Free-Will

It's about breaking through the limits that have evolved, been determined....a slight bit at a time.
Incremental advancement and over-coming.

Saying it's all determined, after-the-fact, is a way of justifying a loss, and, as you said, a victory that contradicts popular morals and ideals.
It's a way of explaining yourself by using something other than yourself.
Holding yourself accountable to something outside your-self.

When a pagan justifies his choices to his past, it is to his ancestors he is directing his explanations.
He holds himself accountable not to God, or some mindless past, but to his own blood...which is part of 'self' if defined pragmatically and not idealistically.

Anfang wrote:

Free-will point of view in that sense is about a mind trying to control the body, being the master of the body (and with body I mean also the emotional part of the brain/mind).

Destiny/determinism is a point of view for the body being in control.

Yes.
Body, the physical is the manifestation of past. This is why appearance is not superficial and not irrelevant.

Nihilism is about the mind being sanctified...meaning detached from the body's limits and the determined past it represents.
Nihilism goes the other way....free-will is absolute.
God is replaced by mind...and so the universal mind is placed on earth as a divine organ channelling universal consciousness.

The present SJW crap is this pushed to its 'logical limits'.
When a degenerate says he's a 'man' trapped in a female's body, he means he's a mind, self-identifying as male, or lizard or whatever, trapped in a homo sapient limiting form...a body that contradicts its mind.

Subjectivity and all is a social constructs is also this....mind creates reality.
If not God, then it must be someone, or a group of minds.
Mind is God.

So either mind is free of body, or body lords over mind.
This is the Nihilistic paradigm: Positive and Pure Nihilism.
Absolutes.
Either mind is absolute master, is absolutely free, or it is an absolutely enslaved by the body, by past.

I don't mind believing in "free-will" and "determinism" at the same time.
The body is the body and yet the mind is also the mind and I don't mind that the mind has its ambitions, I think that's part of the self as well. I don't know, lol.

It's about thinking outside absolutes.

We are both determined by past, limited, contained, but not entirely, not completely...we also have a degree of freedom, expressed as choice...will, directing us away from the path-of-least-resistance.
We experience it as a struggle, as an increase in resistance...as suffering.
Most abandon themselves to chance, the easiest less resistant path...to what has been determined.  

Lifeless matter/energy does exactly that - it flows, interacts, along paths-of-least-resistance.
It cannot do otherwise. It has no Will....no choice. It is utterly determined by past.
Even in this case chaos participates in the determined.
Science only studies Order.

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It's all about Body<>Nervous System<>Mind....simplified by moderns as the Mind/Body duality.
All of art, philosophy, politics can be explained using this triad.

I've explained my positions as to why it's a triad, in an organism that experiences existence in four-dimensions - the fourth is movement/momentum, within these three-dimensions.
There are more dimensions, of course, but we have to evolve to experience them.
Expanding space/time also means fragmenting possibilities - increasing dimensions.
Inferior species are characterized by their awareness of a shallow variant of the three, or of two, as with plants.  
Plants, and amoebas, bacteria, viruses, don't have any sense of future. They are entirely past made present.
The third being their movement within these two dimensions. They are alive so Will applies.

I can only restate what I've said before.
Reality precedes consciousness. Consciousness is an effect of brain phenomena. Will, choice, is an effect of consciousness.
Events occur along a causative chain called time, the measure of change. The present is an effect of past, it is determined by past. Present is past moving into the future, because reality is flux, movement, never static. If it was static it would be non-interactive, perceived as nothingness. Because it is interactive, it is also re-active, dependent, the outcome of past interaction, regressing infinitely.
Will is our past, our memory, our genes moving into the future. Will is the expression of our entire history manifesting itself through us, who are the implements of that history interacting with present. Free describes a relationship: free from, free to. There are no absolutes.
"We" are not disconnected from this causative process such that "determinism" acts as a tyrant which forces us to choose in certain ways. This is the error you're making, a false dichotomy between the Self and that which makes the Self possible.
Determinism is not distinct from Self. Self is an expression of determinism. I am the past manifesting as presence, I am the past moving into the future.

I'm not sure if determinism would rule out the evolution of consciousness. You say that if all was predetermined then organisms would not need consciousness and so it would never have evolved.
I don't know if this would follow. An ordered system can form into increasing levels of complexity without the need for randomness. I mean if, in determinism, consciousness is unnecessary, then wouldn't any form of ordered system also be unnecessary? Wouldn't it follow with this argument that there would simply be a static, non-interactive void? And yet the present is the outcome of past.

I'm not saying with this that there's a divine plan for the universe. This has sort of grown out of those old Infinite Regress of Causality threads I used to make on ILP years ago, in order to refute the idea of a god in a novel way which I hadn't seen before.
The argument relies on the continuity of causation, otherwise you have ex nihilo, causa sui, etc which imply events occurring spontaneously or out of nothing, much like your randomness, in order to save a concept whose only real value is a sentimental one.
Reality doesn't care about our judgments about it. If determinism makes us upset, that we aren't completely disconnected from reality in order to potentially do whatever we like, then too bad.
Even the word "determinism" contains a dichotomy between past which imposes itself upon the present, as if they are distinct. A lot of this distinction arises from the way language is constructed and how this influences our ideas about reality. Language is a descriptor, not the thing itself. If it's inaccurate it needs to be refined.
If we are past moving into future through present then maybe even considering these 3 ideas (past, present future) as distinct is wrong. Perhaps it would be more accurate to think of time as a continuum, in a constant process of change, flux.

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Randomness implies that an event in the causative process is not bound to have predictable outcomes. If this is the case then any event could have any outcome, or no outcome, or an event could occur out of nothing.
How does the process of randomness work?
Randomness breaks the concept of flux because it introduces tributaries and channels to the river that have no source of their own, they -just happen-, randomly, for the sole purpose of adding unpredictability in order to avoid determinism. It would be like: causality is a river, the past flowing forwards as present, and occasionally you get things dropped into it from an unknown (or no) source.
Free Will defined as an evolutionary reaction to randomness is not really free will either. It's determinism plus a random number generator, the product of which would still not be "ours", we would be the product of it. IE the sum total of past interaction that preceded us plus RNG from whatever would manifest the effect "consciousness" which would go about thinking and making decisions based on the above.
It would still be reaction, not action as a first-mover, not Free Will. If you're to say that you are making a decision that is purely your own, or partially your own, then you have to introduce an element of something-from-nothing or self-caused in order to avoid it being the product of past. Reality precedes consciousness.
So the choices are determinism, ex nihilo, causa sui or a combination.

Determinism doesn't need to be a divine plan for the universe. It could just be the path water takes as it flows down a hill, the path a river takes as it follows it's banks; the pattern that results from the path of least resistance. Beyond that, there's no more information available.

To add, there's no more information because the "path of least resistance" is the equilibrium created by the relationships between the values of things like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] beyond which we can't speculate because we don't know. You can't theorize about the nature of a riverbed when you don't know what's beyond it.

from the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Quote :

As I mentioned in class, humans tend to see patterns when, in fact, the results are completely random.  When listening to a Geiger counter, we all get the impression that the radioactive decays are clumped.  And yet, they are all independent and random. The same phenomena is sometimes called the "Gambler's Paradox." Someone who is placing bets looks for patterns and bets to take advantage of them. But the patterns aren't really there (the fall of the ball on the roulette wheel really is random -- at least at an honest casino), and so the gambler who is looking for patterns and 'streaks' is really only fooling himself. Every spin is independent, with equal chance to come up red or black, equal chance to hit any number between 0 and 99. The fact that the last 5 hits were black doesn't mean that you can now predict that the next one will be black too.

Nor does a string of blacks mean that the next one will be red. That might be the logic of a gambler who says, "in the end, it all has to even out." In fact, it doesn't have to even out. In the end, if the number of times it came up red is expected to be 10,000, then from the square-root rule, we really expect it only to be within the range of 10,000 ± squareroot(10,000) = 10,000 ± 100. Note that with more spins of the wheel, the squareroot gets larger. So it doesn't have to even out!

While it's true that the square root increases, it does increase slower and slower relative to the number it's derived from. 10 +/- 3.16 is much less accurate of an estimate than 10000 +/- 100. That's like 10 +/- 0.1.

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The same phenomena -- seeing patterns in random data -- occurs with random patterns of points.  Using a computer, I generated completely random locations.  I assigned each location to a "star" and then I made the plot.  It is the top image.

To get a more uniform plot, I then redid all the calculations, but in a different way.  I divided the box into 100 smaller boxes, and put one star in each little box. However the location in the little box was random. The result is the bottom figure.

Which pattern looks more random?  Most people would say: the pattern on the right!  The left diagram seems to be full of clumps, lines, vacant regions.  The left diagram seems to be full of "constellations," groupings of stars that don't seem random.

It is hard to believe that the diagram on the right is the non-random one. In the figure below (the first one) I duplicated the more uniform star pattern, but also put in dotted lines, showing explicitly the 100 little boxes. The star pattern is exactly the same as for the plot on the upper right. But now you can verify that no box contains two stars. The stars were spread out in this matter to make the coverage more uniform. That makes it look more random! But it is an illusion.

In the actual sky, there are some stars that are not randomly placed. The stars in the cluster known as the Pleiades are truly clustered. But most of the stars are randomly placed. The stars in the constellation of Orion are not even close to each other; some are much farther away than others. We see what appear to be constellations, because truly random patterns appear clustered. We have to make them more uniform to make them look random. That is why many paintings of stars look wrong. The artist did not make the stars sufficiently random.

The key element I take from this is that it's not that easy to intuitively grasp randomness, because, as Satyr mentioned somewhere as well, we do see patterns and we look for patterns and we find patterns whether or not there are any causalities behind it.

Which is a good question. Does it matter if we find patterns (which we inevitably find, even if only so slightly) if there actually was no causality behind them, at least not the one which the patterns hint at.

apaosha wrote:

Will is our past, our memory, our genes moving into the future.

I place 'will' in the present, as an act, a focus of this inherited past.
A lens focusing the 'light'.
I place it in the nervous system as an action. The past 'flows' through will, directed future.

Body is the past. Will is nervous system, objective is mind.

apaosha wrote:

I'm not sure if determinism would rule out the evolution of consciousness. You say that if all was predetermined then organisms would not need consciousness and so it would never have evolved.
I don't know if this would follow. An ordered system can form into increasing levels of complexity without the need for randomness. I mean if, in determinism, consciousness is unnecessary, then wouldn't any form of ordered system also be unnecessary? Wouldn't it follow with this argument that there would simply be a static, non-interactive void? And yet the present is the outcome of past.

'Necessity' is a word that only has meaning in relation o an objective...like value.
Things are necessary in relation to something, like an objective. So if life is the objective then certain things are necessary.

But, yes, an absolutely ordered universe would be a singularity.
Absolute probability. This means there would be no activity. The absolute would be static, the very definition of non-existence
The perfect would not change, as there would be nothing to change into other than the imperfect.
But Moderns baptize the dynamic 'perfect' in relation to life. It is 'perfect' or 'necessary' for the emergence of life, implying that life is its telos, its intent.

God, as Abrahamics define the word, is another word for 'absolute order'.

apaosha wrote:

I'm not saying with this that there's a divine plan for the universe. This has sort of grown out of those old Infinite Regress of Causality threads I used to make on ILP years ago, in order to refute the idea of a god in a novel way which I hadn't seen before.
The argument relies on the continuity of causation, otherwise you have ex nihilo, causa sui, etc which imply events occurring spontaneously or out of nothing, much like your randomness, in order to save a concept whose only real value is a sentimental one.

Some-thing/no-thing are human concepts.
There is no 'thing', only fluid dynamic (inter)activity interpreted, abstracted, into things.
Thing = abstraction. It's part of the way the brain works - 1/0.

Nil implies non-existent.....existence is dynamic fluidity. The non-existent is exactly that. But it serves as a tool to clarify existence....like how we project the mind 'outside' space/time, the universe, to conceptualize it as a whole, a one.

apaosha wrote:

To add, there's no more information because the "path of least resistance" is the equilibrium created by the relationships between the values of things like [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] beyond which we can't speculate because we don't know. You can't theorize about the nature of a riverbed when you don't know what's beyond it.

Absolute order implies that you can know...that omniscience is possible.

Randomness is not discounted on emotional grounds but because ti makes the emergence of consciousness impossible.
Why would we choose when an automatic reactivity would suffice in an ordered, predictable, consistent universe?
It sounds like torture...to be made aware of what you cannot intervene upon.
Choice, if all is determined, is a joke. The choice itself is determined.

Any example of 'randomness' is based on matter/energy, using dice or computer generated binary numbers, or particles....which is order.

If there is randomness, or energies that exist as unpredictable, fluctuating, inconsistent, interactive 'vibrations' then thy can never combine into larger unities and become apparent. They work on the lowest level, the smallest (Planck level), which is becoming smaller, affecting order, which then becomes perceived.
We can only perceive chaos through order....this is why we call it complexity.

Like Anfang said, man's brain is a collector of patterns, and a creator of them.
The brain has to order data, otherwise it cannot process it.
It, therefore, can confuse itself - mistaking what it created (noumenon) with what exists independent from it (phenomena).
Technologies, such as those used by scientists, are externalizations of man's understanding of his own body and how it works.
Man externalized his mind, as computer, for example.
Technologies multiply his processes....and are extensions of body. The body externalized, made other, via a medium, like metal, carbon fibre, plastic, glass etc.

I understand that my conception of chaos, as randomness, and not complexity, is the most controversial part of my world-view.
It's counter-intuitive.

I've tried my best to clarify how I think of it, using metaphors....like vibrating strings (String Theory).
Art.
The vibrating string is no string at all...it is only vibration. This step is also counter-intuitive, because the mind cannot separate the translation of vibration from the vibration itself.
The mind needs a 'thing' to ascribe traits to.
From this metaphor we can say that order is a string vibrating at a specific rhythm...each different rhythms interpreted as a different kind of order - matter/energy.
Chaos would be a type of vibration that lacked rhythm.....it had no repeating, consistent pattern.
It still (inter)acts, and exists, as it is dynamic, but it does so with no consistency.
The brain would interpret it as void/darkness, as it would what it cannot process, like complexity.

So, complexity is God hiding in the details, or the Devil....but randomness is the absence of it altogether.
That's a terrifying concept to contemplate.
It makes life uncertain....fragile.

As organism we are fighting to preserve ourselves....and as Kazantzakis put it, we are fighting alongside the gods, or a god.

If the outcome of a particular event is unknown, but measurable, you can record all known outcomes of that event, compare them and declare the probability of a particular outcome. This is not randomness, it's probability. It says nothing about the actual process which produced the event, which remains unknown, perceived as "random".
The placement of the stars is due to the gravitational relationships of the stars, not randomness. The placement of the points on the white square that Anfang posted is due to a rng machine, which is specifically designed to give different results each time it's activated, unpredictable to it's human creator. Whether it is actually unpredictable is unknown. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Pattern is a relationship between phenomena perceived by an observer. In this context, it's a perspective. A constellation being a pattern perceived by an observer on earth does not negate the fact that the stars in that constellation formed from interstellar dust clouds due to gravitation and are in the positions and directions of movement they are in due to gravitation. That we can perceive patterns does not mean all patterns are valid, nor does it mean they are invalid.
You're right, the perception of a pattern should be fully explored in order to determine if it is actually a pattern. But on the other hand, randomness should also be fully explored in order to determine if it not just our ignorance of the base interactions which gives us the perception of randomness. Is it random, or can we just not see the pattern, the chain of events, that bring about a particular outcome?

Randomness to me just means a lack of knowledge. The way I see it used by Satyr is almost like a god of the gaps, a mysterious unknowable force that acts effectively like magic in that it is impossible to understand and has inexplicable effects, just because. And all this happens at the micro, barely perceivable level, so that it can't be properly detailed and remains mysterious, yet effects the macro in that the apparent response to this microrandomness is the emergence of consciousness in organisms.
You say that there is not a vibrating string, but merely vibration and that this is counter-intuitive.... because language dictates that there be a subject (string) which performs an action (vibration) .... yet you continually miss my point in that determinism does not rule out free will because the Self is not the subject of the action of determinism. You can't be tyrannized by the past, or be a detached observer to the past, because you can't detach from or directly observe yourself. (The present is the past moving into the future.)
Freedom is a relative term: you're free from a constraint, you're free to do something. You are never absolutely free because existence is based upon interaction, dependencies and to be totally free of these is to be non-existent. But at the same time the Self isn't a disconnected entity which is kicked about by events around it. The Self in my view is the aggregate effect of many different events producing the effect Self. So I say that Self, Will, choice, is the effect of past processes and not subject to them. (I am my past moving into the future.)
I'm trying to avoid this dichotomy.

We need to define what we mean by "random". It can mean "unknown", it can also mean "inconsistent". So, either way a random event is an effect of past.
My issue with "inconsistent" is that it implies a break of the procession of past into present; in that any event may produce any outcome, or that a phenomenon may appear, yes, out of nothing - spontaneously, inconsistently, randomly. This has consequences, on everything else we could talk about. Did the universe appear suddenly? Will it disappear suddenly? Will the sun spontaneously go nova?
So to what degree does this proposed microrandomness affect the macro level? It appears, not very much.
I've already said that even randomness as inconsistency, on the micro level, would only produce consciousness as a reaction. In this way free will would still be an effect of past events and not itself random (inconsistent, spontaneous). So even with this concept free will as it is conventionally defined cannot be saved.

Free will is the dynamic choice, necessitated by the effect of chaos on order.

Yes, random events can occur, and man can then integrate them, after the fact, into fatalism, as inevitable.
Chaos is increasing.
Presently order is still dominant, as we are still close to the near absolute point of the Big Bang.
But as the cosmos 'expands' randomness will begin to dominate, making life impossible, but also making the emergence of a new near-absolute event, inevitable - beginning a new cycle.

Yes, chaos is inconsistent energies. A Vibration that lacks a rhythms and yet interacts with other energies.
It remains in the micro, but man because of the lag produced by the mind's processing speed, can only perceive existence after-the-fact. So man perceived existence as past.
Interactions are integrated into what has become.

Life evolves automatic processes, reactive, that do not require consciousness.
Consciousness is a higher cognitive process, that requires more time/space to produce abstractions.  
The mind feeds on patterns, and creates patterns to represent the experienced.
Therefore, its conception of existence is always patterned.
Noumena are mental models, patterns, representing the experienced, phenomena, which are also patterns.  
But the phenomena are not entirely the product of consistent, predictable, order.  Chaos, to whatever degree, participates in their presence.
Order is how chaos manifests, because the living brain can only process patterns.

Free-will is the reprogramming of the organisms reactivity when random events produce new patterns of consistency.

Consciousness is, therefore, necessary to deal with the slight modification chaos produces.
The organism slightly adjusts, chooses to adapt to the unforeseeable.
This choice is slightly divergent from past choices...otherwise there would be no need for consciousness....life would have evolved automatic reactions.
The only argument against this position is that consciousness evolves to out-compete other consciousness, in the game of reproduction...but then even this is determined. The individual has no say in it, to no degree....none whatsoever. He is a passive conduit through which existence unfolds...similar to Abrahamism that uses other metaphors to express the idea of a universal Will, consciousness, it calls Will....and the individual but a passive conduit of god's will.  
They, then, punish the individual for not abiding by god's will - so punishment is a ruse...it is sadistic. The individual is punished for what he has no choice, no power to change.
All are manifestation of the divine god, or absolute order.

Moderns go the other way....nothing matters, since all that exists is predetermined and out of the power of the individual.
Why hate homosexuals, or pedophiles, or murderers....it's all part of a predetermined causality.  

Cynicism is the only response.
Laugh at what you can do nothing about.

Unpredictable is not only the unknown...because this implies that it can be known.
Unpredictable means that which can NEVER be known.
Herein lies the only place we can place mysticism.  
But not like the nihilists use it, to imply a deeper, occult, knowledge of the incomprehensible...hiding secret powers that can be tapped.
No, mysticism is that which man can do nothing about, nor know.
Praying to it projects hope that the unforeseeable will be beneficial, because chaos is not only about the negative.
Chaos can produce positive consequences.  

A fetus gestating in the womb suffers mutations not only during the synthesis of genes, but in the womb from cosmic energies that pass through matter but randomly interact with matter/energy....order.
They pass through the mother's flesh and blood and randomly interact with the fetus....or interact with the mothers body protecting the fetus...or they pass through both having no effect.
This small effect produces mutations that can offer an advantage or a disadvantage.

He way I've defined free-will and order/chaos makes it metaphysics that manifests as physics, over space/time.
The experienced world takes precedence.
It really does not matter, that much, for the day to day concerns of the organism.

It's just a way to justify why our judgments affect our own lives and the fate of mankind.  
We are made culpable for the future, just as our ancestors are responsible, to a degree, for the present state of the world.
Causal chains are accompanied by chains of judgments and choices.
What we do and think today will affect the future of humanity.
Nobody is 'innocent'.
Nobody can stand aside and just wonder, and laugh, at how fucked-up things are, or will become.

We are not an audience to a bad movie.
In our own tiny, infinitesimal way we add a letter, a word, a punctuation, here and there to the script.

The concept of probability indicated a higher possibility...not a certainty.  
Uncertainty is integrated into probability, as the measurement of higher/lower possibilities.

There are no absolutes, other than in language....and math is a language.
This uncertainty is expressed in factions...percentages.

Absolute order would mean absolute certainty, when all the patterns had been measured.
Absolute order implies the presence of absolute knowledge.
Omniscience and omnipotence are not denied, but projected into future as an immanent inevitability.

The absolute is projected as not only possible, but inevitable.

apaosha wrote:

If the outcome of a particular event is unknown, but measurable, you can record all known outcomes of that event, compare them and declare the probability of a particular outcome. This is not randomness, it's probability.

At least in mathematics, that’s what random means. A random number generator ideally generates random numbers equally distributed within a given range and is supposed to be unpredictable, in other words, the numbers it has generated previously ideally don’t provide any hint or pattern as to what the next number will be.
Of course you can calculate probabilities for a certain number or a number within a certain range to occur.

But knowing the probabilities doesn’t make it predictable.
Even if you were playing in a casino the whole night and the roulette outcome had been red every single time, the next run would still not be any different than all the runs before. You could not say anything more or anything else than what you could say before that night began.

Even if you know nothing about a certain process and you observed and measured the probabilities of certain things occuring, if it is a random event then you can’t predict the next event, regardless how well you studied that process.
What you can give are probabilities.
Those probabilities also don’t have to be equally distributed to be random, it’s the unpredictability in the sense that prior events don’t correlate with the upcoming event.

Even more so, let’s say you could go to the casino and let’s say there is this special roulette which after having produced 10 black runs in a row has changed its probability distribution and a red is now not at a 50% chance but due to the 10 black runs in a row it has risen to 70%. That kind of special roulette would not create random events, there are patterns.
So in that sense, probabilities would and do hint at patterns and are not random.
But if the process stays unaffected by prior events then it’s a random event generator.

A roulette and dice offer a finite number of probabilities.
Both are matter = order.

In theory we can predict an outcome if we can measure every variable affecting the dice roll, or the marble...or we can approximate the highest probability.
The more variable we can integrate in our analysis, the higher the probability.  

But we can never be absolutely certain.

The measuring act, itself, is a variable we must account for.
Probability only evaluates higher possibilities, never absolutes.
In an entirely ordered universe this would be a matter of time.
Man will become God, or find god, and Be...an end.
Omniscience is a matter of time - telos.
If all is ordered, in theory, then all variables can be measured producing absolute certainty.
Even our observing, our choice to measure, can be measured as a determined variable with an effect.

I notice that I use the words pattern and predictable and so on in at times confusing ways, particularly in the post above. But I hope I got the idea of random across.

Random basically means that prior events don't affect the upcoming event.
In a random universe there would only be probabilities but not causalities.
The apple drops to the ground 70% of the time and in a random universe there would be no causality as to when and why it does drop and when it does not. Not just that we don't know the causality but that there is none.

Would be interesting to learn what kind of experiments scientists come up with to confirm or at least strengthen the certainty that an event is truly random and not just a failure to find causalities.

Not in my use of the word 'random'.
Order/Chaos is part of causality.

Both participate in what is determined...but one can be measured, and evaluated, and the other cannot.
One is consistent and predictable, and the other is not.

Chaos Exists...it is dynamic.
Existence means that which (inter)acts, is dynamic, it attracts repels.
Some energies are predictable, consistent, and have a pattern, a rhythm.
Others lack this predictable consistency, have no pattern, no rhythm.

In practical terms, we call an event random/chaotic (chaos theory) when the process and the result are so sensitive to starting conditions and influences that we can't create an experiment well shielded enough from all those minute influences and conditions that the result is unpredictable and is all over the place in its outcome.
Small changes in parameters leading to huge differences, unpredictable, in outcomes.

But besides the theoretical idea of is such an event truly random, I'd argue that in the real world they are truly random because for all practical purposes no organism or no repeating event can build on such chaotic events or incorporate them in their existence and as such it also is in practical terms sane and necessary to consider them as being practically, chaotic and nothing but chaotic.

At the quantum level there are according to theory even theoretically unpredictable events which are only probabilistic and not causally linked, not even theoretically are they causally linked.

We can only experience world through order....because we are organisms dependent on order.
We are order made aware of its condition.
Our thinking is the product of order, and constructs order....finds it and creates it.

An apple falls, being order, interacting with earth which is also order.
But how it falls, or when, is never exactly the same, predictable.
Chaos influences order in the infinitesimal level. This slightly modifies how order (inter)acts.

The degree is still small because matter/energy is still dominant at this phase...we are not that distant from the near-absolute event we call Big Bang.
But chaos is increasing.
We experience this as linear time.
Order fragments, and randomness increases.

With every (inter)action order suffers attrition, and random energies are also produced.
The irony of existence.

Anfang wrote:

In practical terms, we call an event random/chaotic (chaos theory) when the process and the result are so sensitive to starting conditions and influences that we can't create an experiment well shielded enough from all those minute influences and conditions that the result is unpredictable and is all over the place in its outcome.
Small changes in parameters leading to huge differences, unpredictable, in outcomes.

Yes...we use ignorance to build hypothetical gnosis.
Even our mistakes we include into a theory of all.

Anfang wrote:

But besides the theoretical idea of is such an event truly random, I'd argue that in the real world they are truly random because for all practical purposes no organism or no repeating event can build on such chaotic events or incorporate them in their existence and as such it also is in practical terms sane and necessary to consider them as being practically, chaotic and nothing but chaotic.

Yes...and so this is a matter of metaphysics and spirituality.

Anfang wrote:

At the quantum level there are according to theory even theoretically unpredictable events which are only probabilistic and not causally linked, not even theoretically are they causally linked.

Man is now comforted by a reality that is counter-intuitive...and can never be intuited.

Life, and man as its highest known manifestation, is blessed or damned to exist in uncertainty, of anxiety and wonder.

I guess there is the difference between the idealising mathematics and reality.
Ideally random would mean that the event is unaffected by causality.
In reality (besides quantum mechanical effects) we call random what is so chaotic, so unstable, so flunky, in its outcome that we say and consider it to be unpredictable.

Math and geometry are languages...languages are art-forms.
It can only represent or refer to what is observable, order.

Chaos, defined as randomness, is integrated into the order, as a cause that has yet to be measured, or incorporated into the analysis.
It assumes that it can....which links it with faith.
All is god, becomes all is order. It has a reason becomes it can be reasoned, it is reasonable.
God's will becomes causality.

Man remains without choice...a fake choice.
He either accepts or denies his fate.
Slave morality.

From one absolute to the other....all is choice....willed.
If not God, then man.
This is the other pole - positive Nihilism.
Man is a probable, potential, god...creator of his own reality.

So what's the difference between complexity and randomness....
I propose that complexity creates predictable outcomes and randomness unpredictable outcomes.
Now somebody could say, well, the guy just doesn't understand the randomness, it's too complex for him and behind it all lurks complexity.

But I think that I can be really dumb, I don't need to be particularly intelligent to see the predictable outcomes of complexity. Sure enough, there might be very complex mechanisms and causalities taking place with that complex thing but still, at the end of the day this complex thing delivers predictable results.

To think of it in terms of chaos theory, the complex thing does not depend on perfect starting conditions and a perfect environment not affecting it in any way or form, it delivers its predictable outcomes, it does its thing with great stability, reliably so.
The random thing does not, it's not stable.

And I think this difference in stability is not just about us and our limitations as an observer and a not skilful enough manipulator but it's an inherent important difference about the thing.

So what's a roulette?
Is it a complex machine or a random thing?
It's a complex machine which is constructed to try and create more or less random events but not just any kind of random event but very controlled random events, very limited in their outcomes, a set of numbers which are supposed to be equally distributed as results.
You really have to throw the ball in a messed up way or spin it way too fast to end up with a result outside of the intended variation of outcomes, e.g. no result.

Complexity is order that has yet to be discovered.
It implies that there is a hidden order...patterns.

Roulette is both.
The matter, the physical part of the roulette is order...along with the laws of nature that factor in.
But, the uncertainty enters as a conspicuous randomness on a micro sub-atomic level.
Even if you could design a super-computer that can factor in all the patterns at work there would still remain probability, not certainty.
There can never be an absolute other than as a expression of conviction, confidence, based on experience, on precedent etc.
You can never know, with absolute certainty, what number would fall.

Uncertainty is what life deals with.
This is why consciousness is useful.
It deals with the outcome, and does not have to calculate all the variables. It deals with the outcome, after-the-fact...it is reactive, and attempts some projected probabilities to gain an advantage over other calculating, judging, minds.
It's a more efficient mechanism.

Pure Nihilism claims that all is chaos...so nothingness reigns, and man deludes himself with knowledge and understanding.

Positive Nihilism projects, declares, creates reality in his mind, using words, and then blames another when he fails....or, if he is clever, he uses vague, prose and poetic language that allows him to claim that whatever the outcome it was part of his projected and desired outcome...after-the-fact.
He 'wins' no mater what, because he never says anything. He pretends to be saying it, but retains plausible deniabilty.

Mystical allusions, word-based idealism, does this.
It never actually says anything, other than triggering emotions, sensations, using symbols/words...similar to fArt.
We've all met these types...they are common around internet Forums.

They use prose, metaphors, allegories...sounding impressive, magical, mysterious, but with positive insinuations, unless you doubt them, or expose them...then they become angry.
all liars hate those who expose the lie.
If you are impressed, or pretend to be, they like you...you are their 'friend', 'brother, ally etc.

They never actually clarify or define, because that would expose the simplicity of the ruse.
Words referring to more words...with the final anchoring in emotions, sensations, primitive needs and desires.
Not philosophy...marketing, psychology. Using language to manipulate.

Satyr wrote:

Even if you could design a super-computer that can factor in all the patterns at work there would still remain probability, not certainty.

It would still be probabilistic but if you measure the spin of the roulette turning and the speed of the ball you can calculate roughly where the ball will hit one of the edges and then start jumping around. I guess it would be practically impossible to calculate the right number beforehand but it would probably be possible to limit the results to certain segments of numbers on the wheel.

The main critical aspect is not quantum physics related but the ball hitting somewhere an obstacle and this impact and what results from this impact is highly sensitive to the speeds and angles and creates vastly different results. This is the part where very small differences in the starting conditions create very large differences in the results.

A coin toss by comparison would be quite easy to predict if you measure the various properties of the flipped coin as it moves through the air with a high speed camera and a computer program. It makes accurate predictions possible.

Coin tosses are a 50%/50% probability...with every coin-toss you reduce your accuracy.
You could never accurately predict each and every coin toss.

The other factor, having to do with quantum physics, is the effect of the observer upon the observed.
This has yet to be fully understood.
I suspect that it has to do with the method of observing which requires a medium, a mediating phenomenon, pattern.
I've said that (inter)action produces attrition, increasing complexity, and randomness.
But the opposite seems to be true.
Interacting with order may settle randomness to a pattern.

So, light used to observe may also increase order, probabilities.

(Inter)Acting patterned and non-patterned energies affect and are affected.
So, if a pattern interacts with a non-pattern, both are affected....depending on which one is stronger, has a higher aggregate energy.
Order may cause the chaotic energy to acquire its pattern.

I think the increase in chaos is slightly larger, than any increase in order...otherwise instead of a expanding universe we may be heading towards a new Big Bang.
Time/Space may expand and then begin shrinking, back towards the near-absolute point of a singularity that is never finalized.
Time would go backwards.
Life, even if this is the case, would still cease, until the next cycle.

But I really think that we don't have to fall back on the quantum physics explanation for why it's random and not complexity. Sure it's not theoretically free from causality but it is theoretically and practically an unstable system and this instability is a quality which creates unpredictable results.
And not only unpredictable for man but the instability itself is a quality different from a thing with inherent stability, no matter if there was a conscious organism around to witness said instability or stability.