aeblog

consciously random

I've been thinking a lot about my post on randomness lately. I have gotten a number of responses and inquiries about the topic since the post and these have led to some interesting discussions.
I'm sitting up on Islesboro Island in Maine right now (well, I was when I originally wrote this...) looking out onto Bracketts Channel through a thicket of white birch trees. Trees are one of my favorite examples of the combination of order and reason with apparent randomness. With their subtle curves, branchings out and little knobules of knot, these trunks tell countless stories of strong winds and variable sun. However, the clear intent of the tree, their programming, if you will, is to grow straight and tall and sprout branches with leaves positioned to be free and clear in their access to the sunlight. It's like they have a mission statement which guides them overall, but allows for the flexibility to adapt to the randomness of the world around it. Without this acceptance of random, unanticipated events, they would surely die. This must hold true for everything, yes?
I can accept that there is no randomness dictating the behavior of the smallest of the small objects. But it is the interaction between these micro-activities on a more macro level that in my mind fosters randomness. Can collections of perfectly predictable actions lead to something wholly unpredictable? This reminds me of some of the territory that William Gibson gets into in his book Pattern Recognition.

I've also been thinking about randomness in the non-conscious sense (ie. trees) and randomness in the conscious sense (ie. you and me). Surely there are both differences and similarities. Free will begets randomness, right?
Does random mean 'without reason or intent'? Or is it "unable to be predicted"? Our friends at Merriam Webster state that random is "lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern", so I guess it is sort of both of my definitions somehow. This definition would suggest that the only truly random things occur with conscious beings. Trees have their 'plan' hard-coded into their very fiber, so everything they do reflects that plan and is therefore, not random. Yet as I look out onto Bracketts Channel, I can't help but feel that there are strains of randomness, or at the very least, happenstance, which contributed to this beauty.

But again, perhaps randomness is in the eyes of the beholder, and my eyes are particularly susceptible. I can live with that.