I Love to Learn

Today I learnt that when listening to music, when you select the random button on your playlist/album it is not truly random in the strictest mathematical sense.

This is because if it were truly random, to our primate perceptual apparatus it would not [i]seem[/i] random.

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SW-User

actually it's because computers can't generate truly random numbers

Jm31xxx · 41-45, M

@SW-User sure they can!! Basically a computer just has to simulate a dice. That's pretty easy.

SW-User

@Jm31xxx ok so what algorithm would it use?

Jm31xxx · 41-45, M

@SW-User OK, I don't know about algorithms and thinks like that. But when ever I listen to a playlist on random, the same song is NEVER played two times in a row. Also, songs that should be consecutive naturally, never, when random is activated, occur consecutively.

If it were [i]truly[/i] random, those things would happen.

I didn't figure this out for myself BTW, I got it from reddit. I'll try and go back and reread the article in case I missed something though.

SW-User

@Jm31xxx on Spotify, it says "shuffle" rather than "random," which is not the same thing. When you shuffle a deck of cards and start taking them off the top, you don't get multiple cards in a row.

Jm31xxx · 41-45, M

@SW-User Ive never used spotify

Jm31xxx · 41-45, M

@SW-User OK, just in case you're still interested, here's the article.....

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/why-random-shuffle-feels-far-from-random-10066621.html?utm_source=reddit.com

I gotta confess, I haven't actually read it, I only read the tag line as it appeared on reddit. Maybe what I was trying to say when I posted in this group could have been phrased better.

I like to think there's chance we could both be at least a little bit right.

SW-User

@Jm31xxx fair enough :)