion of something you have to fill up an infinitely large space of possibilities, so one must have a functional way of defining it.

This is why certain people push the notino that the universe is finite - there are only so many lies they can make up at a time.

^- This guy knows whats up

Depends on your technique. A piece of paper that says "4" on it is a not that random random number generator.

Imagine a cup 1 meter off the ground with n 9 sided dice. The cup in one motion tilts 180 degrees and the dice fall and once they have stopped moving a camera records the number on all dice from left to right. A robotic arm picks up the dice and puts them back in the cup.

Nobody will ever code a random number generator that would out perform this

No one playing Minecraft can build a redstone computer large enough to perfectly simulate Minecraft. Thus, those playing Minecraft have the inability to calculate their Minecraft world.

We have the exact same problem. There will never be a computer large enough or fast enough to calculate the universe just to show that nothing is random.

Make that 10 sided dice. I forgot about 0

There is such a thing as random. It is composed of YLYL threads and images of traps.

>ctrl-f Bell's Theorem
>0 matches

Anyone who believes in determinism is a brainlet.