On 08/04/2017 04:40 PM, \0xDynamite wrote:
Would not a coin flip with the exact same initial parameters (height, force, deterministic air currents, and striking surface) have the same result?
Only if measures are taken to maintain precise control of these variables; in practical terms, a human tossing a coin will produce an unpredictable result every time due to variations in muscle tension, the path the coin takes, etc.
Yes, but those parameters can be expressed with a single vector encoding force and direction.
Given the number of variables involved, it is impractical for an adversary to measure those variables, and vanishingly improbable for the coin-tosser to control them well enough to (consciously or otherwise) predict or control the outcome. So the practical criteria for "random" are met.
The POINT is the number of states of a single 64-bit word, for example, is nearly the number of atoms in the known universe.
True that - but in mathematics, people deal with numbers larger than anything likely to be observed in the gross dimensions of Nature - excluding combinatorial dimensions, i.e. the number of possible arrangements of grains of sand on the Earth's beaches, which I am sure exceeds the diameter of the observable universe measured in millimeters. Lucky for cryptographers, they get to deal in combinatorial systems almost exclusively.
Again, the outputs of these processes can not be predicted unless their inputs are under precise control, which in practical situations they are not.
Right, but this is analogous to SEEDING your starting variable -- you only have 1.8E19th choices, LOL. Practically speaking, double that and you're golden.
After than you just have to communicate your seed value (somehow), like the least significant bit of each pixel in a random image uploaded to the web.
Ideally key material would be communicated physically, under conditions designed to exclude eavesdropping or later exposure of the key to hostile parties. Using a large stream of random bits as a unique key (called a one time pad) provides absolute security against cryptanalysis, provided the key is not stolen. A hybrid method where the random bits are "inflated" to a larger bit stream for use as a key for messages longer than the random key can work. But as noted earlier, using a hash function to expand a short key yields no more entropy; an adversary who knows or guesses what hash function was used, needs only "brute force" the original short key to recover the whole ciphertext.
I ask this semi-rhetorically, because in my cosmology, the universe must have some non-determinism in order for life to appear.
This far, physics describes a Universe where the balance of Order and Chaos is ideal for creating life.
Ah, that's only the ecosystem of the Earth. Science, to my knowledge has not expanded this balance to include the heavens.
Exobiology is a thing. In the early days it was a "science without a subject matter to study" but that has changed. A long while back, amino acids were discovered in interstellar dust clouds, indicated by spectral absorption lines in starlight shining through them. Closer to home, comets have been found to contain a wide range of biochemicals. For reasons I still don't quite understand, people used to talk about meteorites from Mars hitting the Earth, and some speculated that life may have hitched a ride here on them. Now this: According to some measurements, what looks like fragments of tissue and even possible micro-artifacts containing biological materials are being swept out of space by the Earth on a truly massive scale: http://www.panspermia.org/balloon2.htm
Almost as if somebody set that up on purpose. To put a stop to that kind of "superstitious" speculation, some physicists propose that a vast, unlimited number of distinct universes must exist, each with its own physical laws, where only a few have conditions supporting the development of life.
The confusion here is in the word "universe". The word already encodes an idea of WHAT IS. Namely, a three dimensional void with a continuous single vector of time. But see, that order is already presumptive. (This is why I say "in MY cosmology")..
I lost count of how many dimensions string theory is up to now. Maybe 19? As I said, math is my weakest subject. Dark matter, which I long considered a modern equivalent of the 19th century's Luminiferous Ether, now appears to be a thing; its structure has been mapped and space behaves "as if" dark matter was responsible for the distribution of galaxies made of 'regular' matter. So there we have empirical evidence of a 'universe next door' that interacts with ours exclusively through gravity. So why not dozens, millions or quadrillions of "universes", each with its own Big Bang and distinct physical laws, coexisting with our own in a larger context that contains them all and could be called "the real universe"? If so, that would explain why our space time continuum appears to be designed to create life, without the necessity for a guiding intelligence of some kind: In this scenario our life-generating cosmos is not special in any way, except that we happen to be inside it. No evidence supports this multiple-cosmos model; by definition none can. But it has become an article of faith among the best educated Atheists; their religion can't get by without it.
But if so, there must be a larger cosmic context in which all these universes happen, and the same speculation arises - how did this massively parallel trial and error process get started? Which jumps us up to yet another "higher" context, etc. ad infinitum.
Verily, 'tis a mindfucker.
LOLz, funny, but there are answers. Keep probing...
Maybe there are. Maybe in some sense I know some of those answers - I have had some very unusual experiences as results from intensive practice of mystical techniques. But alas: The physical brain can not encode and retain more than a tiny fragment of that information, and language can convey even less. The verdict of mystical philosophies and their associated training programs is unanimous: The ground state of reality can not be described or explained, you have to go and see for yourself. :o)