Winning the Lottery - Random My ###!
I’m sick of this. But, it’s my own fault. I can’t seem to find a good way to reprogram people’s understanding of the word ‘Random’. On the one hand, we have people throwing around the word ‘Random’ as if they actually knew what it meant. On the other hand, we have people listening to the word as if they understood what it meant. Words can be such a pain;)
Shakespeare’s cousin Vinny summed up my feelings about the word very well when he said, “that which we call Random, by any other name would still smell.” Right on, Vinny.
For the umpteenth time, let me try to bring some clarity to the debate. The definition of the word random is, “a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.” A great definition except for the fact that it can never be realized in the real world. The word ‘Random’ is an ideal masquerading as reality. If it were actually possible to implement this definition in the real world then:
- in Black Jack, it would be impossible for you to Improve Your Chances of winning by card counting.
- in Poker, it would be impossible for a player to decide how much to bet.
- in the Stock Market, it would be impossible for an investor to make any money.
You see, the word ‘random’ doesn’t fit very well in the real world because it is a theoretical mathematical tool. It cannot be realized or achieved in any game, on Earth, in our Solar System, in our Galaxy nor the Universe.
This should be intuitively obvious. How can anyone claim to be able to randomly select numbers from a finite list? They can’t because, inevitably, shortly after the process begins, trends and patterns begin to emerge.
I’d be interested in your ‘Random’ thoughts.
