Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by zzrg on Thursday June 02, 2016 @02:21PM
(#11824843)
When I was little (and had too much free time) I memorized many digits of some transcendental numbers. The only (semi)practical use I've found for that knowledge, is that I can use it as a reasonably good pseudorandom stream. If for some reason I have to choose things pseudorandomly. Pick an arbitrary starting point in pi, and press 'd' for even digits and 'f' for odd digits, I get around 0.49 accuracy with this oracle.
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Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by thaumasiotes on Thursday June 02, 2016 @04:05PM
(#11825596)
You don't need a transcendental number; simple counting has perfect entropy:
0 1 10 11 100 101 110 111 1000 1001 1010 1011 1100 1101 1110 1111 10000...
(Granted, that is a transcendental number -- the Champernowne constant for base 2 -- but there's no real need to think of it that way.)
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by Bognar on Thursday June 02, 2016 @04:31PM
(#11825771)
This sequence seems to settle right around 50%:
var simulateKeyPress = function(character) {
var evt = document.createEvent("KeyboardEvent");
evt.initKeyEvent ("keypress", true, true, window,
0, 0, 0, 0,
0, character.charCodeAt(0))
document.body.dispatchEvent(evt);
};
var num = 0;
var loop = function() {
console.log(num);
var binary = num.toString(2);
num++;
for(var i = 0, len = binary.length; i < len; i++) {
simulateKeyPress(binary[i] == '0' ? 'd' : 'f');
}
};
setInterval(loop, 100);
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by thaumasiotes on Thursday June 02, 2016 @04:41PM
(#11825859)
It might sound weird, but I actually found that more readable as three lines of code. :/
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by steego on Thursday June 02, 2016 @04:14PM
(#11825656)
I wrote a program that counts but only appends the sequence if the binary sequence isn't already there.
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by thaumasiotes on Thursday June 02, 2016 @04:31PM
(#11825773)
> but only appends the sequence if the binary sequence isn't already there
Why?
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by snikeris on Thursday June 02, 2016 @02:34PM
(#11824941)
Haha, I did the same thing! From memory:
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197969399375105
Now, the interesting question, how accurate is my recollection after all these years? Ack, one digit off!
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by maxander on Thursday June 02, 2016 @05:11PM
(#11826103)
If a transcendental number is imperfectly remembered, are its digits thereby less random?
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by snikeris on Monday June 06, 2016 @06:14PM
(#11850882)
More random, I'd say.
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by schoen on Friday June 03, 2016 @12:19AM
(#11828261)
141592653589793238462643383279502884197969399375105... that 9 should be a 1, right?
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by snikeris on Monday June 06, 2016 @06:14PM
(#11850878)
Indeed.
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by perennate on Thursday June 02, 2016 @03:36PM
(#11825407)
Mm I did something similar, doesn't need memorization though: arbitrarily form sentences, go through the letters in order, and pick 'd' for a-m and 'f' for n-z. Of course there will be some patterns, but it's sufficient for this. And I think this strategy uses more free will :P
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by 3pt14159 on Thursday June 02, 2016 @02:35PM
(#11824948)
I imagined how I would have coded it and so I devised a system to get it down as low as possible. I ended up with 0.44 accuracy. Pure random would have been better :)
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by grondilu on Thursday June 02, 2016 @02:30PM
(#11824911)
Well, that only shows that this oracle can be improved. It should be able to recognize that pattern from a well known transcendental number.
Re:Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
by jobigoud on Friday June 03, 2016 @12:37AM
(#11828335)
That might be a slippery slope though. Is a known random sequence less random than an original one? Should a randomness detector keep a database of all random sequence ever produced to give lower scores to known ones?