[From Kenny Kitzke (991007.1300EDT)]
<Bill Powers (991005.0712 MDT)>
<If there were a "mathematical definition of random" I would apply it. But
there is no such definition in mathematics.>
That is not my perception concerning statistical mathematics. Perhaps Phil
can cast some net here? 
But, it is not worth my time to research it
right now.
<What "random" means in practice
is "unpredictable by any known systematic way of making predictions.">
Is this the definition you use when you state in MSOB, "When you are trying
to resolve a conflict, and nothing you already know how to do works, the only
resource you have left is reorganization, which amounts to trying something
new at random and seeing if things get better or worse."?
I don't think what you try though is selected at random. Because the result
of trying something new cannot be predicted does not make what you are doing
a random method of control done without intelligence. When a result is
unpredictable, it is the result that is random, not the process of what is
being done.
IOW, do you agree that what one does when trying to "reorganize" is not
selected randomly by the "reorganization system?" However, it may be true
that the result of the reorganizing is not predictable and may be loosely
termed a random (but I think more accurately an unknown) result? We then
sense whether we want to do more of that type of reorganizing or not. I see
this. But, if not, the next attempt is not random but reasoned by some new
basis, although the precise result may not be predictable either and will be
generated in a sort of random way.
<Another meaning might be "all alternatives equally probable," although that
is never the case and anyway is a put-up job, since the alternatives are
chosen arbitrarily (somehow nobody ever seems to guess that the coin will
melt or that when you pick a bean out of the jar it will fall through a
crack in the floor before you can see what color it is, and so on for an
infinite number of possible alternative outcomes).>
It seems to me is not any more a put-up job of reorganization than you not
believing in a Creator is a put-up job. Aren't you just ignoring what to you
is a small probability?
While a coin may melt when flipped, the probability is perceived as so small
from past experience, it can be ignored to obtain the result of interest (a
head or a tail to start the football game). Flipping a coin is a reasoned,
intelligent way to start a football game with a random or chance outcome,
which is known within limits. For me, that describes how I "reorganize" and
create new possibilities and reference perceptions.
When I role a die, I cannot predict exactly what number will face up. This
does not make rolling a die a random process. In fact, when done in a
controlled and predictable manner, the process will produce a known result
within predictable limits, not a random result where anything might happen (a
snake appears on the face up of the die). That's how casinos make money from
people playing craps. I don't think they would describe the results as
random, just not precisely predictable.
Are you saying that when we are "reorganizing," we cannot control the
"reorganization process" to reasonably knowable references?
<But what do you
do when you have no learned method for correcting an error? All you can do
is try something at random.>
I must indeed be a dunce. When all my known methods of getting my tractor
unstuck from the mud have not worked, I don't yodel (though I may pray). I
then combine all my wits to devise a new attempt. I just don't see that as
random. I either get it unstuck or I don't.
I guess the problem I have is that there are many times I do not know the
precise result of a selected method of control but I don't consider that as
reorganization. I'm getting a headache on this issue and will just have to
stop and "reorganize."
<And that's what we do, even if some people call
it Divine Inspiration.>
When you don't perceive that divine inspiration exists, you just choose to
call the same phenomena random. Sounds like PCT to me.
<No, Kenny, I believe I can understand anything you can understand, and I
don't think you experience anything I don't experience.>
Funny, because you seem to think you can understand things that I can't, like
the presence in humans of a random reorganization function or how humans
actually work (PCT according to your understanding).
As far as what I experience, how could you possibly know what I experience?
Isn't this contrary to the very basic premises of PCT? What a strange thing
for the PCT guru to say. You can't know what I do and do not perceive, can
you?
<The only difference
between us is that you want absolute answers the easy way, right now, even
if you have to make them up, while I am more patient and am willing to
progress more slowly and carefully.>
This may be as foolish a statement as I have ever heard you make.
<If you respect them so much, why not try showing some of the same
characteristics, instead of trying to impress everyone with your infallible
God-given knowledge?>
Oops. Spoke to soon. That is more foolish. I've read several of your
books, come to your conferences, written very complimentary things about you
and your notable PCT discovery. I even asked you to sign my copy of B:CP. I
hope you don't demand worship too? Isn't there any random possibility
that you are wrong and someone else, even like me, is right about the nature
of human beings?
