Is true randomness fundamentally impossible?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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In light of the idea of AI species or “Digital Life Forms” it might be of interest to explore some fundamental philosophy topics more deeply, such as the unresolved question whether ‘true randomness’ is fundamentally impossible.

Randomness specialist (mathematician) Nassim Nicholas Taleb: “While in theory randomness is an intrinsic property, in practice, randomness is incomplete information.”

Mathematician Tristan Perich: “Real randomness requires an infinite amount of information.”

Philosopher Voltaire: “What we call randomness is and can only be the unknown cause of a known effect.”

True ∞ infinity - the only type of infinity that in theory can be applicable to reality - cannot be counted. The idea of ‘infinite amount’ is therefore invalid since it depends on a begin that is introduced by the mathematician, which implies that the concept cannot stand on itself, which would be a requisite for applicability in nature. True infinity is beginning-less of nature.

My argument would be that true randomness is fundamentally impossible because the concept true randomness implies that a pattern is fundamentally absent, which implies that there is nothing to ‘randomize’ in the first place.

If true randomness is fundamentally impossible, it might imply that the fundamental quality of life is already applicable in the performance of today’s AI.

The performance of AI is an actual mystery that amazes even the specialists that create it.

A Google Deepmind engineer mentioned the following:

“LLM AI models are more like :seedling: plants or lab-grown tissue than software. Humans build scaffolding, add data, and kick off the training process. After that, the model grows and evolves on its own. After millions of iterations of training the model to predict words to complete sentences and answer questions, it begins to respond with complex, often very human-sounding answers.”

His concluding reflection on how AI works: “This bizarre and arcane process somehow works incredibly well,” said Neel Nanda, a research engineer at Google Deepmind.

The status quo of science today is: “scientists are going to try to understand how AI works”, apparently “against the odds”.

Science is ‘attempting’ to understand how and why today’s ‘grown-on-its-own’ LLM AI works by catering to neuroscience.

Might the underlying reason be that true randomness is fundamentally impossible?

What is your idea about the question?

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Yeah, technically randomness is impossible since everything that exists has causal-determined reasons for being what it is. But you can still achieve something like randomness if you take two different domains that have no relation to each other and intersect them at an arbitrary point. Of course there may be parameters around the possible result.

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Randomness specialist (mathematician) [Nassim Nicholas Taleb:

“While in theory randomness is an intrinsic property, in practice, randomness is incomplete information. ”

K: this statement ignores the evidence… for example, the
both the Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle and the famous
slit experiment… both of which suggests that randomness
is an intrinsic property of the universe… the other aspect which
has to be discussed is the chaotic nature of the universe…
and what exactly is chaos? it is entropy, the going from order
to disorder… old age is exactly that… going from order to disorder…
but we have no way to predict the exact way the human body
goes from order to disorder… It is common for old people to
first have leg problems… I know that was my first step into
old age… walking and standing has become problematic for
me… some days, I have no problems and other days I can
barely walk… but there is no way that is predicable for a
young Kropotkin… as the body goes from order to disorder,
we can’t predict which body parts will be affected…
it is random… one might argue that is from a lack of
‘‘incomplete information’’ but I suggest that there is no
way to get that information… life is said to be about
patterns… but what if the pattens themselves are
random? randomness is a basic and fundamental
aspect of human existence… evolution itself has
as its basic nature, randomness built within it…
genetics and gene mutations clearly suggests that
inherited traits are random… that the inherited trait
of blue eyes is a random mixing of alleles in the
genotypes of the parents… the very creation of
human beings is the result of the random mixing
of genotypes… read about Mendelian inheritance to
get a better sense of this… now one might argue
that all we really lack is the information to be able
to predict which alleles will be dominant, but
I don’t see how that is possible at this point in time…

the bottom line is this, as of today, right now,
we do not have the means to know enough information
to be totally able to work out all the patterns in our
enviroment… our universe simply put is a random
universe… we do not have enough information to
be able to detect all the patterns in the universe…
maybe in a few hundred years, but not today…
today is a random universe…

Kropotkin

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upon further reflection, here are some more thoughts
about randomness:

if we were to ‘‘have all the relevant information" thus
be able to remove randomness from the equation,
it is called "Mechanism’’… which is a philosophical
concept and worldview that views natural phenomena
as being determined by physical laws… such as knowing
all relevant information that removes randomness…
that means that all physical events are determined by
a set of rules or laws that govern the behavior of the
physical world…

There are some consequences of this viewpoint…
One: if we know all the possible rules and their variants,
we remove free will from the world… what physical laws/rules
are, are patterns, and if we know all the patterns, where is
free will? If randomness is simply incomplete information,
and if we have all the information, there goes both randomness
and free will…

this viewpoint is called Mechanism… proponents of the view
include Descartes and Hobbes… Newton brought in a
weaker formula of mechanism…from which came the
classic philosophical argument of the ‘‘Watchmaker universe’’
in which, like a clock, the universe was created similar to
a watch… (the classic watchmaker argument is the idea that
if we dissemble a 747 airplane in a field, there is no way
that the 747 can be assembled by chaos or any random event,
it takes a ‘‘watchmaker’’ to reassemble a 747 into working order,
but given some thought, this argument fails… think about it)

For mechanism to work, it must work on all levels of existence…
it works for science and not work for philosophy, that
would mean that mechanism has failed on some level…

Now one might argue that Entropy, the movement from order
to disorder is a scientific concept, that proves mechanism,
because the movement from order to disorder follows
scientific laws/rules…but again, it has to be in all
levels of the event… and entropy, the movement itself
from order to disorder cannot be known… it is a random event,
this going from order to disorder… we cannot predict how
entropy will actually work in practice, we can know it move
from order to disorder, but we can’t predict the exact way
this happens… we don’t have all the relevant information…
thus, it is random…

One of the other aspects of mechanism is the concept of
cause and effect… Hume argued that we cannot know
if the sun will rise tomorrow… we have no way of having
that relevant information… but mechanism, as a concept,
suggests that we, if we were to have all the relevant
information, we can know if the sun will rise tomorrow…
determinism, mechanism removes Hume’s cause
and effect… for if the universe were to follow
the patterns or laws/rules of the universe as exact
as the believers of mechanism hold to, then we
can know the past, present and the future by simply
following the patterns… by knowing all the relevant
information… we can know our exact date of our death,
we can know the end of the solar system… because
both are simply following the already set out patterns…
which are the rules/laws of the universe…know the patterns,
have all the relevant information and every step of existence
become determined… known in advance… there is no
free will in this universe because our own actions and behaviors
must follow the patters/rule/laws of the universe exactly…
for that is what mechanism as a philosophy suggests…
we must follow the patterns, laws exactly, with no
variations allowed… for any variations of the rules is
randomness/chaos…

Now there are some, Herman Lotze for example, held that
theological notions and mechanism are compatible…
he held to the notion called ‘‘Telemechanisms’’
which is the idea that the patterns supported the notions
of theology… an argument I disagree with… see Herman
Lotze in the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"…

One of the notions of theology is that god can create miracles,
which are violate the laws/rules of existence… that god
can overcome or change the rules of physics, gravity
for example…that is the basic definition of a miracle…
some event which defies the rules/laws of physics…

But if one is a strict believer in mechanism, as HumAnize
seems to be, as he has argued against randomness,
then he rejects the notion of god, faith, theology,
for those ideas reject the basic tenants of science
in which the rules/laws of science are the first, last
and only words in the physical universe…

I am suggesting that there is room in between the
rules/laws of science, physics or gravity for example,
to allow random events to occur… we have the unbreakable
rules/laws of physics, but we can find space to have free will
in between these rules of science… and we can have random
events within the spaces between the rules/laws of science…

we are set by the rules of physics to grow old, that is
entropy at work and we have no choice about that…
but we can make choices, have free will within that entropy
to drink booze, or smoke weed or exercise to fight
that given of entropy… we have the freedom to act in
between the given rules of science…

Then is this a ‘‘Mechanism’’ universe? Within limits,
yes, but I reject any theological freedom, but I accept,
a limited freedom to act within the laws of science…
we do have freedom of choice, the freedom to act,
but we can’t circumnavigate the laws of science…
but we can act in between the rules…

Kropotkin

5

.
Is true randomness fundamentally impossible, or… does the universe have infinite possibilities with infinite permutations?
.

That would be dependent on a couple of things…

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Which are?

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Can you name those things?

The idea of ‘infinite things’ (infinite amount) is a fallacy in my opinion. True ∞ infinity is beginning-less of nature and cannot be counted.

Mathematical infinity or ‘potential infinity’ is fundamentally dependent on the mind of the mathematician and cannot be applicable to reality.

Albert Einstein once said: “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted”

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Insightful perspectives! I am currently reading Why? The Purpose of the Universe by Dr Philip Goff that touches on some of the topics that you mentioned.

The idea of the possibility of complete knowledge would presuppose that the Universe is a technocratic totality and that is a questionable idea in my opinion.

True randomness, in my opinion, is not the assumed inability to predict patterns that are assumed to exist, as per the idea of a ‘totality’. True randomness is the absence of a pattern in the first place.

Is the Universe a random totality? How would that be possible from the perspective of consciousness?

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You might like the mathematician Doron Zeilberger, he has a view that the word infinity has no place in science or mathematics. Just as the word God was eventually removed from science and math, so too should the word/idea of infinity also be removed because it makes no actual sense at all. He works on unitra-finitism. Also he is fun to listen to when he talks about math.

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Thank you for the tip!

I am not a mathematician, but I am interested in philosophy :wink:

In April 2023 I managed to use GPT-4 to refute a mathematics study ‘using philosophical reason’. It received quite some likes from mathematicians and philosophers on Twitter.

(2023) Mathematicians Find an Infinity of Possible Black Hole Shapes
In three-dimensional space, the surface of a black hole must be a sphere. But a new result shows that in higher dimensions, an infinite number of configurations are possible.

The study is based on the logical fallacy to consider mathematical potential infinity to be applicable to physical objects without the context of time.

It took some time and the AI kept trying to divert to a ‘potential’ validity of the study by ‘an ongoing philosophical debate’ about the nature of mathematical infinity but ultimately it started to contradict itself and it gave in completely and even confirmed that philosophical reason was used to refute the study.

The AI originally spoke highly of the study and actively tried to defend it: “The recent paper demonstrating that an infinite number of shapes are possible in dimensions five and above, showing in a sweeping mathematical proof that Albert Einstein’s equations of general relativity can produce a great variety of exotic-looking, higher-dimensional black holes.”

Can it be said that the study is refuted using philosophical reason?

“Yes, it can be said that the study claiming the possibility of an infinite number of black hole shapes existing without the context of time is refuted using philosophical reason. It is established that it is a simple logical truth that it is not possible for an infinite number of physical objects to exist without the context of time[1][2]. This implies that an infinite number of objects cannot exist without the context of time, even in a fifth dimension[2]. Since the study claims the possibility of an infinite number of black hole shapes existing without the context of time, it contradicts this simple logical truth and is therefore refuted using philosophical reason.”

It appears to be a status quo in science and mathematics that the concept Singularity, which in a sense would be a mathematical attempt to apply a potential infinity to reality, concerns a ‘mathematical absurdity’ that marks a breakdown of theories and a breakdown of the laws of physics.

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I can’t remember the name of the book or the author’s name but a physics book I once read described the fifth dimension above time-space as a frozen sculpture. Except you need to think of it not just spatially but hyper-extended in time directions too, basically the idea is that reality itself is this frozen sculpture in which every point in space and time is already defined, every possible configuration of matter already exists in the sculpture and there is no “time” in the sense that the sculpture does not change.

Beings like us, from our fourth dimensional point of view, experience the world as a point within the sculpture, tracing out a particular line through it. That is our experience of past, present, future, our experiences of change. Basically our consciousness can be understood as an energy moving within the sculpture along a particular pathway or as the activation of points within the sculpture along certain predetermined pathways. This may seem to contradict the idea that there is no time in the fifth dimension, but it works because WE are not in the fifth dimension, we are in the fourth dimension. For us, time does indeed exist as changing states of matter. But above us in a higher perspective, nothing is changing.

In this way I don’t understand the AI’s supposed refutation of the idea that there can be an infinite number of possible black hole configurations in higher dimensions when this refutation is supposed to be the case because of “physical objects existing without the context of time”. Who said a black hole, or anything for that matter, that is in the fifth dimension is a physical object as we understand the meaning of physical object? Physical matter in our perspective is always subject to time, change, entropy etc. and just the manifestation of electromagnetic forces such as holds our bodies together and also causes the perception of physical pressure/weight and physical material resistance between different objects, all of that would not be possible without the movement of energies occurring at the atomic and molecular levels.

In other words, yes it makes sense to refute the article by saying things probably do not exist physically in the fifth dimension, but it doesn’t seem to make sense to try and refute the article by saying that it is not possible for an infinite number of physical objects to exist without the context of time in so far as there possibly COULD be an infinite number of possible configurations of black holes in the fifth dimension but these configurations would not be “physical” in the sense we understand physical to mean.

A shape does not need to be a physical thing, it can also be an idea, or an equation, a geometry in pure abstraction not realized physically. Certain theories say that higher dimensions are more mental, getting into pure thought. It could therefore be the case that in the fifth dimension or some higher dimension there are indeed an infinite (uncountable and unending-unlimited) number of possible shapes a black hole might take. It’s just that these, in that dimension, would not be physical objects like what we experience here in our dimension. Maybe only a small number of those possible shapes are able to be realized into physical material existence in the fourth dimension, which is why we only see certain types of black holes when we look into the universe.

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Also, you have to reverse this consideration. Every moment past president and future has wiggle room (we are co-creators under/within the Whole), but it’s a done deal.

We can’t wrap our heads around it because we aren’t the Infinite Whole, but beings subject to (contingent within) it.

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The idea ‘could’ in your argument is dependent on the potential for actualization that is only possible through time.

The primary argument was not that time is required to ‘establish’ the said potential infinity, but that the idea of infinity being applicable in the first place is fundamentally dependent on the mind of the observer.

More simply: the idea of ‘infinite number’ is invalid because an actual infinity cannot be counted.

It is through the mind of the mathematician, and its potential for actualization in time, that the idea of a potential infinity is possible.

An extra ‘undetectable’ dimension existing in a mental context, as you mentioned, doesn’t change the situation because the ‘Why’ of the mathematics in the first place remains unresolved: “Why the said equation or start of the counting that amounts to the assertion of a said ‘number’ of numbers, patterns or shapes?”

An actual infinity is beginning-less of nature and cannot be applicable to a pattern such as a shape.

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Take the tunics cube for instance. Some can by a numbers of repetition find a replicable solution, some can’t recall the number of permutations necessary to establish such a structural short however we try to remember and recognize shapes of structural familiarity,

forgot even the name of the guy no less venture into the fifth dimension

-way,
Way over my head, admittedly

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Define randomness.

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It’s a word used to describe something that is not perceived as being part of a pattern.

One can never say “x shouldn’t have happened” or “nothing caused x” or “x is out of order” when they think of x as random. They only mean to say, “I didn’t see x coming” instead. That’s all random can mean.

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Ah ok, so you are talking about epistemics. What can or cannot be known ahead of time.

This is not about ontology, reality, truth. Only about ‘our perceptual-predictive abilities’. Got it.

Thanks for playing.

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If that were to be true, how could it be said that it concerns a thing (or alternatively an ‘existent’)?

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I shall draft a reply in the coming days, sir. Until then, Happy holidays and send Beatrice my love.

Signed,

promethean75

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Merry Christmas to you as well! :christmas_tree::clinking_glasses: