Cipher text can look a lot like randomness to the uninformed observer. If a deterministic system produces results, but the observer cannot model the underlying process from the results, are those results now random?

Now might be a good time to brush up on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem

> "Bell's theorem rules out local hidden variables as a viable explanation of quantum mechanics (though it still leaves the door open for non-local hidden variables, such as De Broglie–Bohm theory, etc)"

> though it still leaves the door open for non-local hidden variables, such as De Broglie–Bohm theory

Though non-local hidden variable theories need to be reconciled with special relativity lest it be possible to transmit information faster than light.

Enter the implicate (folded) order of the holoverse ("holographic universe"), which Bohm (among others) developed and supported.

See the non-local, higher-ordering properties of true holograms and eg. this mixed fluid experiment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpJ-kGII074

More on all this in Michael Talbot's amazing book "Holographic Universe": https://wikischool.org/book/holographic_universe

Yeah, but there is an important subtlety. Quantum mechanics has a bunch of things that can be /modeled extremely well/ by random variables. But it might still turn out that that they are deterministic in some complicated way.

Then we would be back in a universe where we have an extremely useful concept in the humble random variable, and no examples of anything that is fundamentally random. If I start with a random variable, I couldn't reasonably approximate it with a real phenomenon, because the phenomenon would be deterministic.

Compare that to a line - I can define a line between the center of mass of my two hands. We can quibble all day about whether that is a well defined definition (I suppose it isn't), but if I wanted to approximate a real line with two points in space I could.

I contend this is an interesting an important difference between subjects like geometry and subjects like statistics. The underpinnings of statistic are _extremely_ philosophical.