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> I made a statement about a simple bet, using a fair 20-sided die, on the outcome of the 8th roll after the die has just come up 20 seven times. I'll take the

> I made a statement about a simple bet, using a fair 20-sided die, on the outcome of the 8th roll after the die has just come up 20 seven times. I'll take the bet that it doesn't come up 20 on the 8th roll. How is this related to the topic at all? Our disagreement concerns the ability of humans to produce numbers that look random, our disagreement doesn't concern the ability of a fair die to produce numbers that look random. Of course a fair die is going to produce numbers that look random, that's not related to this discussion at all!

denton-scratch 5y ago
It's related only to your challenge with a contrived and complicated betting scenario. "The topic" is whether the challenge faced by the experimental subjects makes any sense. It doesn't; the challenge is to produce a string of six symbols that others can't distinguish from randomness. There is no such string. Your contrived betting scenario doesn't illuminate the issue; it's an attempt to distract attention, and IMO it's not in good faith.
- baobabKoodaa 5y ago
  > "The topic" is whether the challenge faced by the experimental subjects makes any sense. It doesn't; the challenge is to produce a string of six symbols that others can't distinguish from randomness. There is no such string. I strongly disagree with that statement. On a surface-level inspection, some strings appear to have more entropy than others ("can be distinguished from randomly generated strings"). This absolutely is a real thing, and it's measurably real. If you genuinely believe what you say, then we can easily wager on it and find out who's right. > Your contrived betting scenario doesn't illuminate the issue; it's an attempt to distract attention, and IMO it's not in good faith. You asked me to produce a specific betting scenario, and I did my best to entertain you with that. I crafted the scenario in good faith insofar as I tried my best to answer to your request. I suppose you can still argue that it's not in good faith because I never had any expectation that you would take the wager. But like I said before, that's because there is no way to formulate our disagreement as a betting scenario that you would accept, because you don't genuinely believe the claim you are making here, so you will simply weasel out of any wager.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    I withdraw my accusation of bad faith, and I apologise for that remark. I call on you to withdraw your claim that my remarks were made in bad faith. I still don't know why you felt the need to contrive a complicated betting scenario, when we were discussing a "simpler" scenario that already involved an icosohedral die. If we're using betting scenarios to model good faith, then aren't simple scenarios more useful than complex ones? Ergo, coin-toss is the most appropriate. But trying to talk about this stuff in terms of physical things like coins or dice inevitably turns into discussion about unfair coins and crooked dice, or whether the caster can influence the outcome; so argument by analogy quickly leads to dead ends, in this area.
    - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
      > I call on you to withdraw your claim that my remarks were made in bad faith. I don't want to offend you, but I still do not think you believe the claim you are making. If you actually do believe it, we should be able to formulate our disagreement in the form of a wager and use the scientific method to determine which one of us is correct. > I still don't know why you felt the need to contrive a complicated betting scenario, when we were discussing a "simpler" scenario that already involved an icosohedral die. If we're using betting scenarios to model good faith, then aren't simple scenarios more useful than complex ones? Ergo, coin-toss is the most appropriate. The die scenario you formulated is not suitable, because it is unrelated to our disagreement. We're looking for a wager that illustrates the disagreement, e.g. you would be taking one side of the wager and I would be taking the other side of the wager. Your die scenario is not like this, because both of us would be taking the same side of the wager in that scenario; it has no connection to our disagreement at all. I tried my best to formulate a simple scenario that would illustrate our difference and allow us to wager on which one of us is right. Sure we could use coin-toss instead of dice. Feel free to formulate a scenario. > But trying to talk about this stuff in terms of physical things like coins or dice inevitably turns into discussion about unfair coins and crooked dice, or whether the caster can influence the outcome; so argument by analogy quickly leads to dead ends, in this area. The disagreement concerns whether a person can produce a sequence of numbers in a way such that another person will/will not not be able to determine whether that sequence of numbers was manufactured or generated by a random process. A generator like coin toss or dice roll is very appropriate here.

denton-scratch 5y ago

It's related only to your challenge with a contrived and complicated betting scenario. "The topic" is whether the challenge faced by the experimental subjects makes any sense. It doesn't; the challenge is to produce a string of six symbols that others can't distinguish from randomness. There is no such string. Your contrived betting scenario doesn't illuminate the issue; it's an attempt to distract attention, and IMO it's not in good faith.

baobabKoodaa 5y ago
> "The topic" is whether the challenge faced by the experimental subjects makes any sense. It doesn't; the challenge is to produce a string of six symbols that others can't distinguish from randomness. There is no such string. I strongly disagree with that statement. On a surface-level inspection, some strings appear to have more entropy than others ("can be distinguished from randomly generated strings"). This absolutely is a real thing, and it's measurably real. If you genuinely believe what you say, then we can easily wager on it and find out who's right. > Your contrived betting scenario doesn't illuminate the issue; it's an attempt to distract attention, and IMO it's not in good faith. You asked me to produce a specific betting scenario, and I did my best to entertain you with that. I crafted the scenario in good faith insofar as I tried my best to answer to your request. I suppose you can still argue that it's not in good faith because I never had any expectation that you would take the wager. But like I said before, that's because there is no way to formulate our disagreement as a betting scenario that you would accept, because you don't genuinely believe the claim you are making here, so you will simply weasel out of any wager.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  I withdraw my accusation of bad faith, and I apologise for that remark. I call on you to withdraw your claim that my remarks were made in bad faith. I still don't know why you felt the need to contrive a complicated betting scenario, when we were discussing a "simpler" scenario that already involved an icosohedral die. If we're using betting scenarios to model good faith, then aren't simple scenarios more useful than complex ones? Ergo, coin-toss is the most appropriate. But trying to talk about this stuff in terms of physical things like coins or dice inevitably turns into discussion about unfair coins and crooked dice, or whether the caster can influence the outcome; so argument by analogy quickly leads to dead ends, in this area.
  - baobabKoodaa 5y ago
    > I call on you to withdraw your claim that my remarks were made in bad faith. I don't want to offend you, but I still do not think you believe the claim you are making. If you actually do believe it, we should be able to formulate our disagreement in the form of a wager and use the scientific method to determine which one of us is correct. > I still don't know why you felt the need to contrive a complicated betting scenario, when we were discussing a "simpler" scenario that already involved an icosohedral die. If we're using betting scenarios to model good faith, then aren't simple scenarios more useful than complex ones? Ergo, coin-toss is the most appropriate. The die scenario you formulated is not suitable, because it is unrelated to our disagreement. We're looking for a wager that illustrates the disagreement, e.g. you would be taking one side of the wager and I would be taking the other side of the wager. Your die scenario is not like this, because both of us would be taking the same side of the wager in that scenario; it has no connection to our disagreement at all. I tried my best to formulate a simple scenario that would illustrate our difference and allow us to wager on which one of us is right. Sure we could use coin-toss instead of dice. Feel free to formulate a scenario. > But trying to talk about this stuff in terms of physical things like coins or dice inevitably turns into discussion about unfair coins and crooked dice, or whether the caster can influence the outcome; so argument by analogy quickly leads to dead ends, in this area. The disagreement concerns whether a person can produce a sequence of numbers in a way such that another person will/will not not be able to determine whether that sequence of numbers was manufactured or generated by a random process. A generator like coin toss or dice roll is very appropriate here.