Table of Contents
1 Cover
4 Preface
6
PART 1: Randomness in all of its Aspects
1 Classical, Quantum and Biological Randomness as Relative Unpredictability
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Randomness in classical dynamics
1.3. Quantum randomness
1.4. Randomness in biology
1.5. Random sequences: a theory invariant approach
1.6. Classical and quantum randomness revisited
1.7. Conclusion and opening: toward a proper biological randomness
1.8. Acknowledgments
1.9. References
2: In The Name of Chance
2.1. The birth of probabilities and games of chance
2.2. A very brief history of probabilities
2.3. Chance? What chance?
2.4. Prospective possibility
2.5. Appendix: Congruent generators, can prospective chance be periodic?
2.6. References
3 Chance in a Few Languages
3.1. Classical Sanskrit
3.2. Persian and Arabic
3.3. Ancient Greek
3.4. Russian
3.5. Latin
3.6. French
3.7. English
3.8. Dice, chance and the symbolic world
3.9. References
4 The Collective Determinism of Quantum Randomness
4.1. True or false chance
4.2. Chance sneaks into uncertainty
4.3. The world of the infinitely small
4.4. A more figurative example
4.5. Einstein’s act of resistance
4.6. Schrödinger’s cat to neutrino oscillations
4.7. Chance versus the anthropic principle
4.8. And luck in life?
4.9. Chance and freedom
5 Wave-Particle Chaos to the Stability of Living
5.1. Introduction
5.2. The chaos of the wave-particle
5.3. The stability of living things
5.4. Conclusion
5.5. Acknowledgments
5.6. References
6 Chance in Cosmology: Random and Turbulent Creation of Multiple Cosmos
6.1. Is quantum cosmology oxymoronic?
6.2. Between two realities – at the entrance and exit – is virtuality
6.3. Who will sing the metamorphoses of this high vacuum?
6.4. Loop lament
6.5. The quantum vacuum exists, Casimir has met it
6.6. The generosity of the quantum vacuum
6.7. Landscapes
6.8. The good works of Inflation
6.9. Sub species aeternitatis
6.10. The smiling vacuum
7 The Chance in Decision: When Neurons Flip a Coin
7.1. A very subjective utility
7.2. A minimum rationality
7.3. There is noise in the choices
7.4. On the volatility of parameters
7.5. When the brain wears rose-tinted glasses
7.6. The neurons that take a vote
7.7. The will to move an index finger
7.8. Free will in debate
7.9. The virtue of chance
7.10. References
8 To