Re: [asa] Random and design

Quoting David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>:

..
> Maybe another way to frame this is as an epistemic issue: is something
> "random" merely because it *appears* random to us? Do we allow that there
> might be causes that are beyond our capability to perceive that, if known,
> would demonstrate seemingly random events to in fact be caused? Or, stated
> theologically, isn't the operation of providence often a mystery to us?
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "if a random systems shows no evidence of
> being guided naturally." I understand, in a very basic way, the notion of
> quantum indeterminacy. I guess I would distinguish between "guided" and
> "determined." At the quantum level, things aren't "determined," but they
> are "guided" by deep fundamental laws. A wide variety of things can happen
> at the quantum level, but not just *anything* can happen.
>
..

I share in the skepticism (if I understand your comments correctly) regarding
the term "randomness" and the casual way in which we throw it around in science
and math as if it had no philosophical implication. The quotation marks ought
to be a permanent part of that word IMO. Despite the limitations on our
predictive knowledge imposed by quantum indeterminancy and the error
amplification from chaos theory, every event is still assumed to have natural
causal links according to scientific thought & investigation (M.N). So
"randomness" then is no more than our perspective from ignorance. Just as we
easily recognize the pseudorandom status of the determined output from a random
number generator, so also the status of natural events as "random" begins to
unravel as our knowledge of the causal effects increases -- or so goes the
scientific credo. For the scientifically minded to depart from this item of
faith would be truly bizarre, would it not? And if there is no such thing as
true randomness, how could anything ever be distinguished as unguided? (or
guided?) The whole question becomes a meaningless semantic except as an
article of faith.

--merv
 

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Received on Thu Nov 16 16:19:15 2006