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2007-08-19 13:43:56
56 votes, rating 4.8
56 votes, rating 4.8
Random events and the brain
From Wikipedia:
"The commonly used variant of Mersenne Twister, MT19937 has the following desirable properties:
1. It was designed to have a colossal period of 2^19937 -1 (the creators of the algorithm proved this property). In practice, there is little reason to use larger ones, as most applications do not require 2^19937 unique combinations (in decimal, 2^19937 is approximately 4.315425 × 10^6001).
2. It has a very high order of dimensional equidistribution (see linear congruential generator). Note that this means, by default, that there is negligible[elaborate] serial correlation between successive values in the output sequence.
3. It is faster than all but the most statistically unsound generators.
4. It passes numerous tests for statistical randomness, including the stringent Diehard tests."
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The problem with randomness is that the human brain doesn´t handle it very well. The brain is always looking for patterns. It does a wonderful job when there actually is a pattern that can be recognized. When there is no pattern, the brain will try to find one anyway. "There are so many snakeeyes", "I´ll fail this dodge anyway", "my opponent always breaks my guys armour" - it´s just your brain trying to find a pattern where there is none. Every roll is an *independent* event, the RNG has no memory.
Our brains invented all this nonsense to explain something it clearly wasn´t designed to understand: Completely random events with absolutely no pattern or meaning whatsoever. It is natural to think that the dice are out to get you when you are losing, or that you will continue to be lucky when you have been "hot". But being natural does not mean it is helpful. Stop your pattern-recognizer before it goes haywire by telling yourself "There is no pattern! There is no pattern!"
That last paragraph is actually taken from a book about Poker ("Small stakes hold em" by David Sklansky et al), I just substituted "cards" for "dice". It´s as true for Bloodbowl as it is for Poker though. So please, don´t give any meaning to random events.
"The commonly used variant of Mersenne Twister, MT19937 has the following desirable properties:
1. It was designed to have a colossal period of 2^19937 -1 (the creators of the algorithm proved this property). In practice, there is little reason to use larger ones, as most applications do not require 2^19937 unique combinations (in decimal, 2^19937 is approximately 4.315425 × 10^6001).
2. It has a very high order of dimensional equidistribution (see linear congruential generator). Note that this means, by default, that there is negligible[elaborate] serial correlation between successive values in the output sequence.
3. It is faster than all but the most statistically unsound generators.
4. It passes numerous tests for statistical randomness, including the stringent Diehard tests."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem with randomness is that the human brain doesn´t handle it very well. The brain is always looking for patterns. It does a wonderful job when there actually is a pattern that can be recognized. When there is no pattern, the brain will try to find one anyway. "There are so many snakeeyes", "I´ll fail this dodge anyway", "my opponent always breaks my guys armour" - it´s just your brain trying to find a pattern where there is none. Every roll is an *independent* event, the RNG has no memory.
Our brains invented all this nonsense to explain something it clearly wasn´t designed to understand: Completely random events with absolutely no pattern or meaning whatsoever. It is natural to think that the dice are out to get you when you are losing, or that you will continue to be lucky when you have been "hot". But being natural does not mean it is helpful. Stop your pattern-recognizer before it goes haywire by telling yourself "There is no pattern! There is no pattern!"
That last paragraph is actually taken from a book about Poker ("Small stakes hold em" by David Sklansky et al), I just substituted "cards" for "dice". It´s as true for Bloodbowl as it is for Poker though. So please, don´t give any meaning to random events.
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