[MD] Doug Renselle & Language

[david buchanan]

Krimel said:
Right and what they expect jointly is that flipping a coin or drawing straws, is fair because it is entirely a matter of chance.



John replied: 
Yes, randomness is chosen by the players, because they expect it to be fair.  But the root of what fairness is, comes from expectation of balance - the subjective ideas of the players - not randomness itself.  There is a random happening, that is considered "unfair".  Like in a bit of software programming, where the programmer uses a RAND function to achieve an overall objective, within the matrix of the program.

dmb says:
Oh, come on. You guys are getting way too fancy. The coin toss is not considered fair because of it's randomness. It's fair because both sides always have a 50-50 chance. It is certain that one or the other will win will the toss. The outcome is not random so much as unbiased. The tossing itself is what makes the coin's final position unpredictable and uncontrollable but it is being tossed at a certain time and place for a certain reason. In this case, it seems that randomness is 99% ordered.