I heard that chance is just because we don’t have the power to predict something so we calls it chance. Thus in flipping a coin the exact miles an hour you flip it at and the exact angle of the flip at the beginning and the composition of the coin and maysbe even atmospherical conditions like humidity, and also gravity and so on are all some exact number and if we knew all these numbers we could sit there and predict from the initial conditions whether the coin would come up heads or tails. Therefore there is no such thing as chance. Although I guess a person could come up with a random number like if I suddenly say for no reason 197, for instance, that would be completely chance or random. But someone might say if you factored in my entire background it would predict in a computer that I was deterministically pre-fated to come up with that number at just this time of asking this question on the Straight Dope.?
So what are the chances that there are no chances, no randomness after all?Just because no brain or computer could come up with exact figures doesn’t mean therefore there is such a thing as mere chance! 2) Didn’t the Surrealists and the Existentialists and some character in Dostoevsky try to do completely unmotivated acts (which would be chance?) in order to prove free will is possible? 3)Is chaos theory actually deterministic chaos so there is no chaos after all?
signed: Entering Into the Bessicovich-Hausdorff Dimension!
We as humans declare processes “random” when we are unable to predict their outcome. Therefore it is a fallibile defintion. At one time weather was considered completely random, as were earthquakes and many other naturally occurring events. When we call something “random,” we simply mean that we cannot figure out a pattern for it. It does not mean that there isn’t a pattern.
Free will can never be proven or disproven because you can only experience each moment in time once.
Underlying what we mere humans call chance because we simply can’t grasp all the details to make predictions is order. I may not be able to predict which way a ping-pong ball will bounce on a rough surface with a high degree of certainty but it isn’t moving randomly. It bounces the way it does in accordance with underlying physical principles. If I knew all the things affecting the ball I could predict its bounce every time.
However, that’s just the macro world. Once down to the quantum world I’m not certain if tru randomness doesn’t exist. We are restricted by Planck’s limits and Heisenberg’s limits to a forced lack of knowledge about what happens beyond those points. Does the Universe know? That is, are there still physical principles at work beneath the surface that we just can’t see or are dice really being rolled at the quantum level? I have no clue myself.
I believe that the examples you’ve cited are not truly random… individual results are not predictable because the complexity of variables influencing the outcome is too high. IIRC, this is something that we know to be true. I don’t know if the behavior of subatomics is truly random (and I also don’t know if there’s anybody who does). It seems to me that the only way to conclude that anything is truly random is to prove that a result has no outside cause.
Interestingly (at least to me), your second point about “random acts” doesn’t say a thing about free will. Even if there is a truly random (uncaused) element in human behavior, that’s not really freedom - it’s a dependence on something that is no more our “choice” than the input variables that govern what we do. Which has interesting implications in the determinism vs. free will debate…
This site may address what you are getting at??
Down at the quantum level, there may or may not be true randomness, but there certainly isn’t determinism. That is to say: If you measure a classical system, like a coin or a die, precisely enough, you can predict the future of that system. But witha quantum system, it’s literally impossible to measure everything precisely enough. Any measurement of momentum, for instance, will interfere with your measurements of position. Does the particle actually have a well-defined position and momentum, hiding way down where we can’t see it? Maybe. But there’s no way to know for sure.