Originally Posted By: Jackie
stochastic


I do not recall seeing your neologism, but I see and use stochastic almost daily. Many people are confused about and skeptical or fearful of stochastic processes - confusing the redundant term "random chance" with the unrelated concept of "chaos." (And mathematical chaos is not related to the common conception of the word.)

Stochastic (random) processes can be regular - and patterns emerge, otherwise there would no benefit of studying probability and statistics. If you roll a six-sided die many times, and each number appears near the same number of times, then the die might be a fair one. If you get mostly 1s then the die is probably not fair. But if you roll a fair, normal die it will not come up "peanut butter" or "elephant" or "blue". Contrary to what is commonly believed, "stochastic" does not mean "unconstrained."

Also the law of large numbers is quite dependable. Casinos can thrive with an advantage of just a fraction of a percent.