Yana Usdi

I tried to answer (poorly I think) someone about the idea of "random" in another thread and I'm pretty sure I didn't say quite what I wanted to say so I was interested in the thoughts of others on that point. I'm way past due for a break here so I don't plan to argue or debate anyone's ideas on it, I just want to see what people think. I'll try to state my views on it first. I'll probably be away (or at least quiet) for a while so if I don't respond it's not because I didn't like what anyone said or whatever, it's just because I need a break. I'm getting too intense sometimes for a pot board.

On the randomness of life though. I think we tend to personalize things too much, assume it's all about us and miss the bigger picture. I was locked up as a kid for no better reason than skipping school to avoid a gang problem, lots of kids skip school but I was the one that got screwed. Random? In a way, but I know what caused it and it's a problem we can fix if we cared to, it's still hurting other kids today. Misapplied zero tolerance (and zero thought required) policies. It's not so much random as something we could change but just don't care to change. I see the same type of thing in most areas we call random. It's random to be hit by a bus trying to cross the street, but there are things we can do (look both ways) to avoid it, those who follow those practices have a much less chance of being hurt by one. Not so random after all, we controlled it to a large extent.

In the quantum world in science it's very random on the level of individual particles but as we get to larger scale or a larger group of small particles things start to average out and become predictable. You can't say what an individual particle will do but you can say how they'll distribute as a group with a fair degree of accuracy, the larger the group the better the prediction.

Polio, drought, starvation and any number of other formerly random events we changed into something less random. Even the genes we carry are a result of choices our ancestors made and the epigenetic and other changes that made in them. It wasn't a roll of the dice, it was a response to the way they lived and the options they picked along the way.

So although yes, on an individual level and when we personalize things we can see a fair bit of randomness I'm not convinced things are nearly as random on the large scale as we seem to think it is. That doesn't mean planned, it just means we know (or can learn) why and there's a direct cause and effect. Am I right on that, and if so (or if not) what would be a shorter and better way to try to explain this idea?

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Texas Toker's Wife

I equate randomness with chaos theory - the idea that a dynamic system may be utterly dependent on or sensitive to certain initial conditions (otherwise known as the butterfly effect).

Just like with particles, as you mention, individual particles may exhibit random behavior but a given system of particles in something is definable and predictable.

So to, in my mind, is human behavior. An individual may perform an unpredictable or random act, but by and large, human behavior as a system is predictable.

Random things happen, but life itself is not random. History, psychology, and philosophy concern themselves with the study of (predictable) human behavior and it would seem through study in these fields that a direct cause and effect can be determined for most (if not all) human action.

My $0.02 - but bear in mind I've had my head buried in Aristotle all afternoon and might be a little over the top philosophical speaking at the moment

I think when we say something is completely random, what we are really saying is that we do not readily see the cause and effect that produced the thing.

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Hashishi

Determinable human behaviour is often mistaken for cognisant behaviour. I suppose it all comes down to circumstance.

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yoman3

I agree with everything that's said. Don't really have much to add.

I will say that individual "randomness" is truly random. I guess it's more of a bad luck/good luck kind of thing. There's no "reason," so to speak, for these things to happen to one or another - they just happen.

Yes I know good luck and bad luck don't really exist as a force.

You find a 20 dollar bill on the ground? That didn't happen for a reason. That just happened.

Broke your neck in a car crash? That wasn't because of Karma or God or anything like that, it just happened. Random. (Yes it happened because someone got drunk and drove, or someone lost control of their car, or etc. etc. ) But as for the reason it happened to the specific person, it was just...chance.

macphearsome

Interesting thread and I also don't have a lot to add.

I remember when I was in high-school trying to wrap my mind around what it meant for something to be random. I wondered, at the time, how a computer "creates" a "random" number and then I realized that it doesn't really create a "random" number. I obviously don't know the math but I understand that a certain seed (for example the current time) is used to produce a seemingly random number.

It seems to me like it is very significant to make a statement that quantum effects are *random*

Just trying to think of exactly what that means is a bit of a mind-fuck. Does that mean that if we took the universe back in time that a different result would occur? Or is quantum only random because we are unable to predict the behaviour of particles?

For example, a dice roll isn't random, it's just unpredictable. It's very sensitive to small changes in the input conditions (how hard you throw the dice, what the surface is like, what the spin is like) but in the end, the number that comes up will be a result of those conditions.


Unless, of course, God intervenes.

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zappy

Human behavior may seem random but overall we are really just responding to numerous environmental stimuli and based on these stimuli an accurate prediction of behavior could likely be made. This seemingly random post I am making right now was the result of reading this very thread... Ok my brain hurts now .
If you look hard enough I think you can find a cause for anything.