Totally Random

Human beings have a tendency to favor pattern and order while disliking chaos and randomness. We like to “perceive trends [even when] there are none” to perceive (Levy 184).” This is one of the many reasons why we appreciate the ability of predictability so much. Many aspects of human lives is about predictability; do I need an umbrella for tomorrow, should I sell my stock right now, or whether the river card is going to be an ace of heart and get me a royal flush. Most of the gambling game especially poker based itself off of predictability and order. I remember reading an article about the first time a royal flush appears on TV and how everyone is making a big deal about it. The news article itself claims that the chance of getting a royal flush is 1 out of 650,000 and that he is such a lucky guy. However, if one really thinks about it, one will realize that the chance getting any other random hand is as low as a royal flush. People just like the royal flush because it consisted of pattern and order.

There are many more examples that prove these humans urge of pattern and trends. One of the most obvious examples is the phone numbers and the car license plate. It does not take a genius to guess what the most expensive phone numbers or a car license plate will look like. On 22nd May 2006, a phone number 666-6666 was sold for 1.5 million pounds – equivalent nearly 2 million dollars while the most expensive license plate number 1 is sold for 14.3 million dollars. Regardless of how much money these people have, what makes these numbers more favorable than my phone number 642-8349? One last thing that does not make sense to me about pattern and order is the idea of anniversary. Why don’t people appreciate the 11th years of marriage as much as they do with the 10th? or why is "there no reason anyone even attempts to give you as to why at sixty-five you should change your life (McKibben)." This further proves that Levy is right when he claims that “the human mind is just simply badly with randomness and chaos (Levy 183).”

The IPod takes advantage of this and came out with the “Shuffle.” One interesting thing about the IPod shuffle is that there are many controversies whether the shuffling process is really random. Many people including myself have a hard time believing that it is since the ITunes or IPod like play one album more than other. Some even claim that the IPod plays great song, many that exactly fit their moods. So out of my curiosity I went online and find out the probability of hearing 2 songs consecutively from the same album given 3000 songs and 300 albums. To my surprise, the chance is as high as 90% that I will hear 2 songs consecutively from the same album if I listen to a set of 15 songs 3 times a day. Moreover, I begin to realize that I tend to only notice and point it out to myself when there are two songs playing consecutively from the same album because it does not fit my perception of random. So actually, it is not really the “shuffle [that] is flawed, but the problem is actually in our heads (Levy 183).” Furthermore, chances are that the song one put in to the IPod are the songs one likes and commonly fits one’s mood, so again it is not odd for IPod to play songs that are great and fits the mood.

Since chaos is such a predominant part of reality, human beings tend to create order out of chaos. Using the IPod example, one way Apple create order out of chaos is by introducing the “Smart Shuffle” to the IPod enabling users to “control how likely [they] are to hear multiple songs in a row by the same album or artists (Levy 186).” Apple is basically patronizing the users and creating the illusion that fits the users’ perspective of random – which is the perception of dissimilarities. Creating order out of chaos has become so predominant that we now accept it as our nature and did not see the peculiarities behind it. Because when one really thinks about it, isn’t labeling, stereotyping and generalizing all of creating order out of chaos? Whether or not you admit it, we all live in chaos.