Magnets

I've been thinking about RNG a lot recently. 

I heard it's based on magnets, or balloons or something. Which doesn't make much sense, to be honest - but none of that stuff does to me. I don't really pay much attention in maths. 

I used to be pretty solid at maths. I'd go to competitions like a real nerd. But nowadays, I spend my (remedial) maths lessons writing blog posts like these.

I don't understand how the magnet thing works. Is it like, magnets of a certain strength, and each time they clink it's a 1 in binary? Every time they don't it's a 0? Over time, don't magnets get stronger - so you'd be more likely to get certain numbers over time, surely?

Or how do balloons get it done? You let go and see if they make it to the moon? 

It all seems made up to me. Or rather, it seems pointless.

One thing about me is I don't really believe in free will. I feel as though every choice I make is just a result of my upbringing or genetic makeup, and doesn't actually equate to real choices. 

I used to think to myself at the end of bus rides, 'what if I get off a stop early? That would prove I have free will - since I'm using it to make a bad decision.'

But that wouldn't prove anything, anyway. I thought about it for so long it was just another way my circumstances were leading me to act. People make bad decisions every day, and it doesn't prove anything. 

I never ended up getting off a stop early anyhow. Some free will.

How does RNG work into this? If there is actual randomness in the universe, is that predetermined? 

Sometimes I use a yes or no spinner to make decisions for me. I did it one day when I didn't feel like school, and it told me to stay home - which was pretty lucky, seeing as I unknowingly had Covid.

Some might argue, if free will isn't real, neither is randomness. If we are predetermined by our environment, then the exact moment we hit the 'generate number' button should be definite, making the result just as certain.

But then what about weather? And magnets? And balloons, and digits of mathematical formulae? Those aren't controlled by a human on a button. And if we made a copy of the Earth, and ran both simulations side by side: we would likely have drastically different stories based on the randomness of our natural environment, and how that affected our (admittedly predetermined) choices.

I'm getting lost in the details here. My friend Keya's always talking about how humans can never truly understand the universe, largely just because we have no idea what 'infinity' actually looks like. That makes sense, honestly - in my mind, infinity just means everything, but I can't really grasp how that would work. 

If time is infinite, or the size of the universe is infinite, then I should exist, as I do now, an infinite amount of times. Like how an infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters should write Shakespeare's works an infinite number of times. 

(Side note - apparently some infinities are bigger than others. That's what breaks my brain the most.)

So here's what I think: we have no real choice in what we do, but it doesn't really matter - because it's still new to us. And the fact things in our natural environment can be random just heightens this fact. That means I think my future isn't preprogrammed because natural, environmental events can't be predicted - but rather, I consist of a few billion elifs that mean my reaction is predictable.

I wonder if this makes any sense or if I sound stupid. Maybe a bit of both. I think that's most of my posts.