When I say totally random, I mean absolutely random, not pseudorandom.
If I want to say "totally random" numbers such as 1,26,17,4,1 and 27, although I see them to be totally random, they aren't. These are numbers that I think are influenced by my childhood, ideology and everything that I've seen.
So, what do you think? Is there anything completely random?
To answer your question, or at least get at some sort of picture, let's consider the following. What is random? Hmmm. Without getting into the details of the matter, or philosophical implications, we may define "random" in a very intuitive manner as this will mostly do for a discussion of this scope. Let us then propose that an event which is "completely" random is one for which it is logically (or formally, i.e. in the sense of mathematical rigor) impossible to associate any rule, pattern, or reason. This is, of course, where it all gets tricky.
In the way "random" has now been defined, it may be possible to generate an event, at least cognitively, which would be viewable as truly random. To take your example a bit furhter, let us conduct a thought experiment. Imagine we're walking down a busy city street. We decide to ask every person that passes by, and decides to stop and give us five seconds of their time, to pick a number. By this, we may construct two sets. Let set X denote the numbers we record, in the order we encountered them; and let Y denote the set of indicies of the people who stopped and gave us a number. So, for example, if the third, seventh, and twelfth person we asked stopped and gave us a number, Y = {3, 7, 12}. Certainly, the sets X and Y may not be random in the sense that we have defined.
But, then we may ask the question why the sets have the particular pattern or rule associated with it. Could there not have been different sets? And so, by our criterion for true randomness, the reason the sets X and Y are what they are, is random. I can't come up with the proof for the criterion off-hand, but I suspect Goedl's theorem's in there somewhere.
It is worth noting that by our definition, it may be the case that no event which occurs in nature could be viewed as random. So, that may answer your question about there being anything truly random in the universe. On the other hand, we may very easily have events that qualify as truly random as long as they exist in some "virtual" reality as the one discussed in the example above. But, it's truly an understatement when I say that that's a topic to be discussed another time.
Quantum mechanical processes, such as a circularly polarized photon striking a surface that is linearly polarized (whereupon it, to anthropomorphize the situation, has to choose whether it was really polarized perpendicular to or parallel to the polarization axis), do not appear to be (locally) deterministic. For all practical purposes, therefore, it makes sense to consider them as "completely" random. It is formally possible that there are hidden state variables distributed throughout the universe away from the photon itself that nonetheless govern its behavior, but since no-one has figured out a way to test those, living in such a universe and living in a genuinely nondeterministic one may be indistinguishable.
(See "Bell's inequality" for more details.)
Although this question is very closely related to the one which I commented about, I will still give an answer because the question is asking for a different answer.
Before I give you an answer, I want to clear one thing up.
I don't quite understand what you are trying to convey when you state
Is there anything completely random in the universe?
This question seems quite incorrect as numbers are a theoretical concept invented/discovered (either which are open to debate: the question with the highest votes on this site) by human beings and are (as far as our knowledge concerns) exclusive to humans and the creations of humans (e.g. computers).
Therefore, I don't understand what you mean by "the universe".
First of all, it can be debated whether humans can/cannot generate random numbers. However, for the sake of simplicity, let's pretend that humans, cannot under any circumstances generate random numbers.
That does not mean that it cannot be generated at all:
Computers are a prime example of something that can generate the closest thing to a truly random number. They are senseless, unbiased, and are not conscious. Thus, past experiences don't affect them at all (unless otherwise programmed). They are linear machines that perform only the tasks they are instructed to, no more, no less.
EDIT: In response to Stoicfury's comment, I am adding more to my answer.
Apparently, eventually, even computer hardware that can generate numbers that are very close to truly random, after a while, a rough pattern can be detected.
In that case, the closest thing you will ever get to creating a truly number generator is on random.org where the determined number is based on the slightest deviations in sound in the atmosphere. In this case, however, this randomness is no longer computer generated but rather generated by the environment.
It depends what you define as random, really.
If you define it to be a number that is generated unbiased and at the same time independent and uninfluenced by any physical factors, then it is impossible due the law of cause and effect.
The answer simply depends on how you define "Random". In a very liberal sense, random is just something that is unpredictable. A fair coin toss, then, is sufficiently random. The problem comes in when you try to apply a more strict definition of random; perhaps an event is truly random when the probability of the possible outcomes is equal. But in a deterministic universe (and much of what we see in our universe very much appears deterministic, even if it isn't "underneath"), there is only ever one possible outcome to an event. So randomness defined in this way doesn't even make sense.
If you want to address existing empirical evidence of what science might call "randomness" in our seemingly deterministic universe, Rex Kerr provides the best answer for that. Please upvote him accordingly:
Quantum mechanical processes, such as a circularly polarized photon striking a surface that is linearly polarized (whereupon it, to anthropomorphize the situation, has to choose whether it was really polarized perpendicular to or parallel to the polarization axis), do not appear to be (locally) deterministic. For all practical purposes, therefore, it makes sense to consider them as "completely" random. It is formally possible that there are hidden state variables distributed throughout the universe away from the photon itself that nonetheless govern its behavior, but since no-one has figured out a way to test those, living in such a universe and living in a genuinely nondeterministic one may be indistinguishable.
(See "Bell's inequality" for more details.)
See also: What is the difference between free-will and randomness and or non-determinism?
If you duplicate a conscious observer in a classical universe, copy an artificial intelligence to two big computers, or make a cell-by-cell duplicate of a sleeping person, the way the consciousness goes subjectively is completely random. There is no way (from the inside) to know which way your feeling will end up going.
This is important, because it is philosophically how the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics explains the randomness in quantum mechanics. But it does not require quantum mechanics to duplicate an observer--- you can do it any way you like, and the result is random subjectively, meaning that there is no information that you can get ahead of time that tells you which copy you will be, because you are going to be both.
Suppose the transporter on the Starship Enterprise is malfunctioning, and you're Captain Kirk, and you want to beam down to the planet surface. The transporter makes a million copies of Kirk, and leaves them at different places on the planet, each one is identical.
The question that is asked here is which Kirk will you "feel" yourself to be after the event has happened? You can determine this afterwards by introspection--- you just look around to see where you are. But the information regarding which one you are going to be is purely undeterminable to you in advance as Kirk, and you can, at best, post probabilities.
The nature of these probabilities are fundamental--- but they are subjective. Someone else will know exactly what's going on--- duplicated Kirks. But duplicated Kirk's mean that your perception is splitting between many entities, so that, since you must choose one path to take, your path is entirely random.
This idea is derived from Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics in 1957, but this type of thing also appears much later in the popular philosophy literature by Dennett and Hofstadter in "The Mind's I", and it is echoed in 1980s philosophy by many people. It does not appear before Everett in any form.
The thing itself is never random. The thing itself merely is what it is.
Thus instead of looking for a random thing, we want to find a process that produces things randomly. Many believe that quantum mechanics yields truly random results. This means that it follows a probability distribution. But if quantum mechanics is superseded by a determinist theory, then this goes out the window. Thus even here randomness is more a story for observation than an absolute necessity.
It is true that most processes we see as random are actually strictly determined by forces. We simply don't have the information to determine the forces. For instance, a penny flip is something we treat as random, whereas we really just lack information as to how we flipped the coin.
According to hard determinists, true randomness doesn't exist (not even at the quantum level) and everything in the universe behaves exactly as predetermined since the Big Bang.
Others would argue that quantum physics and/or free will are inherently nondeterministic. While I don't think there is any evidence for this whatsoever, I guess this perspective remains popular because most humans don't feel comfortable embracing the notion that they're essentially just bio-chemical robots and that every thought and feeling they have is predetermined since the Big Bang.
Anyway, I would recommend Introduction to Randomness and Random Numbers by Dr Mads Haahr for an introduction to randomness, Pseudo-Random Number Generators (PRNGs), True Random Number Generators (TRNGs), the difference between both as well as the very nature of randomness.
"Is there anything completely random?" could be interpreted to mean: "Is there any agent that does not work toward a determinate end?" In other words: "Is there a being without a final cause?"
Cf. Oderberg's open access (free) 10 March 2016 The Monist article "Finality revived: powers and intentionality."
Random, I think, really only applies to states (states in the most general sense). Given this, I would define as a first approximation a random state as one which is not the consequence of a pre-existing state.
A state, however, can be a compound state. For example, the state of an atom is typically a compound of the states of the subatomic particles which are parts of the atom, and maybe of something else. So here I would assume that if any "sub-state" is not random, the compound state that includes this state as a sub-state is itself not random (not fully random).
Thus, a random compound state is the sum of random sub-states. Thus, a compound state may not be random even though a number of its sub-states are random, as long as there is one sub-state which is not random.
Given these preliminaries, a compound state is random if it is not the consequence of a pre-existing state.
Prior to quantum physics and the notion of quantum randomness, physicists thought of the universe as a temporal succession of states, each state the consequence of the immediately preceding state. This, of course, is a bit fluffy since if time is continuous, no state would have any immediately preceding state. However, we can make this more robust by saying that every state is the consequence of at least another state that came before. The notion of consequence is an order relation so that if state Sm is the consequence of state Sn, and Sn is itself the consequence of state Sp, then Sm is also the consequence of state Sp.
This would work for all states of the universe throughout its life except the first state, if there is one, something most people seem to regard as a necessary truth for some reason.
So, even in the sort of fully deterministic view of the universe that was prevalent before quantum randomness shattered the idea, there had to be at least one random state, i.e. the first state of the universe.
Of course, now that we know of galaxies and quasars, we can imagine that the universe itself is the consequence of something else, for example another, pre-existing, universe. If so, assuming again determinism and an absolute beginning of time, going backward in the chain of causation would lead inevitably to a first state and one that is inevitably random.
And once we accept that at least one state could be random because it had to be random because nothing came before and it could not therefore be the consequence of anything, then we can also accept that maybe there are plenty of randomness around even if it is not apparent. And this is of course what quantum randomness implies. Quantum randomness is in effect everywhere, only we don't see it with our own eyes.
It should be said that this is only partial randomness. Clearly, a quantum state only involves a particular range of properties. If that was not the case, we would not exist. The macroscopic order which is apparent to our senses, and is necessary to our own existence, is only possible because microscopic randomness is circumscribed.
That is, not everything is random. Broadly, the quantum world is like a die. The die itself is the consequence of something else, the throw of the die is the consequence of something else, but (unlike for a real die) the state of the die once the die comes to rest is random. Which is weird if really random.
We could also imagine a computer display showing pseudo-random numbers, only here they would somehow be truly random. So the numbers themselves would be random, but the process would be that of the computer, not something random at all, and the numbers themselves could only be made of pre-defined figures, say from '0' to '9'. Thus, true randomness, but randomness nonetheless circumscribed to the small set of values from 0 to 9. Which is weird is really random.
We could also imagine a universe, or a string of universes, without any beginning in time, in which case we don't have to accept that at least one state had to be random. But even then we would still have quantum randomness, weird though it is, assuming physicists know what they are doing.
1974. That unity and being[etc.…, a reference to what Aristotle says at #](832).
Since he [Aristotle] had given the same argument for being and for unity, he now shows that unity and being somehow signify the same thing. He says “somehow” because unity and being are the same in their subject and differ only in meaning. For unity adds to being the note of undividedness, because what is one is said to be an indivisible or undivided being. He gives three reasons why unity signifies the same thing as being.
1975. (1) The first is that unity naturally belongs to all of the different categories and not just to one of them; that is, it does not pertain just to substance or to quantity or to any other category. The same thing is also true of being.
1976. (2) The second reason is that, when a man is said to be one, the term one does not express a different nature from man, just as being does not express a different nature from the ten categories; for, if it did express a different nature, an infinite regress would necessarily result, since that nature too would be said to be one and a being. And if being were to express a nature different from these things, an infinite regress would also follow; but if not, then the conclusion of this argument must be the same as that of the first one.
1977. (3) The third reason is that everything is said to be one inasmuch as it is a being. Hence when a thing is dissolved it is reduced to non-being.
Thus, there is not "anything [any being] that is totally random".
Random does not mean uncaused. It simply means the chain of causality between events are unrelated. If a password is generated where each character is determined from a common source using the same algorithm then they are only pseudo-random because the sequence appears random but the characters are causally related. It's insecure because at least in theory some information about one character could be determined from another. If each character were drawn from a different source and/or using a different method then it would be random, and knowing one character wouldn't reveal information about another. They'd be causally separate.
I would reduce the idea down and classify it into two types of randomness. One: necessary and the other: contingent. The opposite would be 'order' and likewise, would also maintain necessary and contingent attributes.
Natural randomness and order are both necessary. Our internal impressions of them are contingent. That is, relative to our own special place and moment in time.
One might reduce the Natural phenomenons further to potential, quantum probabilities, or retro-causality verses real-time, real-world causality. Who knows.
You are intermixing two things:
¹) very often, it isn't an equal distribution, but a normal distribution, when most cases are grouped around an average. Think: body size of persons of same age and culture: Most are around 1.8m, fewer 1.7m or 1.9m, far fewer 1.6 or 2.m. But rarely two childs from the same parents are of exactly the same length.
If you enter a casino, you will hardly find anybody who can predict the next card from the deck, or the next roulette number. Some might believe they know a way to predict it, but they can't.
Some people here might think, that if they knew enough parameters, they could predict the next roulette number, but think of it! The microscopic shape of the billiard ball will change with the temperature, and you can't shield a Casino from the outside world, to prevent any influence. The air is moved by the breathing of the visitors, and you can't calculate when whom of them will breath - it's not a problem which will be solved in 100 years with more computer power. It is systematic: The finer conditions of roulette are uncontrolled.
So the outcome is random.
My first impulse was, to write "true random", but as serious adults, we always tell the truth, of course, so if we say random, we mean random.
You might construct a roulette canon in a laboratory, which generates predictable results, but you will not get a license for that. That much is predictable too. :)
Now to the second, related questions. Some people believe that only equal distributions, like from throwing a dice, are random. But that's not the case.
Consider a bowl with two black and one white ball, and you pull blindly from the bowl and put it back each time. You will pull a black ball with 2/3 chance and a white one with 1/3 chance. It is not predictable which color you will get, but the probability is not equal - it is 2:1.
But knowing that, you could transform it into an equal distribution: If you pull a white, it is white, but if you pull a black, you have to pull a second black one. Generated by a PRNG:
w, b, b, w, b, w, w, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, w, b, b, b, w...
W B W W W B B B B W B
Here we see a 5:6 relation, which is of course no proof, but the proof is more a case for Mathematics.SE or Statistics.SE. It's only to show how it works. Now: If you know the bias of any random distribution, you can transform it into an equal distribution, which means, that an equal distribution isn't such a magical thing. You could for example measure red and non-red cars which appear on the other side. If you counted a lot of them, and know the distribution, you can correct the unequalness by calculation.
People with a deterministic viewpoint might argue, that, given enough data and big machines, and knowing all natural laws in greatest detail would make it possible, to calculate every minor event in the far future, but we know that there are far too many atoms in the universe, where we don't know where they are, and what their movement is. By all practible means it is impossible to predict the future, but that's what random is about: Can we predict it or not. It's not about "Could it be predicted, if ...".
So the statement, that our future isn't predictable doesn't need a proof - it is a fact. A deterministic viewpoint is, what would have needed a proof, but from quantum mechanics we know, that there is uncertainty on the subatomic level (Heisenberg).
Everything in this world is interconnected.
There are no accidents.
Any connection between any given set of beings/things that one does not understand is termed as random by him.
Thus, in simple words, No. Nothing is completely random. however, the most random thing in the universe would be dependent on the person who is asking the question
If I collect a series of environmental measurements in replicate, there will be an associated random error component to each of the measurements. Any single measurement will have an equal probability of either being above or below the average; I cannot predict ahead of time which it will be. If the final distribution of measurements is ranked by magnitude, the measurements will be symmetrically arranged around the median value. Any process in control will have random excursions around the mean and will generate a symmetrical distribution; conversely if the excursions are not random and the process is out-of-control, the distribution will not be symmetrical.
No.
I 'believe' that if you would copy every single atom there is (universe and whatever there is outside/around) and paste it somewhere (like an other directory on you pc^) the same stuff would happen in both worlds. Every human would do exactly the same and every star and comet would make the same movements.
Ergo: if you would have unlimited mathematical power and knowledge you could calculate what will happen and predict whatever you consider random.
For example: If there was a snapshot of everything (including the movement in every dimension and every other property) of the Mar 20 '12 at 22:31 you could calculate that in 24 hours OP will post this thread.
