Please provide an algorithm to do so. Or explain a mechanism/idea which would create randomness, even if you don't have the precise algorithm.

No, I can't imagine a way to get it with "software alone" on a Von Neumann machine (standard computer). It can be done with input from an outside source (but of course this is not software only).

This post was edited by Azrad on Oct 3 2013 12:34am

Any software running on deterministic hardware will produce deterministic result. The idea of PRNG is to produce, as it says, pseudo randomness, in the sense that it appears random to any party that isn't privy of the PRNG's state. PRNG's are deterministic algorythms anyways. Given the same state, they'll always produce the same result. The better your entropy and the more you approach the ideal of randomness, in a sense that the PRNG state is being fed by more sources, that are independent from each other in appearance at least, and parts or the whole of the state is being reseted to new entropy more often. I don't know if true randomness can be achieved in computers, but the complexity of pseudo randomness can be quantified and amplified.

This post was edited by flyinggoat on Oct 3 2013 01:12am

Not too sure, what about using network traffic?

flyinggoat addressed that:


Of course the key to making a good PRNG is to make it where replicating the state is very difficult. For example imagine a simple video poker machine:

Lets say it gets its pseudo random numbers from sampling the 12th decimal place of the system clock when the user presses the "draw" button. And you've got it worked out that you can get a royal flush on the next hand (from experimenting on an identical system) if you hit the draw button when this digit is 5. And we'll assume you can somehow see the system clock. So you wait for a 5 to get into the place and try to hit the button... I'm sure you can see how hard this is going to be to accomplish...

This post was edited by Azrad on Oct 3 2013 03:09am

if a application / cpu could generate completely random code / numbers / algorithms it would no longer be a cpu (as we know it) which processes predetermined data...

isnt random almost as impossible as ai? i mean in the same sense that its not actually AI, its not actually random.

You mean Ai singularity?

well no not really, thats to assume there is a point at which they become something they were not before, i find it hard to believe that a cpu / application by its own programming can evolve into a singularity, i think its much more probable if we are ever to get close to AI development, it would be at the design level / point before it was "awoken" before it "became" a "singularity"...

/e run on sentences is how i do.

This post was edited by VPN on Oct 3 2013 12:26pm

Why would you ask me a question, after stating in a PM that I don't know what I'm talking about, because I don't have any Forum Gold?...

This post was edited by Azrad on Oct 3 2013 03:17pm

u must have confused me with somebody who cares whether u think i care about something u may or may not care about.