OPINION

  I have always found it fascinating that it is impossible to obtain a truly random number from a computer. The way they actually work is to use a pseudo-random number generater. For example, a common way of doing this is to get the number of milliseconds elapsed since the computer was turned on, and then use that as a pointer to a predefined list of numbers.

  Thus, you might think that it was bad luck that you encountered 20 monsters, just as you were about to finish a computer game, but, in reality, if you were able to start the game again, at precisely the same time since power-on, that same bad luck would unfold all over again.

  Of course since we are less accurate creatures, in terms of time keeping, than the computer, we never normally encounter this fact. However, this does not alter the fact that, in essence, computers cannot provide you with a random number.

  The simple question which interests me is: can the universe as a whole produce a random number? Certainly, Newton's classical model of the universe as an ordered mechanism would seem to be incapable of doing it. So, do the modern theories of chaos, quantum physics et al, allow for 'chance' to exist as a true concept in our universe?

  For example, when you throw a die, does not the final outcome rest, upon the positions of every atom in the system, the atoms in your hand, the atoms in the die, the atoms in the table? And does not their positions depend on the inter-reaction of every single atom in the universe, since time began?

  While the theory of chaos does make the modelling of 'natural' systems impossible, it has nothing to say, if one were to model the our universe, using a similar universe of atoms. The outcome of the die could still be predicted using this method, and 'chance' would still, therefore, be nullified.

  Quantum Theory, certainly allows atoms more freedom, maybe even freeing them from the mechanistic approach of Newton, however, it does not go any way to produce a theory of how the universe might actually produce a random event.

  There may well be a mechanism for this. Maybe I should rephrase that last sentence. There may well be a non-mechanistic way around this, however, until this is found and proved, I think, some care should be taken when using the ideas of chance and probability. Terms which are bandied around as disproof and proof, of all sorts of things.

  Personally, I am left with the feeling that every event is intrinsically connected to every other event, and there is, in fact, no such thing as 'chance'.

On Thursday, November 15, 2001 Alex wrote:   Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick and have a girlie view on this but you   seem to have spent as much time pondering on "irrelevant" subjects as I have! I relate to this article as I am a fatalist. I beleive in fate, whatever will be will be. I don't like to think that our lives are already mapped out for us but I do truely believe that we all get our just deserves in the end and things happen for a reason. We are put into people's lives to help them or ourselves attain certain goals or get us to certain places that we are "meant" to be., therefore poo-pooing the whole aspect of chance existing in anything. As you said, we are meant to meet 20 monsters in a computer game, we are meant to suceed in some things and not others, regardless of how much we try. We are meant to meet certain people and lose others so it makes us stronger and develops our individuality so we can take on the next challenge. The one thing I believe in and take to the grave with me is that we should only regret things we have done and not things we haven't - they all happen for a reason.

On Tuesday, March 12, 2002 Eric wrote:   I have long myself considered this idea, but to a frightening level. If   every action, even between the most basic particles, reacted to fixed rules, and there were no 'chance' happenings, then aren't even things such as human reaction and thought predetermined. Providing that the brain is a complex computing device, and not some mysterious vessel or earthly connection for undefined things such as souls, then every electron firing down a neuron is reacting to another electron, and the path it would choose, if one could reproduce the experiment precisely, would be the same. I'm not suggesting that one not be held responsible for their actions, for one could be held responsible just as much as anyone else (regardless of whether they bought into this theory). But I am questioning the idea of free will and existance.   How much free will could one have if someone standing outside the system (outside the universe! certainly no one we've had the chance to meet), given a mapping of all the particles in and around a person, could calculate the state of those particle at a later time, and therefore determine not only our present thoughts, but those at a later time.

  Uh-oh. I've just done that reassessment thing, and decided that I was completely wrong with this article!

  Please tell me what you thought...

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