Randomness

An Inconceivable Placeholder

Randomness is a concept that seems to get tossed around quite a bit - both in scientific communities and social environments alike. But, can anything truly be random? 

When we say something is random, what are we saying about that thing? Oftentimes what we mean is that there is no apparent cause for that particular event. Things tend to get thought of as either casual or random. If I take a normal air-filled ball and bounce it straight down on the ground, it will bounce back up to me. The cause for the ball bouncing back to me is that I bounced the ball down to begin with, and I could repeat such an act in a similar and relatively predictable manner over and over again. 

But what if the ball was oddly shaped? It might still bounce, but its direction of bounce might be said to be random. But, it’s not really random. It will still bounce in accordance with all laws of motion and gravity, etc. It’s just that, from our limited human perspective, we cannot predict the odd-shaped ball’s behavior. But, it’s not random; it’s just less predictable. And again, what we define as predictable is only relative to the observer. It may seem like a silly thing to ask, but is the way the odd-shaped ball bounces unpredictable to the ball itself?

If predictability is a matter of perspective, then can anything be said to be objectively random? Could you ever make a random decision? In trying to do so, you’d be doing so for a reason. The reason for randomness is a reason and it therefore negates any "actual" randomness. Perhaps you could imagine having a “knee-jerk” innate reaction to something as random, like when your body jolts when you hear a balloon pop unexpectedly. Maybe if you do something without consciously telling yourself to do that thing, that could be considered a random act. 

But it’s far from it. Something we would describe as “innate” or instinctual is arguably less random than any other types of action, as these actions are performed for the singular purpose of keeping you alive. The cause of your jolt is very well known. Simply perceiving the act of the jolt as somehow outside of yourself does not make it so, nor does it make it random. 

Further, which of the components of the balloon example is random: the balloon itself popping or the jolt it creates within you? The balloon (along with whatever was involved in its popping), similar to the odd-shaped ball, has its own reasons for popping, though not known to you until moments after you hear the pop. Similarly, your body jolting happens for reasons not immediately known. You soon learn, however, that the jolt is linked to a sudden sound and the sound is linked to the popping of a balloon. Two seemingly random events each have perfectly good explanations. Being sudden, unexpected or reactionary does not equal randomness.

Randomness is also thought of as a lack of a pattern. A pattern repeats itself. 1234, 1234, 1234... is a pattern. It is a repeating pattern that - as those three dots indicate - goes on forever. But, of course, there are patterns that may not be easily or immediately perceived. For example, consider the following pattern:

2 17 7 3 18 8 4 19 9…

In case you don’t see the pattern, here it is another way, for clarity’s sake:

(2 17 7) (3 18 8) (4 19 9)...

But, let’s consider the original list again:

2 17 7 3 18 8 4 19 9…

And what if we were only privy to part of it, say

2 17 7?

Or

2 17 7 3?

Or even

2 17 7 3 18?

None of these samples necessarily reveal the pattern. If we were confronted with such samples, we might mistakenly label them as random, though they would really just be incomplete. They’d represent an incomplete pattern. A pattern can appear random within a limited perspective. 

The question then becomes if the system in question is random or just incomplete. Unfortunately, if it’s incomplete, we don’t necessarily know it. A pattern has the advantage of being assumed or proved to be infinite. Randomness, in theory, could, at some future point, turn into a pattern. In the example above, we were only one digit away from realizing the pattern, but we can easily imagine being many digits away. A million, or a million billion trillion trillion trillion. This seems absurd, but so is the concept of numbers if they go on forever in the first place. If the only way we can make sense of numbers is to assume they end, the sense we’ve made of them may not always make sense. If given forever, randomness could change.

But the point is that, before we can truly assess a system as random, we must assume to know the entirety of that system. So, before anything should be classified as random, we must ask ourselves: are we truly accounting for the entirety of the system, or are we merely assuming that the parts of the system that we aren’t currently privy to simply aren’t as important?  

Still, there does seem to be a math of randomness. On a simplistic scale, the concept of irrational numbers seems to lead to randomness. Pi, of course, is the most famous irrational number. It represents the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its radius: 3.1415926535… it goes on forever, with no repeating pattern. That’s what an irrational number is. But does this mean pi, or the concept of any irrational number qualify as random? After all, it is, in a way, predictable. We can and, indeed, do calculate “every” digit of pi and people have set records for memorizing thousands of them. 

So, even though irrational numbers represent an infinite non repeating system, they are still mathematically predictable systems. The thing is, if a system stems from a mathematical formalism of sorts, whatever pattern is produced must always have a level of predictability to it. Any mathematical system’s outcome stems from the mathematical structure itself. If an answer is solvable on any level, it cannot be truly random.

And this is what we see when we've tried to mathematically produce randomness. You've likely heard of random number generators. What you may not know is that they've been shown not to be truly random, as, since the randomness ultimately stems from a mathematical algorithm, there's always a certain level of predictability and this has indeed shown to produce mathematically discernable patterns within these so-called random generators. 

This isn't to say that random number generators are as predictable as a ball bouncing, and the lack of “total randomness” does not mean that it's not "random enough" for most imaginable purposes. But when delving deep into what true randomness is, random number generators technically don't qualify. 

It's also important to understand that, when we confront what appear to be random systems in nature, this doesn't mean we can't mathematically model this behavior. No matter how much we don't know about a given system, there is always something we do know. There's seemingly always a certain level of predictability within any randomness. There's always a pattern to the randomness. Indeed, if language is any indicator, we often refer to randomness as a random pattern. Discussing something’s level of randomness immediately implies what we will learn of its pattern. Perhaps everything has a pattern and some patterns are simply more random than others.

Scientifically, we see the idea of randomness applied to the behavior of subatomic particles and or within the so-called quantum fields these particles possess. We also hear the word random with regard to evolution, as living organisms are said to evolve through random genetic mutations. That is, things like plants and animals are said to change randomly, and if this change is beneficial, its survival is more likely. So, that random mutation would then become the norm until other random mutations take over.

Similarly, the Big Bang is said to have been caused by this concept of random quantum fluctuations. It almost sounds absurd to the layperson, and certainly language is often a formidable barrier, but one would think that the so-called cause of the currently known universe might entail something other than a certain collection of random acts. One might be inclined to say the same thing about randomness being applied to the theory of evolution.

But when we consider how science has arrived at these seemingly strange conclusions, it becomes clear that the premise predicted the result. Science assumes no telos. For, if all science must be mathematically proven, who is working on the formula for purpose? In other words, if anyone is holding their breath and waiting for science to tell them their purpose in this world, or thinks that science already has proven what this life’s purpose is or even that this life is indeed without purpose, these folks should remember that current modern Western science, aside from philosophy, makes no attempt to answer such questions, nor stakes any claim of providing such answers. 

Often, when science asks and answers why, it's a question of cause. Like, why does a ball come down when we throw it up? The cause is gravity. Then we can tackle what gravity is. Turns out, gravity is the warping of spacetime. We understand this from Einstein. This provides a truly deeper level of understanding, but is still incomplete. At some point, we realize that we are answering “why” questions with “how” answers. This is because there is no conceptual answer for what we are asking. But if we trace this causal line of “why” questioning as far as it'll take us, the final answer, for now, according to science is "random quantum fluctuations." That's when it becomes evident that science has really been asking "how" this entire time. It’s akin to the mother answering the final “why” question from a child by saying “because that’s just the way things are.” Random fluctuations is science’s version of this. 

Through no fault of science, scientists are not allowed to ask the teleological questions. Assuming the primacy of the physical world requires as much. But to then think that the results of verified experiments of mathematical models under such pretenses actually tells us that there is no reason for existence is to forget that such an answer was always going to be reflective of how the questions were being asked in the first place. To be clear, there is no issue with science's method of inquiry being taken here. But many people seem to be mistaking scientific truth for Absolute Truth. Of course, people are allowed to do so, but make no mistake: this is just a different version of a leap of faith. 

Science will explain brain wave activity for certain behaviors, the growth of algae in the rainforest, and will continue to provide new technologies. Science has and will progress. We learn from science and the knowledge and technology growth are potentially exponential. Science gives us a tremendous amount of precision and comfort in our everyday lives. Ultimately, science can be said to be a system that provides a certain amount of predictability of certain events within certain parameters.

However, while it’s important to recognize science as the tremendous asset that it is, we also must remember what it is not. It is not attempting to make conclusions about whether or not your life has meaning. In fact, science assumes, from the beginning, that there is no meaning to anything. It must! This is what people need to understand. This is not a flaw of science; it is just a fact of what science is. 

As Hawking wrote in his Brief History of Time, “Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”

While science may have flaws, as all human systems will, this isn’t a preventable one. If science assumes a certain meaning or purpose, the race is already rigged. With little thought, it becomes obvious that not assuming humans or existence or consciousness or anything of the sort were any more important than anything else is the best thing science can do - and does! 

Of course, Science is and will continue to be produced by humans and ultimately more science will be Human-related than anything else, as anything studied by a human is, by its very definition, related to humans. But, assuming that humans are special just isn’t scientific, nor should it be. Ironically, however, since science can only ever be considered a quest for certain knowledge from a human perspective, while scientists often purport their findings as objective, they will always be human, both in input, analysis, and output. If humans aren’t important, or should only be considered a complex result from randomness, then how meaningful is science? Whichever way you try to describe it, either both humans and science have meaning, or neither do, unless one wishes to believe that science is indeed an altogether separate entity from humankind.

But the point is that, by assuming humans hold no special place in the physical universe (key word being physical), if one of the conclusions science comes to in terms of classifying something as random is also at seemingly important thresholds of what we would call our physical history, it’s only arriving at an inevitable conclusion, short of discovering "magic." The better way to think of this is to realize that if science had discovered magic, it would not classify it as such because then it would fall outside of the realm of what science is - or at least what it is supposed to be.

In other words, if science is looking for “God,” no such thing will ever be found because by the very parameters by which science operates, no such miracles may occur, as miracles and “gods,” and, to some degree, even things like consciousness are virtually unexplainable, unprovable (or considered unfalsifiable) and therefore, by definition, unscientific.

If there’s no current explanation for something, the scientific assumption is that there is indeed an explanation, and science will discover it one day. But the most important thing we need to realize is that science assumes the answer will indeed be scientific - it must! This is where we need to make an important distinction between what science is actually explaining. One thing that most people tend to get confused about when it comes to scientific conclusions - including many scientists - is the type of questions Science is supposed to or purported to be answering when drawing these certain conclusions. Again, it is important to distinguish between “how” and “why.”

It is the goal of the physical scientist to explain how things work. It’s that simple. They aren’t in the business of asking or answering teleologically why anything is the way it is, but rather only asking and attempting to answer how things are. A physicist can explain beautifully how the concept of gravity “works,” but they can’t quite tell you just what gravity is. They might call it a force, but what’s the difference between a force and magic? 

So, what is science to say when it tries to answer the questions of how things came to be? When we trace things "all the way back" to a concept known as the Big Bang, it all still can only be described scientifically as random. And what does Science say about the most pivotal moments of biological evolution? The changes that literally led to all life as we know it can only be scientifically described as genetic mutations of the random sort.

This is because this was always going to be the case. Science only asks the questions that science can answer scientifically, and so when science answers a question of how something happened or happens by way of randomness, it must be viewed in some ways as where the scientific descriptions end. Randomness is the point where the how questions stop working and the why questions need to start being asked. 

If there is such a thing as true randomness, it's almost not worth discussing because at that point, there'd be truly nothing to discuss. True randomness has no system within which to operate. As such, nothing can be known of it. If we know anything about the system - and we must know something of the system to call it a system in the first place - the system is not random. True randomness can never be known. It is unknowable, and therefore ultimately inconceivable.  

It seems that many people often get wrapped up in thinking that science has provided us with certain teleological answers. But the answers science has given us are only to those questions that science is allowed to ask. We need to remember that, since science isn't asking why we exist, allowing science to answer that question for us is to pretend the answer could be anything other than a tautology of its anti-telos axiom.

But make no mistake: Science is, in some ways, “hoping” for a pattern to emerge from the so-called randomness. In theory, the more order, the more predictability, the more easily things get scientifically explained. The idea of a single unifying so-called theory of everything still persists, yet few seem to have asked themselves what this would even mean.

This isn’t to say that the concept of randomness should be disregarded. But we need to think of randomness as the opposite of causality, and the lack of a pattern - it is not a measurement for lack of meaning or purpose. Rather, it is a marker of a limited human perspective. We can see beyond randomness, but not with the math (or science) that got us there in the first place. 

Why does gravity exist? Science would answer this by explaining theories of spacetime that have been verified time and time again. And if we keep asking why, science can explain things to some degree all the way back to the big bang. In this way, science seems to be answering why questions. They’ll explain it, to some degree, cause by cause, until the moment of the big bang. But the big bang doesn’t satisfactorily answer the question of why we exist. It’s an - at best - explanation of how we exist. The big bang is where science stops being causal. It’s important to understand that this does not mean that we are not causal, nor does it mean that gravity is random. Randomness is just how science solves the first-cause problem of determinism.

The idea of randomness is a fun one, but is ultimately inconceivable in its truest form. Similar to determinism's first-cause problem, randomness is also incomplete. Randomness, as we actually experience it, is more like a slight deviation from determinism. There’s a reason for things, we just don’t always understand them. We all know what we mean when we say random - it’s just that true randomness is too random to discuss, and randomness given as an ultimate explanation for anything is as incomplete as our understanding of randomness to begin with.