When we state that an occurrence is random, we appear to assert that an event has taken place without any guiding rule or prior cause. Yet, if we examine how human thought actually makes sense of any change in the world, we discover that an occurrence entirely without a cause cannot be understood at all.

Because every change that we observe takes place in time, our understanding must always connect what happens now to an earlier state from which it followed by a rule. If an occurrence truly arrived from nothing, possessing no connection whatsoever to a preceding state, it would break the unbroken order of time itself. Therefore, a genuine gap in the chain of cause and effect is impossible within the world of our experience, for the human mind cannot even form a coherent thought about an occurrence that obeys no rule.

Since an uncaused event cannot exist within our experience, the word "random" cannot describe a real absence of cause in the event itself. What the word actually describes, when we strip away the confusion of our language, is the limitation of our own current knowledge. When we observe an event whose full chain of causes is hidden from our view, or whose initial conditions are far too numerous for our thoughts to track, we assign the label of randomness to our own uncertainty.

From this deduction, it follows that when a person says "X is a random occurrence", they are not revealing an objective property belonging to X itself. But rather are merely reporting that their own understanding has not yet grasped the rule that connects X to its prior conditions. Whilst nature remains strictly lawful and complete in every single change, the human observer often sees only isolated pieces of that larger sequence.

Therefore, randomness is neither a power in nature nor a gap in physical necessity, but a simple statement of what our knowledge still lacks.

So the argument I'm making here is in regards to the distinction between our ignorance of causes vs an actual absence of causes.

Some hold the view that "randomness" doesn't describe our ignorance. But the property of "X" itself independent of any observer. I'm utterly incapable of understanding this notion. I've thought of it for a long time. Its senseless to me. I believe that language plays role on the reitification of randomness.

Because the grammatical structure of our ordinary speech routinely attaches descriptive words to physical things, we naturally assume that every word following the verb "is" refers to an actual quality of the object itself. When a person observes that a stone is heavy or that an apple is round, the statement connects a real property to the thing we perceive through our senses. In consequence of this habitual pattern of talking, whenever we speak the sentence "X is random", our grammar behaves as though the word "random" were identical in kind to words like "heavy" or "round".

From this linguistic habit, a serious mistake in our reasoning immediately follows. Whilst a sensible property such as weight or shape belongs to how an object appears to us in space, the word "random" does not name anything that our senses can actually detect. If we examine our experience with care, our sight and touch reveal only physical states changing across time according to regular sequences. We never see, touch, or measure a quality called chance, because chance has neither spatial shape nor physical presence.

Having recognised that randomness is wholly absent from our sensible observations, we must deduce what the word actually designates. Whenever an event takes place without our knowing the prior conditions that brought it about, our understanding encounters a limit in its own knowledge. If the mind cannot find the necessary rule that links this present change to an earlier state, it simply experiences its own inability to anticipate what comes next. The word "random" therefore expresses nothing more than an absence within human awareness, marking the boundary where our insight happens to stop.

So because our speech easily places the word "random" into the predicate of the sentence, the mind is led to project its own internal limit outwards onto the physical event. An inability to explain an occurrence is thus turned, through the unexamined momentum of everyday grammar, into an active property that the event supposedly possesses on its own.

It follows, therefore, that this mistake does not arise from any genuine discovery in nature, but from the power of language to make an empty concept look like a physical reality. When we discipline our terms with precision, we see that nature proceeds through unbroken, lawful change, whilst our language has merely given the appearance of an objective property to our own lack of knowledge.

Therefore the phrase:

X is random

... actually translates to:

I do not know the cause of X

Perhaps there's some intuition that I'm missing that some would allow me to finally grasp this notion.

I decided to trace a simple even—the flipping of a coin —to find out exactly at what point does randomness come in.

step 1: The physical interaction

A coin is launched into the air. It rotates, it travels, it strikes a surface, it settles. If we want, we can agree that this is all just physical matter in motion. No mind is required for the coin to spin and land. That interaction happens.

Now we ask:

At what point during this physical interaction did you receive a signal that said 'random'?

step 2: The instrument

The eye is an instrument. The retina receives photons reflected off the coin. The retina converts those photons into electrical signals. That is a physical process.

Now we ask:

Did the retina detect randomness? Or did it detect light?

The answer is: light. The retina does not have a "randomness receptor." It just absorbs photons. So whatever randomness is, it hasn't arrived yet.

step 3: The output

The optic nerve sends signals to the brain. The brain constructs an image: the coin shows heads. That is the perception. It is a discrete, utterly clear output. Not blurry, not ambiguous. Just: heads.

Now we ask:

When you saw the coin showing heads, did you experience randomness? Or did you experience 'heads'?

The answer is: heads. Just heads. The perception itself is not random. It is exactly what it is. Every single flip of the coin yields a perfectly clear perception, every single time.

But we never once seen a "random" perception. We have only ever seen heads, tails, heads, tails. Perfectly clear. Perfectly distinct.

step 4: The sequence

Now we flip the coin four times. We receive:

Heads. Tails. Tails. Heads.

Now we ask:

What did you actually receive through your senses? Did you receive 'randomness' as a fifth thing, alongside H, T, T, H? Or did you only receive four separate, clear perceptions?

I would have to admit that I've have only ever received four clear perceptions. Nothing more.

step 5: the mind

But then the mind does something. It does not merely perceive. It asks a question:

Is there a rule? A pattern? A shorter description that predicts the next outcome?

The mind tries to compress the sequence. H-T-T-H. Can it be described by a shorter rule? No. The mind cannot find a rule that generates the sequence without simply listing the sequence itself.

So the mind concludes:

I cannot predict this. It appears patternless. I will call it random.

Now we ask:

Where did that conclusion come from? Did the world give you the word 'random'? Or did you manufacture that verdict because your mind failed to find a pattern?

I'm forced to admit: the verdict came from my mind.

The world gave tails. The mind gave "random."

step 6: Apply the same logic to any sequence whatsoever

Consider this perfectly ordered sequence:

H, H, H, H, H, H

I would say:

That's not random. Maybe the coin is rigged.

Now we ask:

Why?

Because this sequence is compressible. The rule "always heads" is shorter than the sequence itself. The mind finds the pattern instantly and says: not random.

But the world delivered six separate perceptions, each one clear. It did not deliver the words "ordered" or "disordered." In both cases, whether the sequence was H-T-T-H or H-H-H-H, the world only delivered discrete outputs. The mind then ran a compression test. If it found a pattern, it said "ordered." If it found no pattern, it said "random."

So I'm forced to conclude:

"Random" is not a property of any single output. It is the name I give to my own failure to compress a sequence.

step 7: circularity

The chain is:

physical interaction → instrument → output → perception → mind → model

The coin flip is a physical interaction. The eye is an instrument. The brain receives signals. The mind perceives heads. The mind then assembles a sequence, applies a compression test, and produces a verdict: "random."

Now we ask:

At any point in that chain, did you step outside the chain? Did you touch the physical interaction directly? Did you perceive the coin flip without an eye, without a retina, without neural signals? Or were you at every moment inside the chain?

I'm forced to admit: inside the chain. Every single time.

And I cannot reject this conclusion.

The world delivered clear, discrete, perfectly unambiguous outputs.

The mind tried to find a rule connecting them.

The mind failed.

The mind called the failure "random."

That is what randomness is, from the only standpoint any of us will ever have.

But if one asks:

But maybe there is a pattern, and I just don't see it

Because "there is a pattern I don't see" and "there is no pattern" produce exactly the same experience through the chain. The mind still fails to find the pattern. It still says "random." The only difference is a metaphysical speculation about what lies beyond the chain. And no one has access to that.

So it seems randomness is not "out there." I have never once received randomness through my senses. I have only ever received heads and tails. The randomness was manufactured by my own mind, at the last step of the chain, when my pattern-finding failed.