Tuesday, March 15, 2011

At Random

This is all highly theoretical, but have you ever wondered if there was anything that is truly random? 

I mean, you start with things like a CD player or your iTunes program that picks songs "at random" (aka shuffle).  It cannot be truly picking something at random because there is some formula built into the machine that shuffles the songs in a pattern of some sort.  While the pattern is too long to ever detect what it was while listening to one CD, making it seemly "random" song selection, there is still a built in pattern, right?

Let's take it a step further.  When one reaches their hand in the basket to pull out the winning ticket, is that really random either?  Or is there some method to the madness of why that person picked that particular ticket? 

Is randomness just something that cannot be calculated?  Since you cannot really calculate with 100% correctness which ticket that person would pull out of the bucket, but there has to be some rhyme to the reason, right?  Somewhere, deep in the subconscious, perhaps the way the synapses click for this particular person, or the external pressures of the room affect the timing, or something! 

I guess what I'm just trying to throw out into the unknown is that perhaps there are more things that effect every day instances than what meets the eye, things that could effect our definition of random.  True randomness.  What is that anyway?  And can it ever truly be attained? 

Part of me wants to go into evolution vs. creation, but I will leave that be.  Perhaps for another time.

My philosophical self is signing off now. 

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