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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion
Subject: Re: Quantum Randomness and Free Will
Message-ID: <217@spar.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 29-Apr-85 08:40:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.217
Posted: Mon Apr 29 08:40:18 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Apr-85 07:17:56 EDT
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Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 32
Xref: watmath net.philosophy:1728 net.religion:6787
Summary: 

Comments on several of Geffrey Clemm's recent remarks --

>>   When science labels this behavior as random, all that means is that
>>   it is beyond the ability of science to predict what it is going to do..
>
>This is by no means all that it means.  One of the central purposes of
>the science of statistics is to differentiate between pointlessly random
>(spiritually random ??) behaviour and between some kind of connection between
>behaviour, where these terms are given very explicit meanings.

       Do you mean to imply that statistics will unfailingly discover any
       and all possible connections? I believe it would be child's play
       for a suitably trained mathematician to produce data that would be
       labeled `random' by any statistical analysis in existence, yet said
       data would contain deeply organized underlying structure.

>>     Unrecognized organization is frequently perceived as `random', yes?
>No.

       My! Such a fountain of wisdom!! Forgive my impertinence, but I disagree
       with this argument, ingenious though it may be... Oh yes, where was I?

       The digits of pi, for example, are random by any statistical analysis
       I know.

       But it only appears random when it is viewed as a sequence of decimal
       digits -- if you see it as 4 * (1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 ...), its
       randomness disappears.

       Unrecognized organization is frequently perceived as `random', yes?

-michael