Question

Does the unavoidable pseudo-randomness of random functions have no effect whatsoever on the real life stochastic simulations? If random functions also had a complex pattern with some or the other logic, then wouldn't this pseudo-random characteristics make it an impossibility to make even a near perfect simulation of any real world phenomenon?

Answer 1

random functions work off 'seeds' which are a sort of predefined set of numbers with a random distribution (i.e. a probability distribution equally spread across a range usually between 0 and 1). You CAN run into problems if averaging across different simulations which use the same seed because essentially you are running the same thing over and over again.

To get around this, you must either change seeds for each trial or sometimes you can set the seed to be selected dependent on the system clock. This way, you don't need to remember to change it all the time

Answer 2

1) does it have an effect, yes it does? a minor effect
2)does it make it impossible to make a near perfect simulation? we can't do perfect but we can get workable models that are useful. keeping in mind that because the nature of models in the first place even with a true random number generator the models wouldn't be perfect, things like sample size to model of off, human creation and possible unknown variables, simplifications of otherwise complex ideas might give us a result that is off.
the reason this doesn't matter that the people making models know this, the people interpreting models know this, the people using the data professionally know this.
the only ones who don't seem to understand this are the people watching the news who take every graph and study as truth when its simply a result someone may (or may not have) have doctored, or just got wrong, maybe it was misreported. for example: research the Popeye spinach iron myth. I wanted to write a piece on how the iron content in spinach it was misreported, but a quick search later (so i don't sound like a douche when i spout bad number) and i can't get solid enough lines on the story to tell you anything conclusive, there was a lot of misreporting on what happened over the last 140 years

Answer 3

if you can determine the degree of the affect on the simulation then you can decide whether that inaccuracy is acceptable for what you are trying to achieve or take steps to reduce the inaccuracy to within the tolerance you are willing to accept.

Answer 4

keep in mind that most things have a basic error margin of a few percent, i think 6%
don't quote me on that, i didn't bother doing the research this time around

Answer 5

broad generalized statements like 'most things' can come back to bite you :)