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To: jennyp
It may be true that all random sequences are really psuedorandom in some sense, in that if you know the algorithm used to generate it + the seed value then you can recreate the sequence. But in the real world, contingent occurrences are, um, contingent on a vast number of starting variables & non-linear interacting "algorithms".

What you are saying is essentially that frumious is correct. What you are also saying, and this totally false is that it is legitimate to call an event 'random' when one cannot explain it. This is a clear misuse of language. Ignorance does not imply randomness. In other words you are making the argument of ignorance, a false argument. If an experiment can repeatedly show something to have happened, then that event which the experiment has shown to occur repeatedly is not a random event.

1,081 posted on 06/18/2002 6:07:04 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: gore3000
If an experiment can repeatedly show something to have happened, then that event which the experiment has shown to occur repeatedly is not a random event.

Right, but things like mutations & other contingent events are random events.

Look, Frumious' claim that there are no real random numbers is basically the same as someone saying it's a determined universe because every particle's position & velocity can be predicted from its position & velocity the moment before. It's a useless, moot point. It's another variation of the cobbler's elves theory of ID: It only looks random, but there's really a supernatural being meticulously flipping the bits in selected spots of selected genes of selected organisms at selected times. It's utterly impossible to falsify.

1,123 posted on 06/18/2002 7:50:16 PM PDT by jennyp
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