Can Humans Generate “True” Randomness?

Ernesto, Ellis, Guillermo & Rosa

Random :  Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

So what’s the big deal with true randomness?

Computer’s can’t generate randomness, they use things like atmospheric noise to generate random numbers.

This is called Pseudo-Random generators, becuase if you have enough information and a powerful enough computer, you could predict the values.

Chaos TheoryChaos Theory, AKA “The Butterfly Effect” explains that, a small event happening thousands of years ago, could lead to devastating events in the future, for example, killing a butterfly in China could make a storm here right now.

This gives the storm the appearance to be random, when in reality it’s not.

Can Humans Generate “Truly” Random

Numbers?

This question is of vital importance, it is one of the few ways to find real differences between the human brain and a computer.

It also answers the “Free Will ” enigma. This is, if we are truly free to make decisions or if we are just subject to foreign situmulus to take a certain decision.

Until now , Physicists believed that, eventhough no law of Physics prevents ir from happening, true randomness is not possible

But now, due to a Phenomenon called “Quantum Noise” and other Quantum events, this belief is being challenged.

The set up: A photon is fired at a down-converter, which converts it into two entangled photons. These photons then go through polarizers that are set at two different angles. Finally, photo-detectors measure whether a photon passes through their polarizer or not.

For reasons of mathematical complexity, the result of this experiment is impossible to predict, therefore true randomness may exist , somehow , in our universe.

As an aside, it turns out that the absolute randomness comes from the fact that every result of every interaction is expressed in parallel universes (you can’t predict two or more mutually exclusive, yet simultaneous results). 

Despite all of this, the fact that it cannot be predicted doesn’t mean that it is random, it may be a case of missing information.

This is an algorithm used im programming to create an illusion of randomness.

Mod arithmetic (sometimes called clock arithmetic) is a system of arithmetic for integers, where numbers "wrap around" after they reach a certain value—the modulus.

Like a clock

Human Brain & Randomness

The brain is the center of our nervous system.

It works by electric impulses that travel through the long protoplasmic fibers called axons neurons.

There are about 15-33 billion neurons.

As Hippocrates sayed: "Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations.”

How We Did Our Experiment:

We asked people of all ages and gender to “Give us a random number between 1 and 100 as fast as they could” Then we made sure that the random they had picked was completely random by asking them.

If the numbers were truly random the mean of all numbers should be 50, like when you through a dice enough times, the mean is always 3.

Conclusions:The fact that most medians are 50 indicates that there was some randomness.

Despite this the total mean :44.9 is too low to conclude that the numbers were completely random

Also, 59% of the numbers were odd, again, this shows unrandomness.