Can a super being create a pure random number generator?

[jobyts]

The only requirement is that the pure random numbers generated have to be purely random to its creator, not for some other inferior species.

(To keep Evo happy, a super being is someone who is omniscient and omnipotent.)

[Office_Shredder]

Can a being which is omnipotent, hence literally capable of doing anything, choose a number in a process that he himself cannot decipher?

This is just a re-wording of the cook a burrito too hot to eat problem

[jobyts]

I think the hot burrito or heavy stone problem is about the contradiction within the omnipotence characteristic. The random number generator is on contradicting the omniscience characteristic.

I wonder if there is one for the omnipresence in a similar line.

[Office_Shredder]

Omniscience wouldn't let you generate random numbers, omnipotence would. I guess omniscience is what lets you know what the number is going to be.

On the other hand, even I can guess what random number I'm thinking of

[mr. vodka]

Well if the world is indeterministic, he can.

[CRGreathouse]

Well if the world is indeterministic, he can.

Doesn't that assumption preclude the existence of an omniscient being?

[Office_Shredder]

I don't think an omniscient being needs to be able to predict the future, just know everything about the present.

[mr. vodka]

Doesn't that assumption preclude the existence of an omniscient being?

No, the omniscience should be defined in the demain of the "knowable". After all, how would you be sure there are no contradictions in the assumption "a being that knows everything"? Reminds me of "every true theorem is provable". Do you have a notion/definition of what it means to know something without referring to a physical reality? You might propose to define a hypothetical reality by "a reality where everything is knowable" to make room for an omniscient being, but how do you know it makes sense? Would there be a notion of number in such a reality?

[Evo]

Why would an omniscient and omnipotent being need to create a random number generator? That, IMO, is an insult to the O&O.

[mr. vodka]

Why would an omniscient and omnipotent being need to create a random number generator? That, IMO, an insult to the OO.

Maybe they want RSA?

[Office_Shredder]

Maybe they want RSA?

How the hell is he supposed to know if the number he comes up with is prime?

Let's try to stick to realistic applications here

Actually, now that I think about it this is a good question. If P is not NP, asking an omniscient being would surely be a polynomial time solution for traveling salesman and therefore it would disprove the existence of an omniscient being

[daniel_i_l]

If P is not NP, asking an omniscient being would surely be a polynomial time solution for traveling salesman and therefore it would disprove the existence of an omniscient being
It wouldn't disprove the being because the being might not be operating by the assumptions of computer science. For example, it could solve the problem in exponential time, but give us the answer in polynomial time by looking into the future to see the answer to it's calculation.

[Hurkyl]

Actually, now that I think about it this is a good question. If P is not NP, asking an omniscient being would surely be a polynomial time solution for traveling salesman and therefore it would disprove the existence of an omniscient being
Equivocation at its finest. :tongue: "Polynomial time" for a kind of oracle turing machine is a different class than "Polynomial time" for turing machines.

[Proton Soup]

The only requirement is that the pure random numbers generated have to be purely random to its creator, not for some other inferior species.

(To keep Evo happy, a super being is someone who is omniscient and omnipotent.)

interesting. to me, it's like asking if the creator can create. a non-random number is based on something that was pre-existing. and this is the way pseudorandom number generators work, with a deterministic algorithm "creating" each new number from the last.

but truly random implies creating something from nothing. like a series of little big bangs. ex nihilo creation.

this is weird. it seems obvious that O&O beings can create from nothing. but would there be undesirable consequences? would each new creation require destruction of the prior one? i'm not sure i want to be in the universe in which this is happening.