Random numbers - a non mathematical point of view.
Created | Updated Dec 6, 2008
Random numbers
To some of us as we get older, it seems that events tend to follow a pattern.
If we are in touch, those patterns – seemingly random – take on a sequence, which has meaning in its entirety.
Those of us with spiritual beliefs call this fate.
Some years ago a mathematics professor in one of the major universities liked to test his new intake by asking them to write down random numbers. His delight was in proving that none of them, though highly intelligent, understood the true meaning of random numbers as none wrote any sequences, doubles, trebles, even quadruples.
For our lives to be manageable we have to have structure – rituals, even rules. These are so we can understand what is happening. Have a structure we can function comfortably in.
These structures are invariably associated with numbers – get up at x hours, eat breakfast, work, dinner, and so forth.
This is how we try to understand nature. By giving it rules just like our lives.
Physics is often a matter of mathematics – a lever has a fulcrum just so, it can move an object weighing just so – this is easily related to rules we can apply, numbers we can understand.
If those numbers don’t follow sequences we can relate to we still try to apply them. It is the same with words.
Our communication is mostly done by words – ideas like mathematics represented by symbols we can understand. If our definitions are very obtuse we use words which approximate the understanding we need, and we need those understandings because without them the world is a place full of chaos and danger.
So how can it be that even though I was given a very lengthy discourse on gravity in school I have never heard a satisfactory explanation.
How can it be that words use to explain so much only approximate the meanings required, are the next best things we have. We have to use intuition to grasp the full meaning of what is being said, and this may have very little to do with the words being used.
Could it be that none of us understand the true meaning of random numbers, or want to?
Our very fate, our very lives are tied in by random numbers because this is what nature uses to communicate and live with. These are the rules by which everything is governed, and these are the rules which we have to understand if we are to be successful.
It is not a question of grasping meaning of what is being said or done because this just follows the rules we have created ourselves, to understand it properly we have to follow nature itself.
This is far more difficult and easy than anyone can comprehend, because in trying to comprehend you are again loosing sight of random numbers.
To fully understand you have to be in touch with your nature, to understand what you are and what your place is, to understand what you are capable of. To begin it is essential to accept that the only difference that nature has bestowed on us from any other creature in creation is the extent of our intellect.
This intellect is again governed by a set of artificial rules which most of us adhere to. To be fully free it is necessary to understand what those rules are and what they do so that they can be disregarded.
It is not necessary to cast away the rules which govern us in reality, but in spirit, because what we are seeking is understanding, not a life change.
One of the rules is that if we can understand nature we can make the most incredible things, perform the most amazing tasks – to believe we can profit in conventional terms, by this is just following the patterns decreed for us, by us.
It is part of nature to struggle; to use every emotive word in the book begins to do it justice, but the biggest struggle is with our own nature.
Looking over history every thing imaginable has already happened,has been done. To say I could never do this or that is denying the truth because throughout history great things have been done by perfectly ordinary people just like you and me, the most wonderful acts, just as the most horrenduous atrocities and barbarities.
On acceptance of this, the process has begun.
Nature itself performs those tasks – just look and let it all flood in.
The cruelty of creatures dying in a drought, in a fire, eaten alive by other creatures – for instance the dog whelk eating a barnacle. It takes a long time for the snail to bore through the shell, then it eats the contents slowly. To imagine the barnacle does not feel pain is doing oneself a disservice, as that is surely a lack of imagination.
Oysters are eaten alive – plucked from their natural habitat, then placed in some unpleasant place for them, then torn to pieces and digested.
It is enough to turn one completely vegetarian.
But then we are led to believe that because plants produce certain measurable stimuli, that they can feel as well. So by eating any living creature you are causing pain. This we do not want to do – or do we?
Surely we are putting our own feelings onto actions we perform, this presupposes that we do not want to cause pain or grief because our imagination tells us it is bad.
If we are to eat something we can empathise with it is much harder – it is ok to eat a cow but not a horse.
It is ok to put a live worm on the end of a hook and to use it as bait, but not a live bird.
Is this because we empathise with the bird and not with the worm or is it because we know the worm does not feel and the bird does?
If you know the answer to that then you are beginning to see how much we are affected by what society tells us and that is the beginning of understanding true random numbers.
It is wrong to be unnecessarily cruel to anyone or anything because nature is not.
Nothing nature does is unnecessary –
By using the concept of random numbers as a means of understanding nature and ourselves we are extending what mankind has done over the millennia –
Every grouping of mankind has formed some sort of religion or set of beliefs. Usualy it is a response to questions which are too difficult to explain adequately.
In most societys this has been used as a means of control – a set of rules have been laid down which govern behaviour – based on unalterable truths; the layers laid down later usually lean towards the benefit of one group or another.
In one society in particular the religious aspect was very much in touch with the concept of “random numbers,” or nature, and that is the native American culture.
When Roosvelt started the Yellowstone park, initially most of the larger predators were removed as it was felt that deer were desirable. This led to disease and a imbalance of vegetation necessary for the animals survival.
The deer were culled which led to the discovery that a particular plant necessary for the deers well being had been wiped out. Thus it was necessary to reintroduce the plant. It was then found that this particular plant did not propagate in the way in which it was found throughout north America.
Research indicated that for thousands of years this plant had been nurtured for the very same reason it was now necessary to reintroduce it in the park. It was also found that it was necessary to reintroduce predators.
This meant that the “poor” native American was in fact very much in control, and understood nature in ways far in advance of those proposed by science.
Could it be that he was also in touch with random numbers?
We cannot in fact predict random numbers, because if we could they would not be random, but we can understand them.
We are given by modern technology every kind of assistance in understanding our world, how we are, and what our predecessors have done – the only mistake we are making is trying to make sense out of this by our intellect.
Our intellect tells us that cows eat grass, however if you watch a cow particurlarily when it is not feeling well it eats all kinds of strange plants, more often than not the right kind and thus it self medicates. How can an animal which cannot read know which plant is right?
This kind of behaviour is evident throughout nature, so why cannot we do the same – the answer is we can – to the beginning again – understanding random numbers – if we use our intellect we often fail, but if we use nature we are nearly always right.
So how does one use nature?
We all have the keys.
To some of us as we get older, it seems that events tend to follow a pattern.
If we are in touch, those patterns – seemingly random – take on a sequence, which has meaning in its entirety.
Those of us with spiritual beliefs call this fate.
Some years ago a mathematics professor in one of the major universities liked to test his new intake by asking them to write down random numbers. His delight was in proving that none of them, though highly intelligent, understood the true meaning of random numbers as none wrote any sequences, doubles, trebles, even quadruples.
For our lives to be manageable we have to have structure – rituals, even rules. These are so we can understand what is happening. Have a structure we can function comfortably in.
These structures are invariably associated with numbers – get up at x hours, eat breakfast, work, dinner, and so forth.
This is how we try to understand nature. By giving it rules just like our lives.
Physics is often a matter of mathematics – a lever has a fulcrum just so, it can move an object weighing just so – this is easily related to rules we can apply, numbers we can understand.
If those numbers don’t follow sequences we can relate to we still try to apply them. It is the same with words.
Our communication is mostly done by words – ideas like mathematics represented by symbols we can understand. If our definitions are very obtuse we use words which approximate the understanding we need, and we need those understandings because without them the world is a place full of chaos and danger.
So how can it be that even though I was given a very lengthy discourse on gravity in school I have never heard a satisfactory explanation.
How can it be that words use to explain so much only approximate the meanings required, are the next best things we have. We have to use intuition to grasp the full meaning of what is being said, and this may have very little to do with the words being used.
Could it be that none of us understand the true meaning of random numbers, or want to?
Our very fate, our very lives are tied in by random numbers because this is what nature uses to communicate and live with. These are the rules by which everything is governed, and these are the rules which we have to understand if we are to be successful.
It is not a question of grasping meaning of what is being said or done because this just follows the rules we have created ourselves, to understand it properly we have to follow nature itself.
This is far more difficult and easy than anyone can comprehend, because in trying to comprehend you are again loosing sight of random numbers.
To fully understand you have to be in touch with your nature, to understand what you are and what your place is, to understand what you are capable of. To begin it is essential to accept that the only difference that nature has bestowed on us from any other creature in creation is the extent of our intellect.
This intellect is again governed by a set of artificial rules which most of us adhere to. To be fully free it is necessary to understand what those rules are and what they do so that they can be disregarded.
It is not necessary to cast away the rules which govern us in reality, but in spirit, because what we are seeking is understanding, not a life change.
One of the rules is that if we can understand nature we can make the most incredible things, perform the most amazing tasks – to believe we can profit in conventional terms, by this is just following the patterns decreed for us, by us.
It is part of nature to struggle; to use every emotive word in the book begins to do it justice, but the biggest struggle is with our own nature.
Looking over history every thing imaginable has already happened,has been done. To say I could never do this or that is denying the truth because throughout history great things have been done by perfectly ordinary people just like you and me, the most wonderful acts, just as the most horrenduous atrocities and barbarities.
On acceptance of this, the process has begun.
Nature itself performs those tasks – just look and let it all flood in.
The cruelty of creatures dying in a drought, in a fire, eaten alive by other creatures – for instance the dog whelk eating a barnacle. It takes a long time for the snail to bore through the shell, then it eats the contents slowly. To imagine the barnacle does not feel pain is doing oneself a disservice, as that is surely a lack of imagination.
Oysters are eaten alive – plucked from their natural habitat, then placed in some unpleasant place for them, then torn to pieces and digested.
It is enough to turn one completely vegetarian.
But then we are led to believe that because plants produce certain measurable stimuli, that they can feel as well. So by eating any living creature you are causing pain. This we do not want to do – or do we?
Surely we are putting our own feelings onto actions we perform, this presupposes that we do not want to cause pain or grief because our imagination tells us it is bad.
If we are to eat something we can empathise with it is much harder – it is ok to eat a cow but not a horse.
It is ok to put a live worm on the end of a hook and to use it as bait, but not a live bird.
Is this because we empathise with the bird and not with the worm or is it because we know the worm does not feel and the bird does?
If you know the answer to that then you are beginning to see how much we are affected by what society tells us and that is the beginning of understanding true random numbers.
It is wrong to be unnecessarily cruel to anyone or anything because nature is not.
Nothing nature does is unnecessary –
By using the concept of random numbers as a means of understanding nature and ourselves we are extending what mankind has done over the millennia –
Every grouping of mankind has formed some sort of religion or set of beliefs. Usualy it is a response to questions which are too difficult to explain adequately.
In most societys this has been used as a means of control – a set of rules have been laid down which govern behaviour – based on unalterable truths; the layers laid down later usually lean towards the benefit of one group or another.
In one society in particular the religious aspect was very much in touch with the concept of “random numbers,” or nature, and that is the native American culture.
When Roosvelt started the Yellowstone park, initially most of the larger predators were removed as it was felt that deer were desirable. This led to disease and a imbalance of vegetation necessary for the animals survival.
The deer were culled which led to the discovery that a particular plant necessary for the deers well being had been wiped out. Thus it was necessary to reintroduce the plant. It was then found that this particular plant did not propagate in the way in which it was found throughout north America.
Research indicated that for thousands of years this plant had been nurtured for the very same reason it was now necessary to reintroduce it in the park. It was also found that it was necessary to reintroduce predators.
This meant that the “poor” native American was in fact very much in control, and understood nature in ways far in advance of those proposed by science.
Could it be that he was also in touch with random numbers?
We cannot in fact predict random numbers, because if we could they would not be random, but we can understand them.
We are given by modern technology every kind of assistance in understanding our world, how we are, and what our predecessors have done – the only mistake we are making is trying to make sense out of this by our intellect.
Our intellect tells us that cows eat grass, however if you watch a cow particurlarily when it is not feeling well it eats all kinds of strange plants, more often than not the right kind and thus it self medicates. How can an animal which cannot read know which plant is right?
This kind of behaviour is evident throughout nature, so why cannot we do the same – the answer is we can – to the beginning again – understanding random numbers – if we use our intellect we often fail, but if we use nature we are nearly always right.
So how does one use nature?
We all have the keys.
