[FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[Frank Wimberly]

The random + current thing sounds like a Markov process.  If the next value
is independent of the current value then it's random.  If it depends on the
current value and no previous values it's Markov of order 1.  If it depends
only on the current value and the one before and none before that, order
2.  Etc.  Or something like that.  I'm rusty.

Frank

Frank Wimberly
Phone (505) 670-9918

On Aug 9, 2017 8:48 AM, "Nick Thompson" <nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
>
>
>
> Thanks for your patience as I emerge (hopefully) from post-surgical fog.
>
>
>
> I figured I best start my own thread rather than gum up yours.
>
>
>
> First.  I had always supposed that a stochastic process was one whose
> value was determined by two factors, a random factor AND it’s last value.
> So the next step in a random walk is “random” but the current value (it’s
> present position on a surface, say) is “the result of a stochastic
> process.”  From your responses, and from a short rummage in Wikipedia, I
> still can’t tell if I am correct or not.
>
>
>
> Now remember, you guys, my standard critique of your discourse is that you
> confuse your models with the facts of nature.  What is this “evolution” of
> which you speak?  Unless you tell me otherwise, I will assume you are
> speaking of the messy biological process of which we are all a result: --  *The
> alteration of the design of taxa over time*.   Hard to see any way in
> which that actual process is evidently random.  We have to dig deep into
> the theory that EXPLAINS evolution to find anything that corresponds to the
> vernacular notion of randomness.  There is constraint and predictability
> all over the place in the evolution I know.  Even mutations are
> predictable.  In other words, the randomness of evolution is a creation of
> your imaginations concerning the phenomenon, not an essential feature of
> the phenomenon, itself.
>
>
>
> So what kind of “evolution” are you guys talking about?
>
>
>
> Yes, and forgive me for trolling, a bit.  I am trying to wake myself up,
> here.
>
>
>
> nick
>
>
>
> Nicholas S. Thompson
>
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>
> Clark University
>
> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
>
>
>
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