Randomness
Notes
Randomness is perceived as Uncertainty, or as Luck for us humans, but it raises a metaphysical question related to Determinism. Does randomness even exists? For example, before tossing a coin, we could say that it is pure random and we don't know how it will land, but perhaps that's not true. If we had complete knowledge, such as the weather condition, the force we will use to toss it, and the exact way we will catch it, perhaps we would have known how it would land. The coin toss example just shows us that we perceive as randomness things that could be predetermined.
Randomness can be both a good and a bad thing, depending on the situation. For example, in business use cases, randomness can weaken our ability to predict how things will turn out by including a lot of Noise in our analysis, and accordingly weaken our ability to properly plan ahead, making a planning fallacy more likely. While we can't know in advance which random event will occur, a good Pre-Mortem process can rely on the fact that a random event will occur, so at least we would be ready for something.
On the personal level, randomness can be a good source of Ideation, by randomly exposing ourselves to new sources of information, we might discover ways of thought of great value, ones that we would have missed if we sticked to what is known and certain. Similarly, it is a good source of exploration, of discovering new experiences. Additionally, given enough randomness, it is likely that we will be able to find optimal solutions not through a costly calculation process, but rather by chance relaxation, so our role is to identify that optimum point and not miss good opportunities when they happen.
Randomness, at least at the level of experience is very real (putting aside the metaphysical question), so we have to acknowledge it. it is all around us, and as beings with limited time, mental capacity and information, many things would appear as random even if they are not.
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Overview
🔼Topic:: Statistics (MOC) ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::