[eu-gene] Re: Generative or not?

[Michael Gogins]

Quantum randomness is not a fact, it's part of a theory we use to explain what appear to be random phenomena. So in your remark, if I take "quantum randomness" to refer to the theory itself (than which we have no better), the theory POSTULATES true randomness. If I take "quantum randomness" to refer to the phenomena themselves, your remark cannot really be evaluated as it stands; either the phenomena are satisfied by the theory, or they are not. If they are, then we must assume that the phenomena do reflect a reality that is truly random. Theory, in physics, is what we do know as best as we CAN know. If they are not, then we have falsified quantum mechanics and we either have found a better theory, or we have proved that we simply do not understand what is going on. If we don't understand what's going on, anything we say about it is, by definition, meaningless. If we have found a better theory, it could as easily be a slightly different (but still truly random) distribution, or it could be some pseudo-random process. I suppose this last eventuality is what you were getting at?....

Regards,
Mike

-----Original Message-----
>From: Paul Harrison <pfh at logarithmic.net>
>Sent: May 9, 2006 10:29 AM
>To: eu-gene at generative.net
>Subject: [eu-gene] Re: Generative or not?
>
>On 14 Feb 2006, at 10:52, Lauri Gr�hn wrote:
>> 2. Interactive/Behavioural: music generated by a system component
>> that ostensibly has no inputs. That is, 'not transformational' (Rowe
>> 1991; Lippe 1997:34; Winkler 1998).
>>
>> Could someone explain that? How is that possible?
>
>I somehow found myself reading this whole thread, and decided to sign
>up to the list. A great set of tangents, I found the concept of
>programs making art about cons quite charming.
>
>A prosaic interpretation that occurred to me: a system consisting of
>some number of agents who interact amongst themselves to somehow
>produce music, but do not interact with the audience.
>
>The 'not transformational' bit I would guess refers to there not being
>a score that the agents are working from, in which case one might ask
>why should they do anything interesting at all? Doesn't there need to
>be some outside source of entropy, at least, to drive the process?
>Probably not. Trivially, the agents might have explicit pseudo-random
>number generators built in. More generally, pseudo-randomness often
>arises when a large number of agents interact even when this is not
>explicitly designed for. Unless the audience happens to know the
>precise details of the agents, reverse engineering this randomness is
>likely to be so computationally difficult that they would have no way
>of distinguishing it from true randomness (one could make a parallel
>argument about whether we can say quantum randomness is true
>randomness). It's like trying to crack an encrypted message: unless
>you know the key, the message is indistinguishable from random noise.
>
>But anyway, a composer/performer's particular brand of randomness
>probably doesn't have much to do with how good they are, or whether
>they are worth listening to.
>
>--
>Paul Harrison
>
>http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/
>pfh at logarithmic.net
>jabber pfh at jabber.org.au
>icq 298231643
>
>-- 
>'Douglas Hofstadter believes he is a strange loop, and who am I to disagree?'
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