Jim, thanks for the link. It's interesting that there are many cases where humans require randomness to do a job optimally, i.e., randomness is needed in order to accomplish a purpose. In a game where each player has a choice of two strategies, and where each strategy either counters each of the opponent's strategies or fails to do so, then the optimal way to proceed is to choose between the two strategies according to a certain probability distribution (i.e., according to a biased coin toss). Any other way of choosing strategies will be sub-optimal, exploitable by the adversary. So randomness actually is the best way to accomplish a purpose. Why wouldn't that be the case for God's purposes as well? I think your article basically says this too.
Jim, thanks for the link. It's interesting that there are many cases where humans require randomness to do a job optimally, i.e., randomness is needed in order to accomplish a purpose. In a game where each player has a choice of two strategies, and where each strategy either counters each of the opponent's strategies or fails to do so, then the optimal way to proceed is to choose between the two strategies according to a certain probability distribution (i.e., according to a biased coin toss). Any other way of choosing strategies will be sub-optimal, exploitable by the adversary. So randomness actually is the best way to accomplish a purpose. Why wouldn't that be the case for God's purposes as well? I think your article basically says this too.
ReplyDeleteI just noticed, though, that none of the citations got posted at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, one could say that evolution operates like the Monte Carlo method - randomness within constraints generating specific results.
ReplyDeleteOr, it is like the apparent randomnes within a Chaotic system - which produces a beautiful Mandelbrot plot.
Broad analogies, sure, but they could be helpful.