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Sunday, November 4, 2012

When u pick a random number is it really random?

I was watching an episode of White Collar, it's a really good show one of my favorites, and the main character mentioned some thing about things never really being random and our subconscious minds always being at work. Of course this caught my attention and really interested me so i did some digging. When some one asks you to pick a random number can it really be random? Can a number even be random or can only a sequence be random? Well I'm not sure so we'll look at both. First up just the number, so when you look at it, any number can be random if it is standing on its own, but it isn't because we make connections to every thing. If you hear the number 7 you'll almost always automatically think of something like that being the age of your cousin or your best friend from childhoods favorite number. Our brains make connections and if you're reading this you've been alive enough to some how make a connection with almost any "random" number. Now moving on to the sequence, when you ask most people to pick a random string of numbers it will sound something like 4, 27, 83, 11, 92 not like 6, 75790555567888764349000075322456456291689.35678905421235667888532355677312466789954, -11123344555, 4008, 1 1/5 right? Whether this is because of familiarity or laziness I don't know, but the second sequence was all numbers, we just don't think about fractions and negatives and decimals and the fact that numbers are INFINITE. We would need to use some pretty huge numbers to be completely random. But isn't it random to just use 6, 10, 4, 3, and 18? I mean really what is random? Here dictionary.com's definition
1.
proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern

So it would need to have no aim, reason, or pattern? That would be kinda hard to do considering everything we do has an aim, reason, or pattern! And with numbers there are so many freaking patterns it would take you forever to find a sequence of numbers with no pattern! How "random" could it be if you had to meticulously figure it out? Is nature random? cause there are patterns in it EVERYWHERE. And if nature isn't random then we sure as heck aren't. So yeah our amazing subconscious is always pattern forming and working its little butt off to make sure we can't pick completely random numbers. Good luck next time you pick your "random" PIN number:)

P.S. if you read that huge decimal number their I give major props

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