Random thoughts

Materialists today can be divided into two camps: those who view nature as (fundamentally) random and those who view it as "gnarly"[1].

From an upcoming talk by Rudy Rucker:

We're presently in the midst of a new intellectual revolution: were coming to realize that physics, biology, minds and societies all emerge from interacting laws that can be regarded as computations. Everything is a computation, more precisely, everything is a gnarly computation. I use "gnarly" to mean richly complex --- or what Stephen Wolfram calls class-four. A tree's growth, the changes in the weather, the flow of daily news, a person's ever-changing moods --- all of these are gnarly computations*. Although law-like and deterministic, gnarly computations are --- and this is a key point --- inherently unpredictable. The world's mystery is preserved. I'll explain the notion of gnarly computation, focusing on ways in which we can usefully think of biological systems and human societies as computations. The goal is not to deny the complexity of the natural world, but rather to fully appreciate it. One formal result is of particular relevance: the "Principle of Unpredictability," which states that the behaviors of naturally occurring complex processes are formally impossible to predict by any conceivable means. This principle opens up new ways of thinking about biological evolution, about artistic creation, and about human history.

“Life is a Gnarly Computation,” Lecture in Rochester, NY Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, 8 PM Wed, April 4, 2007

* [slides from previous talk]

In fact, one could find some aspect of this divide in ancient Greek atomist philosophy between Democritus and Epicurus:

ii. The Swerve


The second modification of Democritus' views is the addition of the 'swerve.' In addition to the regular tendency of atoms to move downward, Epicurus thinks that occasionally, and at random times, the atoms swerve to the side. One reason for this swerve is that it is needed to explain why there are atomic collisions. The natural tendency of atoms is to fall straight downward, at uniform velocity. If this were the only natural atomic motion, the atoms never would have collided with one another, forming macroscopic bodies. As Lucretius puts it, they would 'fall downward, like drops of rain, through the deep void.' The second reason for thinking that atoms swerve is that a random atomic motion is needed to preserve human freedom and 'break the bonds of fate,' as Lucretius says. If the laws of atomic motion are deterministic, then the past positions of the atoms in the universe, plus these laws, determine everything that will occur, including human action. Cicero reports that Epicurus worries that, if it has been true from eternity that, e.g., "Milo will wrestle tomorrow," then presently deliberating about whether to make it true or false would be idle.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Also see [2].)

Determinism doesn't mean predicatability, but just because something is unpredicatible doesn't mean it is determistic.

There is one place where determinism is particularly suspect. When one goes to HotBits and begins requesting string of numbers, one is expecting 'truly random' numbers (and not pseudo-random ones). For example, here are some. (These just happen to be expressed as 'bytes'.)

61, 2, 51, 146, 83, 245, 46, 153, 90, 43, 218, 177, 52, 241, 126, 67, 115, 137, 129, 239, 186, 185, 25, 44, 236, 83, 96, 177, 132, 186, 58, 159, 100, 91, 95, 161, 35, 159, 3, 96, 25, 47, 210, 199, 107, 169, 69, 143, 89, 69, 120, 3, 21, 50, 176, 110, 4, 76, 107, 99, 190, 19, 131, 255, 16, 56, 57, 181, 51, 249, 118, 250, 41, 164, 83, 155, 199, 151, 106, 247, 17, 94, 157, 97, 175, 183, 106, 246, 149, 38, 144, 160, 249, 22, 122, 206, 251, 79, 15, 80, 57, 209, 242, 192, 46, 142, 92, 76, 206, 69, 135, 242, 241, 106, 64, 82, 241, 238, 191, 164, 249, 178, 61, 154, 215, 178, 38, 82, 2, 76, 187, 241, 150, 0, 23, 213, 200, 224, 8, 224, 44, 81, 206, 251, 251, 182, 151, 85, 215, 61, 125, 222, 224, 96, 0, 101, 14, 242, 144, 6, 4, 74, 143, 156, 219, 201, 172, 97, 203, 97, 87, 71,106, 109, 194, 77, 31, 120, 44, 233, 96, 108, 45, 154, 121, 169, 245, ...

One can embed a routine in a program to get HotBits as needed. Now if one discovered these 'quantum' numbers were in fact merely unpredictable (defined by a pseudo-random, chaotic process), then one would be in line for a Nobel Prize in Physics.

But is nature inherently random, or is it gnarly? I find it more comforting to accept the former. Otherwise I fear that I (along with everyone else reading this) am just a pawn of Laplace's demon.

---

1. deterministic, but inherently unpredictable. Also see Wikipedia: Randomness versus unpredicability. I would actually label the 'random' camp materialists, and the 'gnarly' camp quasi-materialists, since quantum randomness seems to have withstood countless experiments. Rudy Rucker in a Sci Fi Weekly interview: Suppose our world is in fact a giant deterministic computation and that we can discover the underlying computational rule, and quantum mechanics be damned.

2. From SpringerLink:

Epicurus on 'Free Volition' and the Atomic Swerve
Jeffrey S. Purinton

Abstract The central thesis of this paper is that Epicurus held that swerves of the constituent atoms of agents'' minds cause the agents'' volitions from the bottom up. De Rerum Natura 2.216-93 is examined at length, and Lucretius is found to be making the following claims: both atoms and macroscopic bodies sometimes swerve as they fall, but so minimally that they are undetectable. Swerves are oblique deviations, not right-angled turns. Swerves must be posited to account both for cosmogonic collisions quite generally and for every "free volition," including those of animals. All volitions are fresh starts of macroscopic motion, caused by that "something in our chests" which later philosophers would call ''the faculty of will.'' Since nothing can come to be from nothing, volitions must be caused from the bottom up by swerves, fresh starts in the mind''s atoms motions caused by the atoms'' inherent swerviness. This is what Lucretius is saying, and what Epicurus had to say in order to defend both libertarianism and atomism. Modern scholars are wrong, then, in rejecting the interpretation of Guissani and Bailey, which was crudely stated, but substantively correct. The rival interpretations of Furley, Fowler, and Englert do not do justice to Epicurus'' libertarianism, and that of Sedley does not do justice to his atomism, which entails universal bottom-up causation. Epicurus did not himself draw much attention to his positive doctrine of the swerve, preferring to emphasize the untenability of the deterministic alternative. The notoriety of the doctrine in Cicero''s day is due primarily to Chrysippus, who insisted that swerves cannot occur, since they would be "uncaused" motions, and secondarily to Carneades and Zeno of Sidon.