[gabehabe]

supersloth, on 6 Aug, 2009 - 06:32 PM, said:

little s.

sUPERsLOTH

[supersloth]

better.

[pakkuman_shinde]

Where has this thread even gone?

I'm kind of out of ideas for the whole random thing. That's one of the reasons I left, but I got bored so I'm back...

I think most people could probably agree that random just means EXTREMELY complicated.

This post has been edited by pakkuman_shinde: 12 August 2009 - 12:09 PM

[modi123_1]

pakkuman_shinde, on 12 Aug, 2009 - 01:09 PM, said:

Where has this thread even gone?

I'm kind of out of ideas for the whole random thing. That's one of the reasons I left, but I got bored so I'm back...

I think most people could probably agree that random just means EXTREMELY complicated.

Extremely complicated? Not really.. here's a short feed off my random number generator: 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, ...

Seems pretty simple and random to me..

[pakkuman_shinde]

.........? rand()%0+4 ???

that will always give 4 tho?


extremely complicated like all the factors that go into rolling a die.

This post has been edited by pakkuman_shinde: 12 August 2009 - 12:51 PM

[modi123_1]

pakkuman_shinde, on 12 Aug, 2009 - 01:33 PM, said:

.........? rand()%0+4 ???

that will always give 4 tho?


extremely complicated like all the factors that go into rolling a die.

Always give me 4? Naw.. it's just random that way.

http://dilbert.com/s...mic/2001-10-25/

This post has been edited by modi123_1: 12 August 2009 - 01:21 PM

[mocker]

I like http://xkcd.com/221/ too.

If there is no such thing as true randomness, do you believe in free thought?

[LoveIsNull]

Quote

Does anyone know of anything that is random though?

Scratch-tickets are random. Lotteries in many forms are all random. Most games played with a deck of cards (as well as other games, board games, etc.) are just...random. Snowflake formation, the ultimate shape that a snowflake attains is more likely random than not. If you write down the names of twenty people on little pieces of paper, fold them up and put them into a hat, then arbitrarily select a piece of paper to unfold: you are thereby doing so randomly.
It is random because it is without order, it is not predictable. That is not to say that there is not a certain degree of predictability, just as there seems to be varying degrees of randomness.
Here is a nice long wiki on the subject to give you a bunch of random context related to randomness.

This post has been edited by LoveIsNull: 12 August 2009 - 02:36 PM

[supersloth]

nooooooo you wiki'd him!

[LoveIsNull]

It had to be done.

[pakkuman_shinde]

@mocker

....?

free thought in context to?

"It is proper for you, Kalamas [the people of the village of Kesaputta], to doubt, to be uncertain; uncertainty has arisen in you about what is doubtful. Come, Kalamas. Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are bad; these things are blameable; these things are censured by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them. "...Do not accept anything by mere tradition... Do not accept anything just because it accords with your scriptures... Do not accept anything merely because it agrees with your pre-conceived notions... But when you know for yourselves—these things are moral, these things are blameless, these things are praised by the wise, these things, when performed and undertaken, conduce to well-being and happiness—then do you live acting accordingly" -Gautama Buddha

OR in context to meaning our thought is merely the interaction of predetermined chemical reactions?

In both contexts yes.


@Love(NULL);

in the case of the twenty names:
There are still factor's determining which paper you would draw, whether or not you are able to predict the papers location. If given enough time someone could figure which names were where. Even if you were to decide just to "randomly" reach in and grab one, there are sets of factors that will lead up to your decision.

How on Earth are card games random?

Shuffling is definitely not random...

Just because we can't easily predict something doesn't mean it has to be random... especially in the case of shuffling.

This post has been edited by pakkuman_shinde: 13 August 2009 - 06:04 AM

[xclite]

Shuffling isn't random. The act of picking an arbitrary card from a shuffled deck yields a random result.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Out of the 52! possible arrangements of the deck.
Theirs a 51 to 1 chance of knowing the card. (2 to 1 strictly)
Those odds get better;-
By removing the card, next card is 50 to 1 etc etc 1 to 1
Deck becomes more and more predictable.

This post has been edited by AdamSpeight2008: 13 August 2009 - 08:28 AM

[xclite]

Luckily, predictability does not negate randomness:

Quote

a random process is a repeating process whose outcomes follow no describable deterministic pattern, but follow a probability distribution, such that the relative probability of the occurrence of each outcome can be approximated or calculated.

We can calculate the probability of each card being drawn versus the number of cards in the deck, but we can not determine with certainty what the next card will be until we know that there is only that card left in the deck.

[AdamSpeight2008]

Its possible to know if its likely within a discrete ranges fairly.
For BlackJack.
Keep a running total
Low Card 2- 6: Add 1
Card 7-9: Add 0
High Cards 10: Subtract 1
When total is low bet low and high bet high. (5% return on investment.)

New Scienctist: Whats luck got to do with it the math of gambling