The Miracle in Randomness

Scientific types like to poke fun – often for good reason – at the predilection of spiritual types to the indiscriminant use of miracles. If you read the last blog post, you know I’m not immune to some of this judicious (I hope) finger wiggling.

Well, what say we turn that finger around for the moment and take a look at science’s miracle in the closet. And to do that, let’s ask the question, “Where is randomness found?”

Is randomness empirically determined? (That may be the epitome of an humorous question). Since scientific method is system focused and the nature of randomness is outside of system, scientific method acts here as art, showing us negative space, therefore we describe randomness by what it is not.

But an interesting thing happens as a result. Inquirers instinctively recognize that randomness is outside of system, and so it becomes a place where a miracle occurs. This is where thought games like the monkey and the typewriter dwell. Randomness can pull any result out of its bag of tricks.

Oh, the priesthood will tell you otherwise. They insist that everything is under control, and that consultation with the oracle falls into the realm of order when you use the wand of probability. But let the smoke clear, and like the Wizard of Oz, what’s really running the show is exposed.

As an example, for a moment let’s shrink to quantum dimensions. What matters here isn’t how much we know, or think we know, about quanta. Rather, take a quick peek down at your feet and get a bearing on your vantage point. This quantum world is described as a place of chaos, of randomness, a place where anything is possible. Want to walk on water? Well, it’s quantumly possible.

And here is the mean trick of science types. Having decried the miraculous, they then, by sleight of hand, deal you any card they desire – including those not even in the deck.

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