Can a computer create true random numbers?

[Revik]

What if I told you that randomness is a myth and all events are governed by strict cause and effect, though in some cases the pattern of causation is too complex for us to understand or otherwise unknown to us?

Are you suggesting that the concept of Luck is nothing more than events already put forth in motion but done in such a way we cannot predict the outcome? Favorable results are considered Good while unfavorable results are Bad?

Holy shit. Now my mind is blown.

- - - Updated - - -

On that note, I listened to a NPR interview a few years ago, and they were speaking with a Neuroscience guy - Ph.D at MIT or something - wicked bright. He was basically saying that on a daily basis, we don't make any decisions past about 10 seconds in front of us - that things like turning our head, moving our hands, speaking, etc. are all basically governed by randomness and uncertainty. The interviewee did a much better job of explaining it, of course, but it was utterly fascinating.

To add to that. Just those 10 seconds of conscience thought or decision making is the difference between us being prey and the dominate species on this planet.

I don't personally agree with that viewpoint but does sound interesting and wouldn't mind learning more.

[Forogil]

And here I thought we understood gravity?

Higgs field gives objects mass through the Higgs Boson, more massive objects create deeper dents in spacetime, which makes other objects fall towards the center of the first object. Ergo, gravity.

What more is there to it?

As I understand:
We lack a quantum theory of gravity (since the naïve approaches fail miserably) and we don't know how to combine it with the electroweak forces and QCD. Quantum fluctuations would through gravity give random dents in spacetime in a way that singularities so bad that it seems the theory collapses.

Oh, and we don't know if part of the theory of gravity is incomplete at larger distances and a better theory would explain dark energy and/or matter.

Apart from that we understand gravity.

[apepi]

What if I told you that randomness is a myth and all events are governed by strict cause and effect, though in some cases the pattern of causation is too complex for us to understand or otherwise unknown to us?

Pretty much what I was going to say.+1

[Deleted]

Nothing's random. The moment you were born, you died. The ink's dry and you're just living your story.

[Twoddle]

It makes me remember good old times in molten core. Epic drops and among 10 people somebody rolls a 99. Then I wait to be the last. see all the 9 people rolling above 50. your turn.

the guy rolled 99 cheering and then...

BAMMMMM!

Too soon executus!

its a fucking 100 over your pussy ass 99. That 2 handed healing mace is mine bitch. (the one that had a rotating gear on its head)
ventrilo goes crazy people shitting pants etc. man... the random on that roll. lol

Then the master looter gives it to his mate, takes all the gold and logs off.

[P for Pancetta]

What if I told you that randomness is a myth and all events are governed by strict cause and effect, though in some cases the pattern of causation is too complex for us to understand or otherwise unknown to us?

This view is what is know as the "hidden variable theory". And Einstein and many physicists in his time agreed with you. However according to Bell's theorem this is incorrect. According to modern physics things can be truly random.

However as bell said "Long may Louis de Broglie continue to inspire those who suspect that what is proved by impossibility proofs is lack of imagination."

[Alydael]

No, neither can you.

Randomness is a myth. Everything that happens is happening because of a series of steps that precluded it.

That's why you get the same trinket 7 times in a row..........

[unbound]

This is stuff that keeps me up at night.

No*

* - Unless the seed is controlled by something physically random like a radioactive element (the decay is random, therefore the seed is random making the calculation producing the number random).

https://www.random.org/randomness/

[Alydael]

This view is what is know as the "hidden variable theory". And Einstein and many physicists in his time agreed with you. However according to Bell's theorem this is incorrect. According to modern physics things can be truly random.

However as bell said "Long may Louis de Broglie continue to inspire those who suspect that what is proved by impossibility proofs is lack of imagination."

They way I understood bell's theorem (unless I was taught it incorrectly) is that it refutes Einstein's explanation of why things aren't random, but it doesn't actually prove that randomness can actually exist.

There's a big difference.

[Nasukkin]

But but....

I believe someone, and actually many - especially those who program stuff - should know how processors treat randomness. If a person is asked to pick a number between 1 and 10, there is some sort of intuition that plays a part on which number he picks. What is the intuition (aka the equation, or whatever it should be called that is commanding that exact procedure) used for computers to do that decision? Because to me this doesn't sound random at all - and if it isn't random, there is statistical higher probability to end up with some other number over another........aaaaaaaand that should affect everything programmers program with the computers.

Here ya go. http://grepcode.com/file/repository....il/Random.java

This is how Java does it.

[Shaderas]

As I understand:
We lack a quantum theory of gravity (since the naïve approaches fail miserably) and we don't know how to combine it with the electroweak forces and QCD. Quantum fluctuations would through gravity give random dents in spacetime in a way that singularities so bad that it seems the theory collapses.

Oh, and we don't know if part of the theory of gravity is incomplete at larger distances and a better theory would explain dark energy and/or matter.

Apart from that we understand gravity.

Do we have any idea why gravity may cross dimensions (I think that's a theory out there now)?

I believe one of the ideas for dark matter, is that it's the gravitic "shadow" of singularities crossing dimensions?

[Zogarth]

Do we have any idea why gravity may cross dimensions (I think that's a theory out there now)?

I believe one of the ideas for dark matter, is that it's the gravitic "shadow" of singularities crossing dimensions?

What do you mean mean by dimensions?

[Shaderas]

What do you mean mean by dimensions?

Wish I could find the piece I was reading, but I think it's playing on the multiple universe type of theory. I'm sorry I don't have much more about it than that

[Zogarth]

Wish I could find the piece I was reading, but I think it's playing on the multiple universe type of theory. I'm sorry I don't have much more about it than that

That in itself is very VERY much in the hypothesis stage, with nothing even close to a coherent theory made yet.

[Forogil]

The fun with randomness in computing isn't so much that it necessarily is all "fake" random (with current tech). the crux is that actual randomness can behave in ways that make it LESS usefull than fake random numbers.

What? Are you high? - You ask. Not for 10+ years, and the issue is that actual (or let's rather say "natural") randomness permits streaks that are biased, so that if you measure natural random values for a while (radioactive decay or something) and then take the mean and/or average, it could be quite far off the ideal average. But that's something that you usually want to avoid in simulations*, since these also run only for a limited period. (Natural randomness achieves the ideal eventually, at latest at infinity.) Therefore you want a certain kind of randomness, that even over a small sample set appears as unbiased as possible (read: uniform distribution, from early on).
Natural randomness doesn't guarantee you this property. Therefore our "fake" random algorithms actually provide a better randomness than nature for most practical purposes.

That is only a matter if you use fake simple pseudo-random-generators whereas the good ones will have streaks almost as bad as true random numbers.

Instead you use variants to reduce the impact of that - e.g. if you want to test a change using simulation you keep the random number sequence constant while varying the rest - and if you want to see what happens for very rare events you use some variant of importance sampling where the rare things happen more often.

[Annu]

Despite all these postings, computer can indeed have true random generators.

All you need is an ADC that samples the thermal noise of something. Take the offset away and you have white noise.

I would expect that Blizz servers have such a feature. For normal computers it is simply not worth the effort, normal users can live with pseudo random numbers.

[Meiffert]

A deterministic computer can only produce pseudo-random sequences. They have good statistical properties, but are not truly random.
To do that, you need an outside source of random data, which can be be used.

What if I told you that randomness is a myth and all events are governed by strict cause and effect, though in some cases the pattern of causation is too complex for us to understand or otherwise unknown to us?

Then you would likely be wrong.

It's only random because you are unable to see through the complicated pattern. We are probably just not built to comprehend it, just like we're not built to comprehend many other things in this universe.

It's open for debate if true randomness really exists at all. Perhaps in quantum processes, but likely those processes are just governed by things we do not understand yet and the apparant randomness is just due to our lack of knowledge, the same way a computer can make seemingly random numbers.

This idea (true randomness doesn't exist; there is a deterministic cause hidden "behind" that we just don't understand yet) makes a lot of sense.
Einstein was a big advocate of this line of reasoning, famously stating that "God doesn't play dice with the universe" and coming up with some thought experiments to support his argument.

Unfortunately, he was later proven wrong.

I am certainly no expert at quantum physics (took a couple classes about quantum computing at the university, but it wasn't the main focus of my studies), but I'm pretty sure that we have managed to prove that at least locally determinism just doesn't exist.

[Barael]

Does someone know what exactly goes on in a computer (and the processor more specifically) when you tell the computer to do something simple eg. print out a random number between 1 and 10.

What does it do​?

In most cases, this:

// Create a length n array to store the state of the generator
 int[0..n-1] MT
 int index := n+1
 const int lower_mask = (1 << r) - 1 // That is, the binary number of r 1's
 const int upper_mask = lowest w bits of (not lower_mask)
 
 // Initialize the generator from a seed
 function seed_mt(int seed) {
     index := n
     MT[0] := seed
     for i from 1 to (n - 1) { // loop over each element
         MT[i] := lowest w bits of (f * (MT[i-1] xor (MT[i-1] >> (w-2))) + i)
     }
 }
 
 // Extract a tempered value based on MT[index]
 // calling twist() every n numbers
 function extract_number() {
     if index >= n {
         if index > n {
           error "Generator was never seeded"
           // Alternatively, seed with constant value; 5489 is used in reference C code[49]
         }
         twist()
     }
 
     int y := MT[index]
     y := y xor ((y >> u) and d)
     y := y xor ((y << s) and b)
     y := y xor ((y << t) and c)
     y := y xor (y >> l)
 
     index := index + 1
     return lowest w bits of (y)
 }
 
 // Generate the next n values from the series x_i 
 function twist() {
     for i from 0 to (n-1) {
         int x := (MT[i] and upper_mask)
                   + (MT[(i+1) mod n] and lower_mask)
         int xA := x >> 1
         if (x mod 2) != 0 { // lowest bit of x is 1
             xA := xA xor a
         }
         MT[i] := MT[(i + m) mod n] xor xA
     }
     index := 0
 }

That's Mersenne Twister, by far the most common pseudo random number algorithm in use today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_Twister