Q&A: What Is Probability
What Is Probability
Question
Hello Rabbi,
The Rabbi presented in his book that even a “chaotic” system is בעצם deterministic. I wanted to ask, following that line of thought: what is probability? After all, we can say that if we throw a die with the same force, from the same angle, onto the same surface, etc. — we will get a result that is known in advance and repeats itself! So where did “probability,” which looks like something random, come from?
And if the claim is that probability is only our lack of knowledge about the conditions of reality, as in chaos, then how does it calculate things so precisely?
Thank you in advance.
Answer
I explained this question there as well. When there is strong dependence on initial or boundary conditions, the system behaves like a random system. For example, rolling a die is a completely deterministic event, but the result depends very strongly and sensitively on the initial velocity (magnitude and direction), and therefore we deal with it using probabilistic tools. True probability, meaning randomness in nature itself, apparently exists only in quantum theory. In the macroscopic world, every probability is only of this type (the chaotic kind, that is, absence of information).
By the way, probability by definition relates to lack of information (epistemic randomness). True randomness (ontic) is handled by fuzzy logic.