Randomness

[vampire_lestat]

Had an interesting* discussion in physics today about randomness, there was some reason for it, probably exponential decay or some other mind-numbingly simple (at the level we are taught) thing.


Someone decided to say, for whatever reason, that they didn't believe in pure randomness, to which I replied "and I don't believe in goldfish, but that doesn't mean they don't exist", which at the time I found far funnier than it is.


Anyway, slightly more on topic, what are your views on the subject?

Do you believe that anything can be truly random, or are all things that appear to be random following some kind of pattern that we can't descern from pure randomness with our current understanding?

Why do you think whatever you think about this?









*not really, but i thought i'd find out your opinion on this.

[LHC]

You really don't believe in goldfish? Maniac.

[pablissimo]

Quantum doodah. Yeah sure, stuff's random.

[vampire_lestat]

It was just to prove a point, but nobody has proven to me from first princibles that goldfish exist. Just waving one in someone's face doesn't prove that they do exist.

[Stew]

Originally Posted by vampire_lestat

Just waving one in someone's face doesn't prove that they do exist.

Yes it does.
Well to me.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by vampire_lestat

It was just to prove a point, but nobody has proven to me from first princibles that goldfish exist. Just waving one in someone's face doesn't prove that they do exist.

It's perfectly valid empirical proof.

The only things you can prove from first principles are abstract, so that's an utterly irrelevent statement.

[JonnyBGood]

Obviously you can doubt all knowledge but I doubt you'll find sitting in the corner dying of hunger* that fulfilling. I dislike talking about differences between what we can observe (I don't mean this in the sense of what we can directly observe, more in the sense of what we can conjecture and refute using the wonderful scientific method) and what really exists because I'm a positivist ****wit. So yeah I guess I "believe" in randomness**





*transcending to another plane of existence beyond mortal perception.

**because science said so and it also said your mother's fat.

[JonnyBGood]

This is God. I am out to get you big_horn. Nobody else can read this post but you. You will suffer endless torment during your hellish existence. I advise suicide.

[vampire_lestat]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

**because science said your mother's fat.

Where is this science, i'll kick its fecking arse. Although she is a bit fat.

[JonnyBGood]

I'm not a lefty. I'm more economically right wing than george bush and dick cheney put together in a money factory where you can either horde the money in a big storeroom or use it to feed poor people.

PS solipsist.

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by big_horn

i don't understand why that's an irelevant statement ?
surely it's just rejecting naive realism and taking a perfectly reasonable standpoint that empirical proof may infact be an illusion

A less flawed version of Pascal's Wager. If empirical proof is illusory, then it's utterly irrelevent what we do because anything we do, think or experience is by definition based on extrapolation of evidence. If it isn't illusory, then if we ignore it we've ballsed things up completely.

[JonnyBGood]

I don't like a lot of you.

[pablissimo]

Even me?

**** YOU MAN

[JonnyBGood]

I'd send pab free money even if we lived in an ultra-capitalist society <3

[MrL_JaKiri]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I don't like a lot of you.

What parts of me do you like?

[JonnyBGood]

The striped sections.

[pablissimo]

We need a :heart: or something.

[MrL_JaKiri]

We had a [you] tag on another forum, which replaced with the name of the account the person was reading from.

Great fun.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by big_horn

To point out that a theory leads to scepticism is not an argument against the truth of the theory. For scepticism may be correct, even if some people would prefer it not to be. If representative realism is true, and entails scepticism about our knowledge of the physical world, then that scepticism is a true theory.

I'm slightly skeptical of your reasoning here.

[JonnyBGood]

I'm pretty sure you arrived at those conclusions through interacting with the real world so I'm afraid you may have been slightly misled.

Equally maybe I've been slightly misled. Or maybe I've just been misled to suppose that I'm misled. or maybe I've just been misled to suppose that I suppose I've been misled.

DO YOU SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE?

[JonnyBGood]

Why does it have to be certain? Certainty is for pedantic nobodies with more time on their hands than they know what to do with.

[JonnyBGood]

So you now agree with MrL that it's an irrelevant statement? Jolly good then