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From: cik@l.cc.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: random vs. ran(seed) (RE: choice, will, etc. etc.)
Summary: No algorithm is random
Message-ID: <1319@l.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 27 May 89 11:13:02 GMT
References: <1862@hub.ucsb.edu>
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Lines: 19

In article <1862@hub.ucsb.edu>, silber@sbphy.ucsb.edu writes:
> Let 'random sequence' (:== a sequence whose observable characteristics
> correspond to the observable characteristics of a sequence of physical
> events which we identify as 'random'.  If we KNOW that the sequence
> was generated by an 'algorithm', then it is PSEUDO-random.  However,
> the sequence corresponding to the motivating physical phenomenon (whose
> pattern cannot be generated by any algorithm known to us) is
> of a different epistemological order, viz. 'RANDOM'.

If there is a computable algorithm producing the sequence, it is NOT
random.  This algorithm could even have inputs of preceding physical
variables.  The test that the sequence is produced by the algorithm
is the proof that the sequence is NOT random.  A random sequence has
the property that there is no non-prescient test which the sequence
will fail with positive probqbility.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet, UUCP)