Random number generator - is it even possible? (was: God, Aliens, and Chaos ...)

[screaming]

First I'd like to point out that when referring to my religion, I'm agnostic. I'm not the typical teenage angst it's-cool-to-be-agnostic. I mean really, I just don't know. 

Sometimes I wonder if it's because I like debating it and I'll never find out for sure while I'm alive, or if I am truly searching for an answer.

Aside from that, I had a chain of thoughts this morning on my way to work.

It's amazing to me that in the known history of man there have always been concepts of a "higher power", or at least "some other power unknown".  In a history where there have been civilizations that don't even have a concept of something that universally effects all of us like time, it is simply amazing that I can't find any reference to a civilization that didn't have a concept of something as abstract as a ubiquitous power.

Now when take other atheist theories like ones where we've come from aliens and apply them to man's history, it seems somewhat feasible if you believe in aliens anyway, that aliens planted us here billions of years ago.  Now it's anyone's guess as to why.  High school biology experiment maybe? Last chance at preserving a dying race before their (our) world exploded into oblivion? Pioneering a colony of outcasts set on making a world where no one has to live in fear of being ridiculed and chastised for what they believe in (yeah, that worked)? Who knows?

In any case, the Neo-Darwinians would be happy to blather on about how much sense it makes for a microscopic organism to fly light years through space instead of entire multi-celled, nay, multi-organed organisms because of how much less energy it would take and how much more realistic that would be.

Then I start thinking about, if you believe in Neo-Darwinian theory, how much we've evolved through time from single-celled organisms, to blobs of slime, to complicated creatures with arms, legs, and real brains that let us <bunny-ears>think for ourselves</bunny-ears> (well some of us anyway).  Could someonethingalien have predicted that this would have happened? If so, did alien government agency apply some kind of chaos theory* algorithm to predict the outcome to present to their alien leader?

At this point some of you might be confused with the "bunny-ears" above.  I do that because if you believe in the chaos theory and you apply that to how the human brain and body work, you'd know that all we are is a bunch of chemical chain reactions. Ordered chaos lives in each and every one of us, and not a single one of us is capable of coming up with anything random. The mere concept of randomness is completely foreign to our entire global infrastructure.

I digress... and as compensation, I'll state my purpose and end this whole disquisition: If we cannot be random, can we really create anything random?  Even something as elementary as a random-number-generator seems physically, mentally, emotionally, and technically impossible.

And finally if that's the case, is the same true the other way?  If we are not random, is it because it's impossible for aliens to be random, or is there some other technically superior reason we are not random?

Hmmm.. Just a thought.

-sab

* As an aside, if it's true they used chaos theory to come up with it, it's cool that we thought of it too!  Mad props to my peoples in the human race!

[Shape D.]

If we are some sort of "preservation of an alien race" why didn't they leave us any cool technology? and wouldn't we then be the "chosen ones" and why wouldn't the "chosen ones" know where they came from if theyre so dang important?

[missioncontrol]

so are you saying my:

 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were not fish??.......... 

[screaming]

If we are some sort of "preservation of an alien race" why didn't they leave us any cool technology?

  You mean, besides DNA? Maybe to keep up from being bored?

and wouldn't we then be the "chosen ones" and why wouldn't the "chosen ones" know where they came from if theyre so dang important?

  If we came from single cells (remember, it's a lot "smarter" to send a microscopic organism through space than an entire ecosystem), it would take time for us to evolve (chaos theory - they knew we at least had a chance to evolve into "smart" beings) and then figure it out? Through DNA maybe?

-sab

[RayB]

...it is simply amazing that I can't find any reference to a civilization that didn't have a concept of something as abstract as a ubiquitous power.

I see where you're going, but no it's not amazing, and it's not an abstract concept. It's actually the simplest answer anyone can come up with to explain the unknown. "Event X happened and I cannot explain why or how, therefore Something must be responsbile for it". Doesn't take much intelligence to come to that kind of conclusion. Even animals react this way.

For example, your cat is minding it's own business, when all of a sudden it hears a noise. It does not know what caused the noise, but the cat will stop and be cautious. It instinctively believes that "something" must have caused the noise, therefore it must be vigilante to protect itself. It's a basic survival instinct.

Combine this with the need for "purpose" in our boring little lives and fear of the unknown and you get religion.

~Ray B.

[screaming]

so are you saying my:

 great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparents were not fish??.......... 

  hahaha no, I'm not saying anything I don't know.. I was just pondering the possibility. 

  Besides, we estimate that life "appeared" on earth about 4 billion years ago. That would be about (4x1,000x1,000x10) "great"s in there

-sab

[Stingray]

Just for fun I ran the original post through bablefish a few times.

English to Portugese
Portugese to French
French to Greek
Greek to English

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I'm not sure why I did this.

-S

[screaming]

I see where you're going, but no it's not amazing, and it's not an abstract concept. It's actually the simplest answer anyone can come up with to explain the unknown. "Event X happened and I cannot explain why or how, therefore Something must be responsbile for it". Doesn't take much intelligence to come to that kind of conclusion. Even animals react this way.

  That's a pretty good analogy and I can see why "intelligent beings" like humans may have thought that way initially, but I can't see why we've still hung onto these ideas so long, especially through the past couple thousand years. Great technological, physiological and psychological acheivements have been made since the dawn of man that would seem to make us reason it out a lot more than we already have.

  ...and it's when you reason it out that it seems so abstract, especially when you compare it to an idea like time.

  When you think about it logically (read: scientifically), you can't use "faith" because it's not based on what we (read: scientists) view as fact. Without faith, all you have is "I don't know otherwise, so it must exist.".  That doesn't make sense and makes the idea abstract.

-sab

[screaming]

I'm not sure why I did this.

   Chaos theory.  Something knew you were going to.   

-sab

[Daniel270]

Hmmm.....  should we formally ask Jeff Goldblum to elaborate? 

[Dartful Dodger]

is there some other technically superior reason we are not random?

42

[RayB]

That's a pretty good analogy and I can see why "intelligent beings" like humans may have thought that way initially, but I can't see why we've still hung onto these ideas so long, especially through the past couple thousand years. Great technological, physiological and psychological acheivements have been made since the dawn of man that would seem to make us reason it out a lot more than we already have.

Because there is and always will be "the unknown", no matter how much we know. However you should note that we've gone from beliefs that encompassed multiple gods down to mostly beliefs in one god. So that in itself shows that as we've gained knowledge through time, the necessity for "gods" as explanations for that which we don't understand, has diminished greatly.

And we're not that advanced yet. You overestimate the intelligence of people on this planet. Despite our accomplishments, what percentage of the populace is responsible for the truly great advances and discoveries in our history? A miniscule percentage. So where does that leave the rest of us? The average person on this planet only knows what's been immediately passed on to them. The average person isn't knowledge-seeking, and inquisitive. We learn what we have to, or want to, and then go about our lives. That leaves ALOT of holes in our collective knowledge of the world, existence, how things work. So we're still very primative. We just have better tools at our disposal, and a better, but very incomplete base of knowledge. Take those things away and we'd all be barely surviving in huts.

[screaming]

  Yeah, I'd just like to point out that in that sea of tangents I called a post, my point wasn't actually a theological one.  It was mathematical, biological, and a technical question.

  If we as humans are not random, can we in fact, create something that is?

-sab

[RayB]

Who says we're not random?
 

[screaming]

Who says we're not random?
 

  Chaos theory, remember?

[jbox]

  Yeah, I'd just like to point out that in that sea of tangents I called a post, my point wasn't actually a theological one.  It was mathematical, biological, and a technical question.

  If we as humans are not random, can we in fact, create something that is?

Perhaps it would be a good idea then to edit the title of this topic to clear that up, since you summed it up much quicker just then. Is the universe just a giant machine ticking away, or not? 

Quantum mechanics suggests that not everything is deterministic. Radiation is a classic example of something which we know averages out over the long term, but in the short term is difficult to predict. 

And I don't think we have anywhere near a complete understanding of time at all. 

[screaming]

  I'm not so sure even with 2000 years of developing computers under our belt that we can actually create anything random.  We'll get better at it and we'll come even closer to it than we can now, but will it ever truely be random?

Is the universe just a giant machine ticking away, or not? 

  I dunno.. Some might go so far as say that the answer to that question would dictate the answer to "Is there a God?"

Quantum mechanics suggests that not everything is deterministic. Radiation is a classic example of something which we know averages out over the long term, but in the short term is difficult to predict. 

  What about quantum paralellism, superpositions and the whole theory of entanglement? Quantum computing is all based on letting us predict quantum mechanics.

And I don't think we have anywhere near a complete understanding of time at all. 

  No we don't and we have a much less understanding of the Chaos Theory and all that it implicates.

  Thanks for the tip!  I changed to title... after I figured out how

-sab

[JCL]

I did a long technical post and IE ate it.

The short answer is that no computer (as defined as an algorithmic machine) can generate random numbers. Computers are deterministic. Random Number generator create pseudo random sequences that are perfectly deterministic. It doesn't matter how fast it is, it just isn't random and can't generate random data.

But if we want real randomness, we can get it from some natural processes.

Thermal noise in a resistor is random. You could measure it to get random sequences.

Decay of radioactive elements is a random process. You can get real random sequences from it.

Now the real questions are "Do people have free will?" or "Are people deterministic machines?" There's a long essay tying together Free Will, Chaos Theory and Quantum Mechanics that I've always wanted to write (but won't now).

But I'll try to give the gist of it.

[Stingray]

I'm not sure why I did this.

   Chaos theory.  Something knew you were going to.   

-sab

Far out.

-S

[FractalWalk]

Can anything not random create randomness?

Chaos Theory does not preclude randomness, though ordered disorder is a common trait of many complex systems (see avatar for metaphorical reference).

However, IMO, this relates more to closed systems & Godel's theorem. Can any system define itself?  Is there such a thing as meta-randomness? Does that beg the question of God?  If we are all fractal structures how is the human aspect of self-similarity measured?

These questions all seem to go down better with a gin & tonic.