The Great Mental Models Volume 3: Systems and Mathematics

by Rhiannon Beaubien

When someone picks a “random” word, the chances of them picking any particular word in the dictionary are not equal. In reality, certain words are much more likely to come up than others.

When we’re asked to make a random choice, especially if we’re under pressure, we tend to fall into certain patterns.

Generating randomness is hard. Ask someone to give you a string of random numbers, and they’ll end up following a form of order. Generating genuine disorder for things like data encryption requires unpredictable physical processes, like radioactive decay, atmospheric noise, and the movement of lava lamps.

When generating true randomness is essential, we have to find a method that overrides the way our brains work. One way that people throughout history have achieved this is through divination rituals that provide random data. Although people attributed success of these practices to magic or divine wisdom, that’s not why they worked. Rather, despite the narrative of divination, the rituals generated truly random results that were far more useful than the pseudorandom data our brains often generate.

True randomness is detached from any causal factor, which is why no one could predict where the next hunting area was going to be before the bones were heated.

Randomness as a model reminds us that sometimes our pattern-seeking, narrative-building tendencies can be unproductive. Using randomness as a tool can help us get a fresh perspective and lift us out of the ruts we have built. It also gives us an appreciation of the value that the unpredictable or the unexpected can sometimes have.

Metrics!