[extropy-chat] what is probability?

[gts]

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:08:32 -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki  
<rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

> ### A rule enumerating all infinite sequences would not be a
> successful gambling system (unless I am missing something here) but
> would still specify the successive digits for every possible number.

If the rule specified every digit in any sequence then I think it would be  
a successful gambling system on that sequence. Or to put it another way,  
the sequence would be at most pseudo-random.

I think a genuinely random sequence is one in which the next digit is both  
1) unpredictable and 2) undetermined.

Can genuinely random sequences exist? This subject reminds me of another  
discussion we had here a few years ago, in which I offered up "HotBits" as  
a possible example of genuine random numbers:

"HotBits are generated by timing successive pairs of radioactive decays  
detected by a Geiger-Muller tube interfaced to a computer."

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/


-gts