Moderated Coin Flipper

[Leumas]

This is what I was trying to show my post here:
But I think your post says it more clearly.

And with that, I'm out as well.

You never gave me your opinion on the randomness of the card I asked you about... you said you will look into it and get back to me?

Here it is again...

Let's say that one picks the 20th card from the right side of a shuffled and spread out deck of cards every time.

That is not just deterministic... it is not even random

But the deck is shuffled before one picks the 20th card from the right.

Now the deck is not even random numbers... it is the same deck of cards... no?

Do you think anyone can determine whether a red (diamonds/hearts) or black (clubs/spades) card will be drawn??


So

• We have the same deck of cards... no random numbers or changing at all.
• We have the same card position picked every single time... not random or not even unknown... fully determined
• But the cards deck is shuffled before every pick... from the same deck... from the same position

Is the resulting pick (red or black) random?

Is it deterministic? If you say yes... then by whom or what?

 

[jsfisher]

Given the inspiration for Leumas' program and this thread was this statement from acbytesla:

.... A single coin toss produces an unpredictable result. But we can predict the approximate results of ten thousand coin tosses. Now, is this random?

Where did this whole aside about determinism come from?

 

[jt512]

(1) They are not my graphs... they are those of theprestige
(2) the context is right here

And here is another graph that is not mine that is claimed to support convergence when it ironically supports erratic oscillation... which is what is to be expected from a RANDOM process.

The deceptive zoomed out scale might give the impression to the uninformed that it is converging.... but all the discerning have to do is actually ZOOM IN on the DETAILS and see for themselves how it is a random process.

Notice the 3 peaks that touch the 50% line but yet with more flips there is DIVERGENCE and more erratic oscillations... not convergence.

If it were convergent there would not be erratic divergence and oscillations and more divergence.

And here is that of theprestige again

In addition to the ones provided above by theprestige and jt512 proving their errors... here are some more facts from running Coin Flipper 4 that you did not bother to look at

Bernoullii proved the convergence of a series of coin flips in the early 1700s, and the theorem that generalizes that result has been explained to you with various degrees of mathematical rigor repeatedly. Moreover, the convergence has been demonstrated for you, and even by you, using your own app. Since convergence is a long-term phenomenon, zooming in on a cherry-picked short-term series of trials, your latest tactic, is meaningless. As you have proved yourself immune to evidence and argument, I'm out.

 

[Leumas]

The Determinism Concern

I want to clarify what this CONCERN is all about.

A coin toss is random and indeterministic.

However... the claim is that if one tosses N coins one can DETERMINE the result if N is large enough.

But that is not true... because it is not at all possible to do that because coins to do not collude with each other and the more coins collude the more they will agree to all socialistically divvy up the probability distribution FAIRLY between them so that half is tails and with egality and fraternity the other half agrees to be heads.

Each coin will turn up RANDOMLY whatever it will... they are individualistic this way and don't want to belong to any tribes.

It is just that if you have a large N then THE PROBABLITY of them turning up so that heads are ALMOST equal to tails is higher.

So it is THE PROBABILITY that a GUESS of 50% being heads and 50% tails is higher.

Not that it is DETERMINISTICALLY 50-50.... it is a PROBABILITY... i.e. it is a RANDOM CHANCE and not a deterministic certainty.

And this CHANCE gets better the higher N is.

And therein is the rub.... what is N that will make the GUESS a certainty?

For a deterministic 50-50 to be certain what number of coin tosses does one have to do and tally up and add and see if N/2 is heads and N/2 is tails??? But... furthermore... that the next 2 coin tosses... i.e. N+1 and N+2 will still be deterministically 50-50... not both heads or both tails so now the whole balance is upset.

But DEFINITELY SO... which is what deterministic means... if it is a GUESS with a high chance of being right... that is called GAMBLING... not determinism.

And that is why I made Coin Flipper 4 in the first place.

To do real life trials to see how random coin tosses never cooperate to keep at that 50-50 egalitarian sharing of the probability distribution and will never keep at the 50-50 line no matter how large N is.

It is all fine and dandy to wave ones hands and say that the more tosses the higher the CHANCE of a GUESS being right... but it is still a guess and still a chance and it is still all dependent on randomness that is inherent in the natural world of coin tossing and is definitely indeterministic because of that.

So there you have an app that affords one to try and see what N will result in this claim of deterministic 50-50 certainty.

Now as has been shown in this post... 1 BILLION ain't it. Because the erratic random indeterministic fluctuations shown in the data and graphs in this post indicate that N might have to be much much larger than 1 Billion.

In other words no human will ever be able to toss enough REAL coins to be able to say with 100% certainty (which is what deterministic means) that it will be N/2 heads and N/2 tails.


And thus this determinism canard is just that... a dead duck.

Randomness is inherent in the natural world and no matter how many coin tosses you will do... the next coin toss is not going to say

• Let me look at the tally so far so that I can land such as to make sure the tally is assuredly 50/50.

And if it lands on the wrong side, to upset the tally EVEN BY ONE then you have a random indeterministic process.

And no wishful thinking will ever make coins deterministically toss so as to cooperate together and divvy up the tally to assure 50-50.

...here have a look at this sample run of 95E+7 and 1E+9

That is 10⁹ flips

Now observe how it rives your assertion asunder.... all one has to do is LOOK... and your bare assertion is definitively and irrefragably proven wrong.

Look what happens to the running average between run #95 and #100.

At run #95 the running average is 50.0001 and 49.9999

If your assertions had any validity whatsoever... the next run of 50,000,000 coin flips ought to have made it even closer to 50%... no.

But as can be seen by just looking...

At 950,000,000 flips the running average was 50.0001% to 49.9999%
At 1,000,000,000 flips the running average is 50.0010% and 49.9990%

That is a factor of 10 jump IN THE WRONG direction.

At run #95 there was 950 more heads than tails. At run #100 there was 10,000 more heads than tails.
And if you look at the averages of each run you will not fail to notice the wild OSCILLATIONS... observe runs #88 and #89.... and runs #95, #96, #97.

So no... the FACTS rive to smithereens your BARE ASSERTIONS.... no matter how many times you insist on repeating the error it will not ever converge onto truth.

[IMGW=550]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/NotConvergent.png[/IMGW]
​

And here have a look at these fine efforts by theprestige and jt512 to demonstrate with their data and excellent graphs that it is indeed not a deterministic process and will continue to be a fluctuating erratic result no matter how large N is.

Notice the 3 peaks in the first graph below which touch the 50% line but yet with more flips there is more fluctuation and more erratic oscillations... not at all settling down at 50%.

If it were settling down there would not be erratic larger fluctuations and more oscillations the more coins you toss.

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/NotConverge3.png[/IMGW]​

This is graph has more data and demonstrates well the erratic and fluctuating nature of the data.

[IMGW=800]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/graph.png[/IMGW]​

 

[jsfisher]

However... the claim is that if one tosses N coins one can DETERMINE the result if N is large enough.

No, that was not the claim. Not "determine", but "predict the approximate results". That was the claim.

 

[Wudang]

No, that was not the claim. Not "determine", but "predict the approximate results". That was the claim.

I admire your patience.

 

[JimOfAllTrades]

You never gave me your opinion on the randomness of the card I asked you about... you said you will look into it and get back to me?

Here it is again...

I've looked at it, and I'm not up on the particulars of this anywhere near as much some of the other here, so I don't feel like I can give a good answer. I'll leave it to them.

 

[Thermal]

I admire your patience.

That's what I told the doctor who does breast implants.

 

[Leumas]

I've looked at it, and I'm not up on the particulars of this anywhere near as much some of the other here, so I don't feel like I can give a good answer. I'll leave it to them.

Ok... let me make it much simpler...

You have a deck of cards that is well shuffled.

You pick a card.

Can you predict if this card is red (diamonds/hearts) or black (clubs/spades)?

Your expertise can answer that at least no?

So what... can you predict the color?

Now... the very same deck... is well shuffled again...

You pick a card again...

Can you predict the color this time?

Is the probability of the card being red or black any different this time from the last time??

Do you think that using the same deck for the two tries has any bearing on the probability of your choice being red or black or your ability to predict it?

You do not need esoteric ethereal mathematics to answer the above and you certainly do not need to give deference to mathematics priests to divine the answers to the above questions... or do you?

The important question here is...

• does using the same deck of cards well shuffled have any effect on your ability to predict the color every and each time you pick a card and reshuffle and pick again and again...
• does the fact that it is the same set of cards affect in any way your ability to predict the color of the card you picked?

You do not need mathematics priests to divine the above common sense answers for you... you can think for yourself... it is not hard... you can do it.




.

 

[jimbob]

Except that is not a good analogy for what your algorithm does.

You shuffle the cards, you deal them out in a row. You turn them all face up. You discard the last few. You then generate a number from an algorithm that only responds to a series of inputs and use that generated number to pick a card.

If someone specified all the inputs they could predict the card it would chose and the algorithm would give the same answer every time.

This is not the same as say performing a double slit experiment and predicting which slit a particular photon will go through. One can know all the initial conditions and the best answer is still a probability because it is genuinely not predetermined but random.

 

[Leumas]

Except that is not a good analogy for what your algorithm does.

(1) can you answer the questions in this post or this one without obfuscations ... just answer THOSE questions without being concerned about analogies or any other concerns... can you?


(2)You very evidently have either not looked at the algorithm... or you just did not understand it.

You are definitively wrong.... go read the hacked code again.

 

[Wudang]

I wrote a simple program years back to run various random number generators and test the results like whether odd/even converged, and such. The purpose was to pick the most robust RNG. OP seems to be arguing that the test is wrong because his RNG performs poorly. Probably because he seems to be unaware of basic maths taught in secondary school stats and calculus.

 

[jimbob]

(1) can you answer the questions in this post or this one without obfuscations ... just answer THOSE questions without being concerned about analogies or any other concerns... can you?


(2)You very evidently have either not looked at the algorithm... or you just did not understand it.

You are definitively wrong.... go read the hacked code again.

Yes I did answer that. For starters. I pointed out that your phrase "That is not just deterministic... it is not even random" only makes sense if one has a fundamental misunderstanding of what randomness actually is.

"Let's say that one picks the 20th card from the right side of a shuffled and spread out deck of cards every time.

That is not just deterministic... it is not even random"

Secondly, you tell me that I am misunderstanding, which is quite possible because I am not bothering to look at the code, just what others have pointed out and what you have accepted. Which is that you are using a subset of the data, and that only makes sense if you are not having the truly random data regenerated every time.

Ok... let me make it much simpler...

You have a deck of cards that is well shuffled.

You pick a card.

Can you predict if this card is red (diamonds/hearts) or black (clubs/spades)?

Your expertise can answer that at least no?

So what... can you predict the color?

Now... the very same deck... is well shuffled again...

You pick a card again...

Can you predict the color this time?

Is the probability of the card being red or black any different this time from the last time??

Do you think that using the same deck for the two tries has any bearing on the probability of your choice being red or black or your ability to predict it?

You do not need esoteric ethereal mathematics to answer the above and you certainly do not need to give deference to mathematics priests to divine the answers to the above questions... or do you?

The important question here is...

• does using the same deck of cards well shuffled have any effect on your ability to predict the color every and each time you pick a card and reshuffle and pick again and again...
• does the fact that it is the same set of cards affect in any way your ability to predict the color of the card you picked?

You do not need mathematics priests to divine the above common sense answers for you... you can think for yourself... it is not hard... you can do it.



.

But from what others have pointed out about your data and what you have accepted is that you are not shuffling the cards each time. You are just using a hard-to-predict but deterministic process to decide which of the previously-shuffled cards to pick. And that people who have examined the algorithm do know the order of the shuffled cards.

In that case - if someone was given the seed values for your pseudorandom number generator, they could predict what the outcome would be. With 100% confidence.

 

[Leumas]

Coin Flipper V4.1

Well... thanks to acbytesla Coin Flipper was created and thanks to psion10 Coin Flipper V4 was created with all the new really nice features.

Recently I was asked to add a new feature to the app that will enable one to view the running averages after each run. A good idea is a good idea no matter how inimical and hostile the source might be.

So I have implemented this suggestion and additionally this new feature will enable copying of the running averages to the clipboard as well as the data for the runs... that way one can take the data to a charting app and plot the data as desired.

Coin Flipper V4.1

Notice in the screenshot below the way it displays the running averages for each after each run.

Notice the data has been adjusted so that 50% is the Zero line. This way one can see the FLUCTUATIONS much easier.

Notice the Copy button... this will take the data to a Text area where you can then copy any parts of it and take that and paste it into a charting app.

The data copied to the text area will also include the data for the runs as an additional convenience if one needs to plot those data too.

See the graphs below of the Full data for all the running averages for all the runs... but also the next graph does only the last 70 runs, so as to make the scale zoom in and see the fluctuations better.

All the data was for 1,000,000 flips per run... so that is in total for 10⁸ flips.

[IMGW=500]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/CoinFlipperV4_1.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/CoinFlipperV4_1_ChartFromData.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/CoinFlipperV4_1_ChartFromData2.png[/IMGW]​

ETA: A fluctuation of 0.001% up or down in 1,000,000 flips is 10 flips up or down... and if after 100,000,000 flips the cumulative running average is off by 0.005% that means it is off by 5,000 flips as can be seen from the zoomed in graph.

5,000 flips of error is not exactly a small error in GUESSING.



.

 

[jimbob]

I apologize for not being clearer. I'm affirmatively agnostic about randomness in nature. It's not that I don't have the knowledge. It's that I don't think the knowledge can be had. Not by me, not by you, not by anyone.

You finding the idea of determinism philosophically offensive doesn't convince me it's wrong. That's just your appeal to incredulity. Your demonstration of pseudorandomness in an artifical setting doesn't convince me of randomness in a natural setting, for obvious reasons.

You say randomness in nature can be known, and that you know it. As far as I can tell, this is a matter of faith for you.

I actually think it can be known, and in fact is demonstrated by the fact that the universe has any structure, which can be explained by random fluctuations in the first few instants after the Big Bang, but which I struggle to see how or why there should be any structure in what should otherwise be uniform starting conditions.

 

[Leumas]

Yes I did answer that.

No you did not.

For starters. I pointed out that your phrase "That is not just deterministic... it is not even random" only makes sense if one has a fundamental misunderstanding of what randomness actually is.

Fine... let's have a look at who is not understanding...

I said...

Let's say that one picks the 20th card from the right side of a shuffled and spread out deck of cards every time.

That is not just deterministic... it is not even random

Can you explain to me how picking the 20th card from the right side of a deck of cards spread out on a table.. is random?

I think your misunderstanding is that you did not read the rest of the post and think that I was saying that the card picked is not random in value/color.

No... that is the point I am trying to make... the fact that the deck is shuffled makes the card picked random DESPITE the non-random pick always of the 20th card from the right side.

Get it ... the action of picking the 20th card EVERY TIME is not a random process.

Are you saying that it is???

Read the whole post... and please answer its questions.

Secondly, you tell me that I am misunderstanding, which is quite possible because I am not bothering to look at the code, just what others have pointed out and what you have accepted. Which is that you are using a subset of the data, and that only makes sense if you are not having the truly random data regenerated every time.

That is not answering the question about the cards.

Can you answer the questions about the cards?

But from what others have pointed out about your data and what you have accepted is that you are not shuffling the cards each time. You are just using a hard-to-predict but deterministic process to decide which of the previously-shuffled cards to pick. And that people who have examined the algorithm do know the order of the shuffled cards.

(1) That is not answering the questions about the deck of cards.

(2) You are wrong... it is not hard to predict.... it is impossible to predict.

(3) read the code... I am shuffling the cards.

(4) You can verify things by going to primary sources not by using what others say... go read the code.

(5) I said multiple times that I shuffle the "cards".

(6) Read the code don't take my word (the one who wrote the code) or others' who did not.... read the code the primary source not hearsay about it.

In that case - if someone was given the seed values for your pseudorandom number generator, they could predict what the outcome would be. With 100% confidence.

How... I don't even know what the seeds are... and even the people who wrote the PRNG algorithm don't either.

So who is going to give that someone what cannot be known by anyone?

And if they are not given the seeds which no one knows... is it random then or not?

BUT...

That is why I asked you the stuff about the cards which you have so far not answered even once.

The point was to make you see that DESPITE THE ENTIRELY non-random picking of the 20th card of a shuffled deck of the cards the card that is picked will still be random in value/color.

Get that... had you bothered to read the post about the cards you would have seen that your above objection about the seeds is utterly invalid.

BECAUSE... even if the picking of the card out of a shuffled deck of cards is utterly deterministic... the card value/color is totally random.

Get that.

Please man... just read the whole card post and answer the questions.

I made the card post to respond to your claim of PRNG being a deterministic process (it is not) and thus rendering the picking of a "card" deterministic.

I think you need to read the scenario again IN FULL... not just the first two lines... and answer the questions.

When you have done that you will see that your above statement about the PRNG is wrong in all aspects.

 

[Thermal]

Re: 20th card from the right thingy.

It's an entirely random location after a deck is shuffled. Literally no different than cutting the deck and picking one off the top, or bottom, or some random location in between. There is no meaning or more significance to being 20th from the right than there is at any other point. You think it is not random, but it entirely is.

 

[Leumas]

Re: 20th card from the right thingy.

It's an entirely random location after a deck is shuffled. Literally no different than cutting the deck and picking one off the top, or bottom, or some random location in between. There is no meaning or more significance to being 20th from the right than there is at any other point. You think it is not random, but it entirely is.

Yes thermal.... WELL DONE... it is random because the deck is shuffled.

Well done.

So when one objects that because I am using a PRNG to select "cards" from the TRNG file and thus this makes it deterministic he is utterly wrong.

And that is why I did the analogy to the deck of cards.

So thanks for being the only one who has managed to actually answer the question

Choosing a "card" from a shuffled "deck of cards" results in a RANDOM... "entirely random" as you said... thanks.... card and has nothing to do with whether the picking process is random or not.

So in other words using a PRNG to pick a "card" from a "deck of cards" does not make the selected card not "entirely random".

You got it...well done.

Or speaking about the file of TRNG data (deck of cards)... when shuffled... and then a RANDOM "CUT" is done and from that cut then one Number (card) is chosen.... its Value (color) being "red" or "black" is RANDOM "entirely random".

And the baseless concern about the PRNG being used to pick data from a TRNG making the process deterministic is ENTIRELY BASELESS... since it is "ENTIRELY RANDOM".... QED!!!


THANKS for being the only one in this whole thread who answered the question.... and correctly at that...

 

[Leumas]

Some Graphs from the new facility

The graphs in this post were done using Excel by copying the data from Coin Flipper V4.1 using the new features.

The graphs there are for PRNG using 10,000,000 flips a run for 100+ runs.

Here are graphs for TRNG (10,000 flips a runs for 100+ runs) and Crypto RNG (1,000,000 flips a run for 150+ runs).

Each has 3 graphs

1. The runs data for each run
2. The running averages after each run for all the runs (results in a too small a scale... Zoomed out)
3. The running averages after each run but starting at the run that first gets close to 50% (0%)... this results in a larger scale and thus zoomed in on the data to see the fluctuation more clearly.

Note: Notice how the zoomed out scale for the Crypto running averages is DECEPTIVE appearing to be "converging" when in fact if one zooms in on the DETAILS one can observe all the FLUCTUATIONS and not any "converging" going on at all... nor any dampening of the oscillations either... cannot happen dues to the inherent RANDOMNESS of the process.

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/TRNG_Graph_RunData.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/TRNG_Graph_RunningAverages.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/TRNG_Graph_RunningAveragesZoomed.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/Crypto_Graph_RunData.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/Crypto_Graph_RunningAverages.png[/IMGW]

[IMGW=700]http://godisadeadbeatdad.com/CoinFlipperImages/Crypto_Graph_RunningAveragesZoomed.png[/IMGW]​

 

[Leumas]

Re: 20th card from the right thingy.

It's an entirely random location after a deck is shuffled. Literally no different than cutting the deck and picking one off the top, or bottom, or some random location in between. There is no meaning or more significance to being 20th from the right than there is at any other point. You think it is not random, but it entirely is.

I just noticed the above.

No thermal... I do not think that... I made the whole thing so as to show using the cards analogy that IT IS random.... as you the one and only one who correctly said so.

And I think your confusion there about my thinking is the one jimbob is having too.

jimbob was objecting to the PRNG being used to select a "card" and maintained that this nullifies the TRNG file and makes the whole thing deterministic.

And as you correctly have discerned... his objection is not correct.

I made the picking of the 20th card every time so as to show that even without a PRNG random pick at all the fact that the "card deck" is shuffled makes the picked card be a random card and thus a random red/black.

Thus illustrating using an analogy to a COMMONSENSE intuitive scenario of a deck of cards and shuffling and cutting and then picking cards to illustrate how the PRNG being Pseudo... does not in anyway make the picked card not random..."entirely random"... which is what I think so too.

Thanks for answering... although you got my "thinking" wrong...