njihan wrote:
Choice A is not correct: The results of the same probabilistic mechanism will each be as likely as the other to occur.
It says at the end of Paragraph 1: a number is random if it is chosen purely as the result of a probabilistic mechanism such as the roll of a fair die....mathematicians Gregory Chaitin and A.N. Kolmogorov force us to consider this last claim more closely.
So this inference is NOT made. It is in fact called into question, in the passage.
Choice A is OA.
Also this choice A is about the mathematical feature of probability.
"any result from a probabilistic mechanism is equally likely" is not contradicted anywhere in the passage. It is the basic feature of probability.
The controversy in the passage is on the perception of randomness. We perceive an event where, getting a 1,6,2 on three successive rolls of a dice is random and 3,3,3 as a coincidental event. However the mathematicians contention, is that even 3,3,3 is a random phenomenon and not coincidental. Therefore it is the definition of "random" that is being discussed and not the definition of "probability". Hence Choice A holds true.