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Ask HN: Is there any interesting philosophy about randomness?

10 points by slmjkdbtl 5y ago

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
Well, there's _Fooled by Randomness_.
Bostonian 5y ago
I don't think the deterministic Newtonian world has any room for free will. But does the randomness in quantum mechanics allow for it? Googling "quantum mechanics free will" yields essays on this topic.
- retrac 5y ago
  The debate along that line predates both Newtonian and quantum mechanics. The ancient Epicurian atomist philosophy seems, at first glance, to postulate a fully deterministic universe like the simple interpretation of Newtonian mechanics does, and so would preclude free will. The solution was a randomness in the motions of atoms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura#The_swerve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura#The_swerve
- SigmundA 5y ago
  In most games there is a RNG at the bottom that makes it interesting, the dice roll. I imagine our universe the same way, even if it is deterministic the origin (big bang) was probably based on some kind of random seed to setup the initial state like a procedural game, either that or its determinism all the way down, but what does that mean, what gave everything its current configuration? Of course you can start talking about god, but without some outside entropy we are back to no free will, if god is the source of entropy then there is no choice no free will only his will, if he is not the source where does it come from?
  - Zuider 5y ago
    If the initial singularity already contains everything that unfolds from its expansion so it emerges deterministically, then: 1) How can a zero dimensional object hold any information? 2) Does every singularity hold the same information? Would the works of say, Justin Bieber, necessarily emerge from the mathematical definition of a singularity so that every universe must contain them?
speedcoder 5y ago
Podcast: Lex Friedman interview #124 – Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe @ 12:43 https://lexfridman.com/stephen-wolfram-2/ https://lexfridman.com/stephen-wolfram-2/ . And, In particular Rule 30 of Wolfram's elementary cellular automaton rules https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rule30.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rule30.html
Snoozus 5y ago
There is true randomness stemming from real random processes. There is also effective randomness coming from chaotic processes. Chaos means that perturbations grow very fast. Then there is the uncertainty principle which sets a limit to how precisely you can know the initial conditions. So even with infinite computing power most observations can not be predicted for longer amount of times. This leaves a lot of space for free will. And also for esoteric theories.
Kuzutsukake 5y ago
I adopted my philosphy for randomness (synonymous with luck in my opinion) during an intro to stats class. We were going over error bars for linear regression, and that is how I think of randomness - so when I wish someone luck, I'm hoping that whatever model they used to prepare for their "event", that their end result is the better end of the error bars.
pizza 5y ago
Martin Lof randomness - Chaitin’s omega John Rawls veil of ignorance Ergodicity economics Negative probabilities Vacuum fluctations ‘Negentropy’ Julian Barbour’s explanation for the statistical mechanics that disprove the possibility of Boltzmann brains Matilde Marcolli’s work on using the Tononi phi/ integrated information metric to measure the information transfers through an information processing distributed system, and how that might relate to the brain Flippism Laplace/Maxwell’s demon Hegelianism, if u treat history as contingent, random, uncomputable
- lioeters 5y ago
  Applications of Randomness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_randomness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_randomness Colors of Noise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise

10 points by slmjkdbtl 5y ago

Well, there's _Fooled by Randomness_.

I don't think the deterministic Newtonian world has any room for free will. But does the randomness in quantum mechanics allow for it? Googling "quantum mechanics free will" yields essays on this topic.

retrac 5y ago
The debate along that line predates both Newtonian and quantum mechanics. The ancient Epicurian atomist philosophy seems, at first glance, to postulate a fully deterministic universe like the simple interpretation of Newtonian mechanics does, and so would preclude free will. The solution was a randomness in the motions of atoms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura#The_swerve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura#The_swerve
SigmundA 5y ago
In most games there is a RNG at the bottom that makes it interesting, the dice roll. I imagine our universe the same way, even if it is deterministic the origin (big bang) was probably based on some kind of random seed to setup the initial state like a procedural game, either that or its determinism all the way down, but what does that mean, what gave everything its current configuration? Of course you can start talking about god, but without some outside entropy we are back to no free will, if god is the source of entropy then there is no choice no free will only his will, if he is not the source where does it come from?
- Zuider 5y ago
  If the initial singularity already contains everything that unfolds from its expansion so it emerges deterministically, then: 1) How can a zero dimensional object hold any information? 2) Does every singularity hold the same information? Would the works of say, Justin Bieber, necessarily emerge from the mathematical definition of a singularity so that every universe must contain them?

speedcoder 5y ago

Podcast: Lex Friedman interview #124 – Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe @ 12:43 https://lexfridman.com/stephen-wolfram-2/ https://lexfridman.com/stephen-wolfram-2/ . And, In particular Rule 30 of Wolfram's elementary cellular automaton rules https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rule30.html https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rule30.html

Snoozus 5y ago

There is true randomness stemming from real random processes. There is also effective randomness coming from chaotic processes. Chaos means that perturbations grow very fast. Then there is the uncertainty principle which sets a limit to how precisely you can know the initial conditions. So even with infinite computing power most observations can not be predicted for longer amount of times. This leaves a lot of space for free will. And also for esoteric theories.

Kuzutsukake 5y ago

I adopted my philosphy for randomness (synonymous with luck in my opinion) during an intro to stats class. We were going over error bars for linear regression, and that is how I think of randomness - so when I wish someone luck, I'm hoping that whatever model they used to prepare for their "event", that their end result is the better end of the error bars.

pizza 5y ago

Martin Lof randomness - Chaitin’s omega John Rawls veil of ignorance Ergodicity economics Negative probabilities Vacuum fluctations ‘Negentropy’ Julian Barbour’s explanation for the statistical mechanics that disprove the possibility of Boltzmann brains Matilde Marcolli’s work on using the Tononi phi/ integrated information metric to measure the information transfers through an information processing distributed system, and how that might relate to the brain Flippism Laplace/Maxwell’s demon Hegelianism, if u treat history as contingent, random, uncomputable

lioeters 5y ago
Applications of Randomness - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_randomness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_randomness Colors of Noise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colors_of_noise