Glenn replied (I clip parts of his reply for brevity):
"Why? It is the rules that hold chance in control. Chance operates in part
of
the algorithm but the rules of motion don't change. Download the program
and run it over and over--see if you can ever get even a slight variation
to the gasket."
I have no doubt that is true. But that is hardly my point. Let me try this.
Let me design a new random number generator which REALLY generates random
numbers, and feed those numers as input to your program. Let me run that
program for an infinite length of time. I guarantee that there will be an
infinite number of times the gasket won't appear -- unless you call an
absolutely straight line a gasket.
You write: "The game of bridge is not in anyway analogous to the system I
am describing."
In no way? Come on. It is analgous to the extent both depend on random
data, inthe case of bridge, random shuffles.
You write: "While the choice of which rule of motion to follow is random,
the outcome
isn't. A refresher for the program movement: ... "
I clipped the refresher. I understand that -- you've posted it several
times.
You also observe that "Take the lowest significant digit on the clock
register can get you pretty
close to being random."
My recollection from days of the IBM 704 in the late 1950s is that that
method was tried but found wanting. Or at least inferior to other methods.
I used it in 1960 as a method to get a starting point for a mathematical
generator when I programmed what I believe to be the first baseball
simulator on the IBM 1620.
In your reply to Dave, you wrote:
"It can be due to personal choice. Lets replace the dot with an intelligent
agent. The dot has a choice, do the moral thing and move halfway to dot 1,
do the sinful thing and move halfway to dot 2 or do a neutral thing an
move
halfway to dot 3. As with all of us in life, we do some moral things, some
bad things and some that really don't make a difference (like belching in
public). This intelligent agent will now produce a Sierpinski's gasket as
surely as the sun will rise tomorrow. So these systems actually illustrate
that God could self-limit his knowledge of which choice we will make, but
our life will still provide the pattern required to fit into his global
scheme."
I understand your analogy. Gosh -- I keep saying that -- you keep going
over the obvious. It must be because of my imprecise writing.
You say "So these systems actually illustrate
that God could self-limit his knowledge of which choice we will make, but
our life will still provide the pattern required to fit into his global
scheme."
And I say, not so. Look. I'm the dot. Constrained, as you say. I choose
"sin"
as my choice in every case. The gasket does not appear. Was my choice of
"sin" necessary to provide God's pattern for his global scheme? If so, I am
not responsible, and should not be
judged. But this is an inconsistency!
Finally, you send a third post in which you say:
"If this is what you mean by the gasket not appearing, then I would say
that
the odds are so small as to be non-existent."
Small odds are not zero odds, my friend.
"If your random number
generator always gave out a 1 rather than a mixture of 1, 2, and 3, then I
would suggest that you don't have a random number generator. Say you are on
a statistical fluke of 1's. Would you believe in a statistical fluke of
20,000 ones being generated to the exclusion of 2 and 3? It takes about
20,000 iterations of the program before the pattern is discernable. I would
say that if you generated 20,000 1's, then you don't have a random number
generator--you programmed it wrong."
I'd agree. But not if I were examining an infinite string of numbers, in
which 20,000 1s
will appear together an infinite number of times.
"But that being said, even if you did generate 1's all the time with your
random number generator, then the particle is still constrained to move
only
to certain places in the X-Y plane. To some areas it simply can't go"
I agree, of course. If I deliberately choose "sin" upon every choice, I
still cannot walk to the moon unaided, or hit a baseball as far as Mark
McGwire, or change myself into a purple elephant.
I think we may have taken this as far as we can. You are wedded to your
gasket case as a good anology; I just don't see it as such particularly.
That's OK, maybe others do. You hold to practicalities -- the chance of a
non-gasket is so improbable that you declare it to be zero -- I tend to
think about very rare cases and I would "never say never." It is even
possible that I will win the lottery this year! I never buy a ticket -- but
perhaps someone will buy one for me!
< G >. I figure the odds of the someone buying one for me are probably
better than the odds of that ticket winning!
Burgy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Apr 06 2000 - 22:43:19 EDT