Mind over Computer 45 you if this crowd-sourced random number generator really works. There should be no way to predict the resulting number as both ; of you are affected by quantum randomness and, provided you wait a little before shouting stop, any social stereotyping should be overcome. If you want to be scientific, remember the random Gi Es number you started with and the length of time before your friend shouted stop. There should be an ss improvement in randomness with the amount of time they wait. In the absence of human interaction another way to give a computer access to a random number is from a quantum device. A lava lamp works well! The Lavarand, developed by Silicon Graphics, is a hardware ; random number generator which uses images of a lava lamp to seed a random number generator. It is covered by U.S. Patent 5,732,138, fovea damp titled “Method for seeding a pseudo-random number generator with a cryptographic hash of a digitization of a chaotic system.’ Got that! A computer does not acquire free will just through the injection of randomness. You could simply put an intercept on the link from the lava lamp to the computer and completely predict the computer’s behavior. The system as a whole will certainly do unpredictable things, but the computer did not make a choice; behaving randomly is not exercising free will. Where is the will? Consciousness I remember my first trip to Death Valley in the United States. We were driving along the main east-west highway at the bottom of the valley and a sign said, “Turn off your air conditioning now.’ I did as I was told and to cool down I opened the window. When I put my hand out I felt HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015735