Randomness...

Ever thought about randomness?

It crosses my mind from time to time in my brain meanderings but it actually popped up in the podcast I've been devouring over the last few weeks worth of commute.

This always interested me because I reckon that getting a random number from a computer or calculator can't be truly random. For a machine to do it there must be some sort of starting point for a calculation to begin from and then it is just a combination of calculations to get to the seemingly random number. I think this is probably done from a unit of time or something.

Something they said on the podcast that I don't think I can agree with until someone explains it to me is that human's can't created true randomness. The podcast article was actually about a method of obtaining a true random number from something called quantum entanglement which I won't even pretend to understand but apparently the clicking of a Geiger counter is an effect of this.

I was always of the opinion that true randomness can only be achieved from sentient intelligence. Possibly the comment that humans can't give out randomness is because they wouldn't be random to the person thinking them however they can be easily random to anyone else.