[MD] Doug Renselle & Language

[Krimel]

> [Krimel]
> 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:
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".

[Krimel]
Their expectation of fairness is rooted the randomness of the event. A fair
coin, when tossed will wind up head half the time and tails half the time.
The order of head or tails is random. It is not influenced by the desire or
expectations of the flipper or the call. It is the very randomness of the
event that fuels our belief in its fairness. This does not mean at all that
flipping a coin is not a deterministic process. It is but the factors that
determine the outcome are so numerous and varied that while deterministic
they are not calculable. 

[John]
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.

[Krimel]
Actually programming a truly random number generator turns out to be very
difficult and not particularly desirable. I am recalling this from memory
but if it serves me correctly on of the problems with an early version of
the iPod was that it had a pretty good randomizing algorithm for selection
which songs to play. But _because_ it was random the same songs would play
twice in a row a lot while some song hardly ever got played. This led people
to believe that it was not random. The problem was it was too random and
this violated people's expectations.

[John]
I'm arguing against randomness as ontologically fundamental.

However, I'm not arguing from the Hammian perspective of subjective
experience being fundamental either.  Value is fundamental, and fairness is
a species of value that we assume in our perception.

{Krimel]
I think you ought to do a little research on this yourself rather than
waiting for me to explain it. This is a hot topic on the web I am sure you
could find lots on it. Tutorals and demonstrations. There are several really
good books on it like:

"Chances Are" which I liked a lot
http://www.amazon.com/Chances-Are-Probability-Michael-Kaplan/dp/0143038346/r
ef=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282687630&sr=1-1

"Black Swans" which is mainly about the stock market
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/08129738
1X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282687698&sr=1-1 

"Chaos" which I think should be required reading for everyone on this forum:
http://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Making-Science-James-Gleick/dp/0143113453/ref=sr
_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282687826&sr=1-1 

[dmb]
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.

[Krimel]
Once again it is considered "fair" _because_ it is random unpredictable and
uncontrollable. But and this is important: it is deterministic. The casualty
of the past century was not causality or determinism. It was predictability.
Laws of physics are probabilistic. Even classical law Newtonian Law are
probabilistic. In their most extreme formulations they can be thought of as
accurate 100% of the time.