Sorry I forget to respond to this way back;
For game programming, pseudo randomness with seeded algorithm is unpredictable enough.
If security matters, you can buy stronger randomness. Random.org takes it from atmospheric noise (weather measurements) and even better would be atomic decay, that's as random as you can get.
It appears that if we have answers, have knowledge and can predict or understand outcomes, we don't call it random. If we lack knowledge or understanding or simply remove ourselves from understanding the whole picture; the result is we don't know how the outcome was arrived at, thus we call this outcome random or chance.
Who is "we"? Many say that atomic decay is random. Some say that Downward Reduction is random, but I claim that learning some principles gives a huge edge on Downward Reduction.
-- Simon
"we" is everyone https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chance?s=t
for our purposes (our very limited lives) pseudo-randomness is of course good enough. I argue in light of the truth (the truth I'm arrogantly asserting) there is only pseudo-randomness or 'fate'. Fate in this sense; by my definition is just an act that is normal and we understand why it happened, and how and everything about it (at least that matters for the game we're playing).
Downward Reduction is not random. First there is skill then different strategies which cause unexpected behavior; but then highly unexpected things may happen due to lag, which is another form of "chance"; that is we cannot predict it accurately at present, but in theory we could.
So in a summary; it can be thought of as pseudo-random. :P
I don't really like discussing this issue at length as it really seems like some people either 'get it' or they don't. There's no in between or arguing that seems very useful. There's a truth that I became aware of at some point in my life; and since then I cannot unlearn it. It's not an opinion or a belief. It's a deeply embedded truth. But what is truth? I don't know :D
Anyway just for the record;
I believe that chance, purpose, free will, choice, control, progress, and more are all concepts that exist only in our minds. They serve a purpose and are 'real' in the sense that they exist in our society. But our society itself is only a thing of the mind. The deeper question that really gets to the point and to interesting territory is;
What is the mind?
The road to answer that question is, I assure you, far stranger than you can imagine. I'll make a blog post on this eventually. ;)
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On time, part 3.
https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2910.msg63579#msg63579
Since reading a lot about various things have enlightened me a bit on this topic; I'd like to return to it. If you're really interested I highly recommend the book "Time Machines" by Paul Nahin.
I haven't changed my opinion on my # 1 or 3 explanations. But in my #2 explanation; I now believe this explanation is not so silly or impossible.
The main problem/confusion is the difference between affecting the past and altering it. You can conceivably travel backward in time and affect things (maybe you build one of the great pyramids), but you didn't change anything. You build the pyramid; you always did, there always was a pyramid. There are no 'multiple timelines' here.* There is just one timeline, with you going back to the past and affecting it. So nothing is 'changing'. Everything is as everyone would've remembered.
For our purposes in real life; this means that either nobody's ever time traveled in history; or we aren't able to tell that it's happened.
(possible explination for building of the pyramids and other impressive ancient structures?) If you want to read more on that; I recomend looking into things like the Roman Temple of Jupiter or the 'stone of the pregnant woman'.
An excellent example is the movie 12 Monkeys.
A man (Bruce Willis) has a dream about his childhood and seeing a man in a airport. He is sent into the past to attempt to stop a deadly virus from spreading and wiping out mankind. This is of course what happens in his history and he's attempting to 'change' the past. He fails, ultimately and in the end accidentally helps the bad guy escape and kill most of humanity. It turns out that he himself (that is; his older self) is the man he saw in an airport as a child.
History played out exactly as he remembered; nothing changed. But he did affect his own past.
*I feel like the invocation of multiple time lines brings in the multiple universe theory again. Which as I stated in my ealier post; I find nothing wrong with; just that it doesn't really explain the difficulties with time travel itself.]
This all also suggests (perhaps demands) a different view of time. Somewhere I think I said that it feels like we don't have the brain capacity to really understand this; or require a new way of thinking in order to. I may have recently gained a very different view point, just the type which can explain this. But it is not easy to articulate into words.
Part 4; with thoughts and questions on the nature of time and consciousness itself coming soon.