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A letter in response to some questions from a young friend:
Dear Duncan
Thank you for your thought provoking e-mail. I have enjoyed pondering the matter a few days and would like to offer the following observations:
I feel that the whole issue is merely a matter of the limitations of our language. Language is a tool which serves many purposes in communication, and it is precise only to the extent that usage requires precision. It is a frequent experience that the usage of people is sufficiently different that considerable confusion arises from the choice of words or the structure of a sentence with insufficient redundancy.
In the case of matters attributed to random selection, the simile of "the absence of any recognisable order" appears to me to be quite adequate. I do not think that the use of "recognisable" is a problem – the functional criterion is "recognisable to me". Of course there may in fact be some order but if I cannot recognise it then for my purposes there might as well not be.
This was illustrated by a small report in today's Examiner (4 Dec 98, page 2) in which one Dennis Nikrasch has agreed to tell how he has been able to tickle $64M per year from Nevada poker machines. Apparently these machines are a little less than random but recognition of the weakness has eluded millions.
The non-randomness of real world events becomes a problem when you program a random number generator for a computer. Clearly the numbers must be generated by some method. We happily assume that the result is random as it appears to provide pretty uniform probability of selection of all available numbers, but of course we know that the numbers were obtained by a determined process and thus they are not truly random.
The point is that if we cannot recognise a pattern we often use the word random to suggest that neither we nor anybody else can recognise a pattern. That does not mean that there is no pattern, but part of the function of the word random is to discourage the idea that a recognisable pattern really does exist.
The question of causation is not unrelated but reflects a very different imprecision. It is frequently a problem for me that a lawyer wishes to show that B was caused by A, when A was merely a necessary precursor. The relative importance of A and the possibility of other alternative paths to B is a collection of issues which our language manages poorly.
My cup of tea has become empty. Is this because I have drunk it; or was the cause the action of gravity in combination with a change of attitude of the cup. Did I drink it or tip it out? The action is the same. (Perhaps the tea evaporated? Perhaps the cup is still full but has not been accurately observed?)
We use the word "cause" very loosely because we presume that we can understand the operation of the mechanism we recognise. Unfortunately this is often seriously incorrect. Firstly we recognise mechanisms which are not present – we "discover" relationships which depend on observations of coincidence, and then hypothesise a mechanism to "explain" the correspondence. Coincidence is not relationship.
This is the process of the hypothetico-deductive spiral and I don't disparage it, but we must also recognise that it has severe limitations and can lead us far astray.
Quite often we have the mechanism wrong – our model is simplified in a way which makes it usable as we have limited data gathering and processing capabilities. These simplifications are often so gross that the model may be more of a handicap than a help (I could include here almost all of the models of contemporary psychiatry, much of biochemistry and most of economics to touch a few fields familiar to you – if you doubt me just consider what proportion of all applications will yield confidently predictable results).
Thus does the term random simply imply incomplete knowledge?
Of course. Who has complete knowledge? I remember being involved in a most interesting discussion once with a man and for the purpose we defined a special word to mean perfect truth, but neither of us believed that to be an attainable condition.
Notwithstanding the difficulties of definition I postulate that a truly random event is one which is unpredictable ie. an event which could not have been predicted.
By whom? If you mean by you or me, then your definition is no different from the common usage of the word. If you mean to suggest that God cannot show us enough to enable us to produce a model (however simplified and unreliable) then I have some difficulty – such a god is surely limited. I don't think that such a concept actually has any use in the world and I would suggest that we do not need any word for that.
I recall a conversation with Timothy some time ago during which we were discussing a similar matter. This involved the flow of water down the Cataract Gorge. Both he and I agreed that given complete knowledge of all parameters influencing the flow of water, the character of the water flow at any point could be predicted at any point with perfect accuracy.
Not true. Apparently neither of you has learned enough about the problems of accuracy. You should at least remember Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. We never achieve perfect accuracy. It is idle to observe that if I were God I would be omniscient – I am not God.
If your conversation related to the validity of a particular model it was equally in error. In practice our hydraulic models (in common with all others) are rough simplifications of reality and while they make useful representations of future events they are very far from perfect.
The implications of such a comment are that in the presence of complete knowledge all events are predictable.
Only by the One who created those events.
However, such a state (that is, complete knowledge) is of course impossible. Thus is the term “random” simply implying the impossibility of such a state?
I don't think so, I think the word has a much more ordinary function than your philosophical conclusion.
The philosophy of randomness is ultimately a theological question. If you choose to believe that our environment was formed by a Creator we do not understand, then it is surely entirely acceptable to believe that every sequence of numbers or events (whatever the source) being part of that creation was also deliberately ordered, and thus nothing is random in the sense of not having order. (Of course there are other issues relating to whether our Creator is limited by our concepts of order but the testing of those is beyond me.)
Firstly that of the number pi which has been calculated to enormous numbers of decimal places without any evidence of recognisable pattern.
The value of pi is easily modelled with great accuracy – it converges on the perimeter of a circle divided by its diameter – a readily recognisable pattern, and the same sequence is calculated each time. Whether that is a useful model is another matter altogether.
In your academic and professional life you will find that the greatest and most common difficulties are caused (if I may be permitted to presume that) by careless use of language – or is it really careless thinking.
I believe that we think in our language. The ideas we are able to handle are entirely determined by the vocabulary we have available to express those ideas. Unfortunately we use many clichés and much other shorthand thinking and we are often quite careless about the way in which these are understood. This applies particularly to religious issues where we are often disinclined to expose ourselves.
I was encouraged once to realise that I did not understand anything which I could only express in a cliché. If you understand a phrase you will be able to express it in two completely independent sets of words – you can state exactly the same idea (perhaps not as succinctly) without using any of the main words of the cliché (this sentence is an example).
The development and function of language is a most interesting subject. Language is quite an individual tool and is constantly changing in its use. We must be sensitive to these changes and to the way others use words which is sometimes quite different to the words we might choose ourselves to express the same idea. Recognising the limitations imposed by our language is very important for responsible living and decision making in the real world.
Thank you for writing to me, I enjoyed the exercise. Please write again if there is something about this (or another topic) you would like to explore further.
Kind regards, Peter
Original: December ‘98
This page is part of “Living in the Light”
found at: http://www.tassie.net.au/~phoban/
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