4 ms·
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
by 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 agoThat'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.