Randomness does not exist

Reification

This is part 2 of a series of essays on the nonexistence of things that are commonly treated as real. Reification is the treatment of an abstract idea as though it were a real thing. The modern world is full of reifications, but people seem to be unaware of their true nature.  

The idea of randomness occupies a special place as a quasi-reification. This is because those who study probability theory and are deeply involved with probabilistic models understand the true nature of randomness. They might call it “chance,” or “uncertainty,” which are good ways to think about “randomness.”

 

While probability theory serves as a valuable tool in scientific inquiry, it is essential to recognize that the concept of randomness within this framework should not be conflated with the uncertainty stemming from our incomplete understanding and control over natural phenomena. Probability theory offers a systematic way to quantify and manage this inherent uncertainty, enabling scientists to test hypotheses and make informed decisions in the face of incomplete information.

Then there are the quantum mechanics, or rather, people who use the phrase “quantum” to describe anything that they don’t understand. To these people, randomness is a fundamental property of the universe, and instead of being governed by physical forces and attributes, they believe the universe is governed by mathematical models. While I cannot delve deeply into the topic of quantum mechanics, I can relate how the general absorption of the theory has percolated through society, so that people ladle out the phrase “quantum mechanics” with a fairly liberal, handwaving indulgence. As a result of this, and perhaps other misconceptions about chance and randomness, people have become accustomed to the idea that “random” stuff just happens for no reason.

It is true that very often stuff happens and the reasons are unknown or obscure. A black cat walks across our path and we find that we didn’t’ win the lottery for some reason. People get struck by lightening. Some people actually DO win the lottery. We chalk all these things up to a property called “randomness,” and dismiss it and admire it as some magical property that the universe conveys upon certain things. We flip coins, shuffle cards, put different colored marbles into black bags, draw lots, read entrails, and so on because we believe that there is a kind of mystical process at work. However, what we are really doing when we randomize something is not confer upon the thing a release from the rules of causation, but making ourselves ignorant of the outcome.

Randomness is the shadow

Randomness is really our inability to predict the outcome of something because we do not have enough information. For example, if I put five black balls and three white balls into a bag and drew one without looking, I would have a 3/5ths chance to pull a white one. However, if the bag is clear and I can see which one I am choosing, then the “randomness” vanishes. Randomness is uncertainty, nothing more.

Scientific experiments often use the concept of randomness to prove their points. After we isolate a variable, we try to control for all the other variables, and so the independent variable (the one we manipulate) should be entirely responsible for the outcome. Experiments are never quite this simple, though, because when we manipulate the independent variable, we usually find that the dependent variable does not change on a one-to-one relationship, but that the independent variable “has an effect” on the dependent variable, usually expressed as a percentage or a probability. For example, an increase in the amount of sunlight was responsible for a 40% increase in plant growth. The other 80% of plant growth was caused by “randomness,” in other words, noise. However, noise is really just other independent variables that we have not controlled for. If we take rainfall into the equation, we find that sun and rain both account for 80% of the growth rate of the plant.

So, in this example randomness was initially responsible for 60% of the plant growth when only sunlight was taken into account, but when we took into account sunlight and rain, the randomness was only responsible for 20% of the growth. By extension, the more certainty we have about the causes of the effects, the less uncertainty, meaning the less we can attribute to “randomness.”

From this, we conclude that randomness is not a fundamental attribute of the universe, but an absence of control. The more we control and account for independent variables, the less is left to chance, the less wiggle room randomness has to play around with the outcomes. Randomness is like the shadow of control. It is not a thing in itself, but the absence of a certainty, like a shadow is the absence of light.

Infamous P-value

This brings us to a conundrum, though. Science requires the idea of “chance alone,” to prove hypotheses. We express our certainty of the effect of an independent variable on the dependent one as a probability of having an effect compared to “chance alone.” Frequently, the validity of a test is expressed by its “p-value,” usually in the format (p < 0.05). The value 0.05, or 5% was chosen arbitrarily. The idea is that if something can happen by “chance alone,” more than say 5% of the time (p > 0.05), then we cannot rule out the null hypothesis, which presumes that there is no relationship between the independent and dependent variables. Anything more than that, and we hesitate to say for sure that the variable had an effect. Interestingly, this means that approximately 5% of all studies are false positives, but that is a tangent.

If we are defining the success of a scientific study by comparing the probability of our results to “chance alone,” and we know that “chance alone,” means nothing more than unaccounted variables, what are we saying? The problem is the conflation of the mathematical ideal of a random variable with the reality of unaccounted variables that would otherwise determine the outcomes of real-life events. Although the mathematical world of probability theory might be a good way to manipulate uncertainty in our equations so we can approximate predictability, there is a danger of confusing the abstract mathematical principles with the unknown, complex, and uncertain real variables that we are unaware of acting in the real world. As symbols that we can manipulate, random variables can be useful, but as proxies for the complexity of the real world, they are the shadows of certainty, concealing the vast complexity of the problem behind the veil of ignorance or lack of control.

Death of science

Everyone knows how tossing a coin works. The goal is to toss the coin and expect a 50/50 chance of getting a head or a tail. It works because we lack the ability to flip the coin precisely enough to predict the outcome. However, suppose I was able to flip a coin so that it always flipped exactly 3 times, and so I could predict the outcome? Is it random? No. What if I could flip it 4 times, but still predict the outcome? Still not random. As long as I can exert control of the number of flips, it’s not random. So where does randomness come in? When I lose track of the number of flips, or lose control of the number of flips? My losing track does not create randomness, though: it creates ignorance. Were I to practice enough, I would be able to predict the outcome of a coin toss after any number of flips.

Another example is a game of pool. Most of us break the triangle of balls and they spin off in various directions and we look at the scattering as random. However, a pool trick-shooter can get the balls to go in precisely predetermined directions and velocities. The only difference is the skill and knowledge of the trick shooter. Randomness is eliminated by knowledge and control.

The point here is that randomness shrinks as certainty grows, and the goal of all sciences is to increase certainty. As we increase certainty, the idea that anything is random naturally shrinks, so it is possible to extrapolate our thinking to a scenario in which certainty is absolute and randomness is nonexistent. In fact, randomness IS nonexistent, because it doesn’t exist: it is the lack of certainty, and nothing more. The irony is that science depends on the concept of randomness to function. We randomly assign test conditions. We use p-values to measure the validity of our tests. In this sense, scientists use the mathematical concept of the random variable, which is distinct from the real-world meaning of random. This is why it is important not to conflate the abstract concept of randomness with the real-world version. Even as science destroys randomness it must rely on randomness to advance in an ever-tightening circle of annihilation.  Science ends when everything is known, and randomness is a memory of our ignorance.

The theoretical limit to our knowledge, though, is absolute, because the map cannot be the territory. Our model of the universe can never be as complex as the universe itself, because then it would be the universe. Hence, we must rely on heuristics, approximations, and randomness for the areas where we cannot or choose not to know for certain.

Determinism

Does this mean that determinism is true? Yes: Yes it does. Until proven otherwise. Unfortunately, people do not like the sound of determinism because they believe in free will. This religion permeates many schools of thought, but there is no real evidence for it.

Finally, the Quanta

Going back to the quantum mechanical argument, that randomness is a fundamental property of the universe, I suggest that determinism should be the null hypothesis, and therefore the burden of proof should be on the argument that randomness is real. The reason being the arguments above: if randomness disappears as we gain certainty, then randomness is nothing more than a lack of certainty. To say otherwise requires proof. I understand there are some weird experimental results for these quantum experiments, but there does not exist a solid theoretical framework to explain them. Every time one of these results come up, scientists admit the results are just weird, and head-scratching escalates. I do not pretend to know what is going on in these labs, but until a theoretical framework comes along that can not only predict outcomes, but explain the underlying mechanisms for these outcomes, I will remain skeptical.

 

Time does not exist

Reification

This is the first installment of a series of posts about reifications. Reification is the treatment of an abstract idea as though it were a real thing. The modern world is full of reifications. For example, money is a symbol of value, which ideally represents a certain amount of labor or effort. National borders are not there, they exist mainly as lines on a map, but in our minds, they seem real. Political power is a gigantic con-job: One has power because he has convinced people that he has power, and the mass delusion of power is the only power he has.

One of my favorite examples of reification is the “reasonable person.” Often, in a court of law, the law is written such that a “reasonable person” would see things a certain way. A privacy law might be written so that a “reasonable person” would not expect privacy in certain public spaces, and so the expectation of privacy is not a valid argument. What the lawyer is doing here is inventing an imaginary friend who agrees with his point of view! If I am a reasonable person, and I do not see things the way he wants me to, then he simply invents a hypothetical person, a “reasonable person” who does!

Once you ponder the concept of reification, you begin to see it everywhere, and in so doing, you begin to see through the veil of socialized obfuscation that has been pulled over your eyes. How much of our world is indoctrination! Understanding this concept gives one a tremendous superpower: It’s like Superman’s X-ray vision, only it works on delusions instead of materials.

Time as a construct

Let us return to focus of this paper: Time. I have tried to convince people of the non-existence of time on many occasions, but it is a slippery topic because time is so ingrained in our language. Every time I start to speak or write, well, there it is. Did you notice? Time! It’s in everything we say or think, which means disproving it is challenge. For example, we have past, present, and future tense. To relate a sentence at all, one must respect the concept of time, and yet, if time does not exist, how does one communicate at all?

The concept of time is extremely useful. It keeps the trains running. It keeps work schedules together. It allows us to travel into space and land on the moon. The concept of time has allowed us to accomplish many great things. Time just is not real. It is a reification. There is no traveling through time, because there is nothing to travel through (sorry science-fiction authors: your deus ex machina with its mandatory paradoxes will no longer satisfy readers after they understand the main points of this article).

One might argue that time exists because we experience it. The subjective experience of elapsed time unfolds as a gradual progression of events, seamlessly transitioning from one moment to the next. It's a sense of movement, of events flowing together like the currents of a river, each moment blending into the next with a subtle shift in perception and awareness. This subjective perception is characterized by the unfolding of experiences, where the passage of time is felt through changes in emotion, attention, and engagement. The intensity and duration of these experiences may vary, influenced by individual perception and the unique interplay of moments, ultimately contributing to the subjective sense of time's passage.

On the other hand, while we do experience what we believe to be time, that experience is not time itself, but rather the perception of the flow of changes. This perception can be greatly influenced by our emotional state. For instance, time may seem to fly when we're having fun. Similarly, many of us have experienced time distortion in dreams, where entire lifetimes can appear to pass in just a few minutes of sleep. Therefore, we cannot rely solely on our subjective perception of time as proof of its existence.

Definition of time

What is time, then?

A year is one orbit of the earth around the sun. A rotation of the earth is a day, which is divided into 24 hours, each one subdivided by 60 minutes, and each one of those is subdivided by 60 seconds. We can further divide it to smaller scales, but what you might notice here is that we are measuring movements. We are essentially counting things, or changes, or events, but none of these things that we count require an extra dimension.

For example, instead of saying “how many days are in a year,” we could say “How many times does the earth rotate in one orbit?”

We use minutes and seconds to measure the frequency or duration of other events or changes, but these are not measurements, but the counts of movements of the watch hands. We are accustomed to hearing things like: this lap took 34 seconds. However, a second is just 1/60^th of a full hand rotation on a watch. We could just as easily say it took 34/60 of a revolution on a standard second rotation device. We’re just comparing one moving thing with another moving thing. Without a standard second everything that moves would be still be measured against other things that moved. It would not be as convenient, but it would still work. How many sand grains pass through a narrow hole before a candle burns out? How many hummingbird wing flaps does it take to press a button when you see a stimulus? How many earth orbits are required between birth and the legal voting age? How many heartbeats are in a breath cycle?

This is really all time is: comparing the count and order of one set of events with the count and order of another set of events. The only thing that makes the concept of time seem universal (and real) is that we all agree on standard events against which we compare everything else. We collapsed the sand grains, wing flaps, orbits, and heart beats into a universal standard: the movement of the second, minute, and hour hands on a clock, and we tune these clocks so that they run at the same rate and are synchronized.

Dimension of time

Time is a dimension, you say? You could graph time and distance on a piece of paper, and point to it and say: There is the dimension of time. What is a dimension, though? It is a reification! Let's say you plot the alphabet on a sheet of paper along the X axis and frequency of letter-use on the Y axis. You then have a two-dimensional graph of letter frequency. Does that make the alphabet a dimension? Certainly, but it is not real: it is only a dimension because our minds make it so. Thus are the three dimensions of space: A convenient way to think about space so that we can use Cartesian coordinates to plot it, but unreal: There is no 0,0,0 point in the universe.

Whereas there is no dimension of time, there is still an order of events. When you drop a stone into a pond, it splashes and ripples in that order. Order is real. Everything that is happening is part of a process, and a process has a direction. This is sometimes referred to as the “arrow of time,” but it is the arrow of processing. It is the arrow of causation.

There are also events that we can count, such as earth rotations, earth orbits, sand grains falling, water drops, and so forth. We use these to keep track of other events by counting and comparing the sequence or order of occurrences. It takes twelve flips of an hourglass to equal one half-rotation of the earth. Are we measuring the earth’s rotation, or the speed of falling sand? Neither. We just noticed these events happen in a certain sequence, and we can use that information to predict the sequence of other events. This is not measuring anything real, but a way of using counting and sequencing to make predictions.

Measurement of time

Someone said to me that clocks do measure time, just as a ruler measures distance. I argue that they do not measure anything. A clock does not measure time. A clock simply provides constant motion at a standard rate. If you have a clock that is 3 minutes ahead of mine, it will continue to be 3 minutes ahead, forever. If they were measuring something real, then they would both converge on the “true” time, and would eventually agree. However, they can’t, because there is no “true” time for them to converge upon. If you have a device that measures something that is real, then you will always get the same measure from that or similar devices. If you and I both have accurate tape measures, we will always measure the same distance between two nails, because the distance is an objective, measurable property, whereas time is not. There is no "sorry, my ruler is running a little shorter today." 

Time travel

What about time travel? Can we reverse time? Well, in a way, you probably already have. For instance, in a game of pool you start with all the balls racked in a set order on one side of the pool table, and you have the cue ball on the other side. After the break, and the balls start roaming around the table, the game takes a linear, if unpredictable, progression while you and your friend knock the balls into the pockets. Then, something miraculous happens: all the balls are replaced, put in the rack, racked up, and the game begins again. When you reset the pool table to its prior state, you are effectively going back in “time,” or at least you have time-travel within the pool table. Now you can play the game again and again, and after each playthrough you reset the table to its initial state, and each playthrough is a different “timeline” in which things turn out differently than they did before. This is the closest we will ever come to time-travel: resetting things the way they were before. However, notice that the table is never exactly as it was before. The balls might be a few microns away from where they were. The table has more wear on it. The players more experience. However, putting everything back to where it was is the closest we can get to “time travel.”

So, if you want “true” time-travel, you must be able to do this: Simultaneously control every particle in the entire universe. Stop all of them, move all of them back to a previous position, and then get them all going again with the exact same direction and velocity they were going before. Obviously, there is nothing in the universe that has enough power to stop, replace, and start every particle in the universe  because the amount of energy required to do this would be more energy than the universe contains.

Therefore: No. Time travel is impossible. This fact should not be surprising, if time does not exist.

Simultaneity

We often say things happen simultaneously. However, imagine the four-way-stop scenario. You are coming to the intersection and stop. The other driver, to your right also comes to a stop. Who goes first? In America, if both cars arrived at the same time, the car on the right goes first. However, there are many factors at play.

First, did both cars arrive at the same time? Nothing ever happens simultaneously. If I see the other car arriving at the same time as mine, I must acknowledge that the other car is farther away, and it takes some "time" for light to reach my eyes. Therefore if I perceive simultaneous arrival, it means the other car actually got there a first, and then the reflected light got to my eyes, and then I perceived it and acknowledged it. Understanding all these processes means that I must admit the other car got there sooner.

However, perhaps the other driver saw things the exact same way, in which case I arrived sooner. Which driver is right? Neither driver is sensitive enough to be absolutely sure, and most drivers are not sufficiently aware of the role that the speed of light plays in the interaction, so begins the dance of assumptions, bluffing, jerking forward, stopping, waving the other driver to go, waiting, then going, then stopping, and then flipping the bird.

Foot racers often start a match by watching an official fire a starting gun. However, they do not start when they hear the gun: they start when they see the smoke. This is because the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound. Imagine, though, if light were slowed down enough for us to notice (or if our brains could process information at near infinite rates). In this case, even the light information from the smoke would reach the closest racer first, then the second racer, and so on down the line, so by the time the furthest racer got the information, the other racers already have a head start. Simultaneity is an artifact of our slow processing speeds. We may perceive things happening at the same time, but that perception is a limitation of our own sensitivity and understanding of the principles of physics. 

Perception relies upon light or sound hitting our sensory equipment and registering in our brains. The process is fast enough for us to be unaware, but it is there, and the order of operations means that by the time something seems "now," it is already in the past. This concept is much more pronounced in astronomy. When we observe a distant body in the heavens, we are seeing the light it shown forth some time ago. Distant objects are "light years" away from us. In other words, they are light-earth-orbits distant, which means that what we are looking at is the way it was when the earth was several orbits behind where it is now. So, where is "now?" There is no "now," but what we perceive. 

Conclusion

Time does not exist. That does not mean that time is not useful. We can and should continue to use the concept of time to keep schedules, advance science, and reach further into the cosmos. However, we must remember that time is a tool, not a reality. Time is a mental construct that we use to make sense of the universe, and as long as we use it in this capacity, it will continue to serve us diligently. However, if we forget that time is a construct and start to think of time as a real, tangible quality of the universe, then we will run into paradoxes. I believe that paradoxes only exist in our minds or our way of thinking about things: They do not exist in the real universe.

Ultimately, the goal of this and future works on reification is to provide the reader with a more grounded approach to appreciating reality. Once you understand the distinction between the real and the supposed, your beliefs will be less affected by manipulation, whether intentional or not. Much of our human understanding of the world is trained into us by other humans, who pass along many abstract and conceptual ideas as real things. This received wisdom has helped us achieve great things in the past, but it has also hindered our ability to appreciate the underlying structure of the universe. By learning to see through these distortions, we can reframe our awareness and tune it to a more solid or concrete foundation. There might need to be some restructuring of our thoughts around certain ideas, but after the alterations, we should perceive the world more clearly, and with less distortion and artifact.