Random (Agnosticism)

by dhw, Monday, December 28, 2015, 17:48 (3253 days ago) @ romansh

ROMANSH:
https://www.random.org/randomness/
The above gives a quick simple review of random.
Quite often here we seem to be discussing random with respect to evolution. I get a sense we don't have a good idea of what random is or is not. To be fair I am not completely comfortable either.
For example when we say certain aspects of evolution are not random (due to chance) do we really mean a [insert flavour here] god did it? -Darwin attributes innovations to random mutations, by which I assume he means that the changes are not purposefully planned by an intelligent mind, but occur by chance. I don't have a problem understanding what this means. Whether it is likely or not is a different matter, of course. If we think it's unlikely, we will look for different explanations. David suggests a god (non-random), and I have suggested the intelligence of the organisms responding non-randomly to random environmental changes. Others may have other explanations, perhaps linked to determinism (see later).
 
ROMANSH: We use a whole bunch of different words for random ... chance, indeterministic, probabilistic, stochastic, chaotic are a few that immediately come to mind. Yet all of these are compatible with simple cause and effect, though we may have to point to quantum phenomena when we look at some outcomes.
So when we say something cannot be due to chance are we ruling out cause and effect?
-Not sure about the above, especially since we don't know the causes of quantum events. I'd have thought most of us would argue that all events have a cause and effect, but even though so-called random events have a cause, that doesn't mean they have a plan or purpose, a gap which we often associate with randomness. Fred is walking on the beach and a rock falls on his head. There is a cause for his walking and for the rock falling, but I would say the simultaneity of the combined causes is random (not on purpose), and so the effect is “accidental” (chance/random) death. -In the context of our philosophical discussions, the article summarizes the materialist determinist faith very clearly. The bold is mine:
QUOTE: Hard determinists will dispute that subatomic particle behaviour is really random and instead claim that the way they behave is exactly as predetermined as everything else in the universe has been since the Big Bang. The reason we think these specific particles behave randomly is simply that no human measurement has been able to account for their behaviour. In this view, subatomic events do indeed have a prior cause, but we just don't understand it (yet), and the events therefore seem random to us.[/b] -As far as evolution is concerned, we can look at two beliefs: David thinks it's not random because God planned it - a hypothesis which requires faith, because there is no evidence for it. A materialist determinist may think it‘s not random because there has to be an as yet unknown predetermined material cause - again, a hypothesis which requires faith because there is no evidence for it.
 
QUOTE: When it comes down to it, I think the most meaningful definition of randomness is that which cannot be predicted by humans. -An excellent definition, which leaves the whole question wide open. We have no idea what discoveries science might make in a hundred/thousand/ten thousand years, and so currently we can only theorize.