> At 11:32 AM 10/12/97 +0100, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> >An information stream contains a pattern if and only if
> >it can be compressed and reexpanded without loss,
> >otherwise it is random. (See Dennett's "Real Patterns"
> >in the Journal of Philosophy 1991, though he gets it
> >from someone else, whose details I don't recall right
> >now, but can get if required.)
>
> Hrm, this calls for a re-reading of Chaos. As far as I can recall,
> however, there is no such thing as "completely random". That what we
> call
> chaotic, is really so complexly ordered that there is no _perceptable_
>
> pattern by the observer. I'm not sure what this means for the
> discussion,
> coming in at the tail end, but it is something to think about.
>
> >I guess maybe what we're really arguing about is the
> >nature of information: does it exist "out there",
> >independently of us, or is it only in our minds. I go
> >along with the information theorists, physicists, etc,
> >and say it's out there, though, of course, the
> >argument is at least partly about definitions, as
> >seemingly always.
>
> Perhaps it was someone on this list, perhaps not, who said that if a
> tree
> falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, it makes a
> compression
> of air waves... that it is out there, but it takes two to tango.
>
> ~kp
kp,
There is such a thing as true random, in fact, random is the ruler.
You are aware of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, right? A good
example is: as space expands, sub atomic particles are created (pop into
existence); however, it is impossible to predict exactly where and when
this will happen. It is a random event. On the other hand, it is
impossible for humans or computers to generate a random number. SO
Random events do happen, but WE have not figured how to directly cause a
random event.
Sodom
Bill Roh
LIGHT? WHAT LIGHT?