http://imgur.com/qREH4Jh
I guess I'm pretty random. I don't think this has anything to do with free will, in fact, I think this is the opposite.
Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
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Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#92You can use its own output against it. (Which means, ironically, it does not follow "know thyself", a maxim said to be from the Oracle at Delphi.)
Fixate on a number fairly late in the sequence (the millionths place seems to work well). If that number is 5-9, push 'f'. Otherwise, push 'd'. Keeps it pretty consistently around 0.5.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if your score is .4, a computer could predict you with .6 accuracy just by predicting what you will press and then guessing the opposite :)
but how does it know to use the opposite for him and not for other guesses? I make a similar mistake when I try to remember something by noting "it's not the choice I'm naturally inclined to choose, it's the other one". After I get used to using that heuristic, the correct choice becomes the one I'm naturally inclined to do, but then I have trouble remembering "is it the choice I'm inclined to do or the opposite". I'…
That's the trouble with game theory-like heuristics. To a layman like me it's unclear how many times do you want to recursively apply it.
The 2/3 of the average guess game is an interesting illustration where if you take the game theory approach and recursively apply it you'll end up with 0 all the time: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_2/3_of_the_average
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Always choose the one that makes a new 6-gram, or that makes a 6-gram with the fewest previous appearances?
Sure, is there an easy way to generate that algorithmically without maintaining an explicit history? Is there a well-known sequence with that property? Do Gray codes have it, for example?
You'd want a sequence that contains every 6-gram exactly once and ends with the same 5 digits as it starts with: such a sequence would be 2^6=64+5=69 bits long, and then you'd repeat the first 64 over and over. (Or just contains exactly once up to cycles.)
Some searching tells me this already has a name, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence
So yes, just take a De Bruijb sequence B(2,6) (algorithms in the link can generate them) and repeat it.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#95I got it to .41 predictability. Does that mean I am a demigod?
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#96Got it to 0.5991561181434598 after a while (totally random would be "0.5"). Not sure how "free will" comes into play, if there was indeed free will, I could have freely decided to only press one, and the Oracle would have had close to 100% certainty. Rather, what it measures is randomness or predictability, which is not the same thing as free will (especially "after the fact", e.g. after the choice is made).
Right. It tries to measure how random your brain's PRNG is, which has nothing to do with free will. A simple computer has no free will at all, but after being instructed to type randomly, it will score close to 0.5 without fail. The "free will" quote comes from a Berkley quantum computing student, who chose keys as independently of pattern as he could [1], and this seems to take it out of context. It might make sense…
To most people, "how predictable you are" and "whether you have free will" are almost the same question.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#97I got it down to 0.51-something by simply switching keys iff the measure increased. Ironic, since I was exhibiting no "free will" by following that rule :)
I did that too and it worked for a short while, but then started increasing without bound. I wish it would list the record as you go.
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which 20 questions game?
I'm guessing this: http://en.akinator.com/
I have been having way too much fun with this, but it really goes off the rails sometimes. I am currently in a stream where the correct answer is "Ambrose Bunside". It asked me if my character has been dead for more than 100 years, then two questions later asked me if my character uses musical.ly. :/
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#99An idea I shared on "Can you behave randomly? (1998)" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11753194) seems relevant here.
The keypresses I entered were not predictable by the Oracle. I generated the keypresses by first picking an arbitrary integer in [0,59]. I then (using simple mental arithmetic) used that integer to seed a PRNG by George Marsaglia [1] to generate a stream of pseudo-random decimal digits. For each digit, if it was in [0,7], then I took the 3-low order bits of its binary representation, in order from least significant to most significant bit (0=f, 1=d). If the digit was 8 or 9, I discarded it. The PRNG I used has period 59, and only 20% of the output digits would have to be discarded. Therefore one could use this approach to generate up to 141 pseudo-random bits.
[1] Marsaglia, George. "How to generate random number sequences (in your head)" https://groups.google.com/d/msg/sci.math/6BIYd0cafQo/Ucipn_5...)
Re: Test your “free will” at the Aaronson Oracle
#100Well, it's less about your 'free will' and more about one's inability to generate a random number. I'm not going to take the time to test it, but if you flipped a coin before each key press, this algorithm would eventually get to 50% accuracy. But in the short term it would probably be <50%, because it assumes it won't actually get random input.
Actually, if a player is flipping a coin, it is literally impossible to design an algorithm that has expectation other than 50%. Even in the short term, it cannot have an expectation that's <50%.
Sklansky tells in the Theory of Poker that you need to be unpredictable when deciding whether to call a possible bluff, and "tune" it to the cards that are known.
So you may need to make a yes-no decision where you decide on yes about 65% of the time, when you consider lots of those decisions.
His solution? Glance at your watch. Divide the current minute into proportionate parts. See in which part the seconds hand is standing.