Randomness is not very random

We humans have a hard time understanding randomness. Our brains are wired to recognize patterns, and we cling to that: one of the reasons we see familiar shapes in clouds, our brains need too see something familiar in the unfamiliar.

Randomness is not unfair, it simply is: lose 6 times in a row, then win 5, then lose 1 and then win 10, only to lose 20 times after, or just win once, lose after, and repeat 5 more times, or anything else in between.....you never know, but your brain will try to rationalize it by looking at patterns.

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Vendetta#0327 wrote:

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Vipermagi#0984 wrote:

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Sastre19#1001 wrote:

I understand what you're saying, but I've had those streaks too many times. That's why I'm writing this post. Why doesn't the opposite, meaning having really good luck, happen with the same frequency?
I also wanted to say that when the game says "random", it's not really random, since many times the weight of the item drops, or modifiers, for example, come into play.

The reason 'lucky streaks' are less frequent is exactly because the chance at any given outcome is not equal. Let's say you have a six-sided die, and want to roll a 2. A success is only one-in-six, and there is a five-in-six chance to fail this roll. Although the odds to roll a 2 is much lower, it is still random. Similarly, although the odds of winning a given prize at the lottery is most certainly not equal between various prizes, it's still random. Equality is not necessary for something to be random.

Random in computer programming does not truly exist. Everyone giving the same dice story has no clue how random is designed in programming.

I do agree about the luck streaks stuff...This is why everything is weighted.

Again; this is utterly meaningless in the context of a regular human experience in a video game today. We aren't talking about NES in 1987 anymore. Random in computer programming does not "truly" exist, but that doesn't mean that the experience a human being will have with a function running on a computer isn't utterly indistinguishable from a naturally random event like a dice roll. A set of dice rolls is a perfectly good analogy for the expectation of outcomes from a dataset determined by a prng from a pc today, even if the method used to obtain it is different.

Unless you have a very good reason to believe otherwise, there is absolutely no reason to attribute malicious programming to a streak of bad luck as posts similar to the OP in this thread do.

Furthermore, this isn't in response to your post but rather further clarification to the OP; something can be random without outcomes being equally weighted, and a discussion of randomness vs a discussion of weighting are two entirely separate topics.

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Pathological#1188 wrote:

Again; this is utterly meaningless in the context of a regular human experience in a video game today. We aren't talking about NES in 1987 anymore. Random in computer programming does not "truly" exist, but that doesn't mean that the experience a human being will have with a function running on a computer isn't utterly indistinguishable from a naturally random event like a dice roll. A set of dice rolls is a perfectly good analogy for the expectation of outcomes from a dataset determined by a prng from a pc today, even if the method used to obtain it is different.

yep.

and to go even further, determinism would say the dice the roll itself isnt even random, that everything about the dice roll and the entire existence of the person rolling the dice is completely predetermined from the birth of the universe.

so in a way nothing is actually random but just becomes functionally random by our inability to fully compute the mechanics of it.

We also have to take into account that, since it is a human being who creates this simulation, with a computer keyboard, there may be the possibility that the code is written with some error, either involuntarily or "voluntarily". I don't know how that could be noticed in the game experience, maybe as I notice it?
Thanks for your answers. Deep down I also believe that luck and chance do not exist, I believe in causality but that is for other forums, hahaha
I have a friend who playing Risk, was almost invincible because he almost always got 6. At that time I did not understand it, but now I do. And it was not a game, we played every Friday afternoon. Obviously I beat him by strategy on the days when he was more down.