3 ms·

I don't see how. The amount of information needed to specify the current state of a system (the universe) does not depend on how that state was arrived at. It

by pluto9 8y ago

I don't see how. The amount of information needed to specify the current state of a system (the universe) does not depend on how that state was arrived at. It takes one bit of information to specify that a coin is tails-up, regardless of whether it was placed that way deliberately or got that way as a result of a random coin toss.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kybernetikos 8y ago
It's possible that a deterministic universe might be specifiable in many fewer bits than the bits required for a complete description of its current state. For example if you know you're in a universe where coins always land tail up then you need 0 bits to store that state.
- pluto9 8y ago
  That's a special case where the universe's state never changes. Any universe that changes over time requires information to encode the current state. Of course you could make a similar claim about a universe where coin flips always alternate--current state is merely a function of time and initial conditions, and therefore no information is needed to store it. But then you're saying that deterministic universes contain no information at all except their initial state. That's fine, but I personally wouldn't put an axiom like that on the winning side of Occam's razor.
  - kybernetikos 8y ago
    > deterministic universes contain no information at all except their initial state How can it be otherwise? You can always completely describe the deterministic universe by its initial state plus a time value, even if its initial state appears much simpler than the later states. A busy game of life scenario can arise from a simple starting point. If you don't know the rules, you're stuck describing the position of every dot, if you do, then you can create a complete description with much less information.

3 ms·

I don't see how. The amount of information needed to specify the current state of a system (the universe) does not depend on how that state was arrived at. It

by pluto9 8y ago

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kybernetikos 8y ago
It's possible that a deterministic universe might be specifiable in many fewer bits than the bits required for a complete description of its current state. For example if you know you're in a universe where coins always land tail up then you need 0 bits to store that state.
- pluto9 8y ago
  That's a special case where the universe's state never changes. Any universe that changes over time requires information to encode the current state. Of course you could make a similar claim about a universe where coin flips always alternate--current state is merely a function of time and initial conditions, and therefore no information is needed to store it. But then you're saying that deterministic universes contain no information at all except their initial state. That's fine, but I personally wouldn't put an axiom like that on the winning side of Occam's razor.
  - kybernetikos 8y ago
    > deterministic universes contain no information at all except their initial state How can it be otherwise? You can always completely describe the deterministic universe by its initial state plus a time value, even if its initial state appears much simpler than the later states. A busy game of life scenario can arise from a simple starting point. If you don't know the rules, you're stuck describing the position of every dot, if you do, then you can create a complete description with much less information.