Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!ncar!gatech!linus!mbunix!bwk
From: bwk@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Barry W. Kort)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Playing dice with the universe.
Summary: Please distinguish "Unpredictable", "Random", and "Independent"
Message-ID: <40207@linus>
Date: 22 Sep 88 11:32:58 GMT
References: <1369@garth.UUCP> <2346@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <1383@garth.UUCP> <372@quintus.UUCP> <1390@garth.UUCP> <388@quintus.UUCP> <7059@aw.sei.cmu.edu> <40141@linus.UUCP> <453@quintus.UUCP>
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Reply-To: bwk@mbunix (Barry Kort)
Organization: Moribund Corporation, Seventh Chapter, DE
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In article <453@quintus.UUCP> ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>Yes, we humans play dice.  But that doesn't prove they deliver _RANDOM_
>results.  "Unpredictable", "random", and "independent" are distinguishable
>properties.  Dice could be as determined as the digits of pi and still be
>as humanly unpredictable.

Richard, since we have departed from the original question to a technical
dialogue on the meaning of "random", could you supply us with your
definitions of "random", "unpredictable", and "independent"?  Are
there other related terms in the lexicon that we can further explore
and distinguish?  (After that, we can see if any of them capture the
the metaphor of "God playing dice with the universe".)

--Barry Kort