To what extent can we say perception of randomness is relative to knowledgeably of the observer?

Question

To what extent this phenomenon can be applied to systems defined as "truly random"?
By randomness I am referring to anything from variables observed in social sciences (i.e: income or test scores) to variables observed in statistics and physical models (i.e: flipping a coin or outcomes of celestial mechanics problems).

Answer 1

"Random" means unpredictable.



If a sequence of events is truly random, then nobody can predict what will happen next, ever.



If it's not truly random, but YOU can't predict what will happen next, then it is random as far as you can tell; but maybe somebody who has more information than you have can see the pattern that you can't see and can make the prediction that you can't make. As far as that person can tell, the sequence is NOT random.

Answer 2

To a great extent really. Back before 1900 physicists believed in their hearts that there really was no such thing as randomness--that the result of a coin flip or anything was the inevitable result of initial conditions and the laws of mechanics. Randomness was just the result of a system that was very sensitive to initial conditions that were not known.



Since 1900, however, physicists have accepted that in some cases, initial conditions are, in principle, unknowable. Therefore, results have to be considered fundamentally random. There's nothing in a radioactive particle that could tell you it will decay in a certain time. All we know is that it has a certain probability of decaying in a certain time, so the number of particles drops exponentially.



At the most fundamental levels, god really does roll dice.



--Nobody ever knows exactly what the future of science will bring, but based on what we know now, the answer is no--it is not possible.

Answer 3

Not to a large extent.



With correlational studies, like you say with social sciences, we can see if there is literally NO relationship between two variables, r=0. If you are purely talking about quantitative relationships, randomness can be proven.



Simply observed randomness, however, is simply perception, however not related to the intelligence of the observer.