3 ms·

It's hard to tell from the Quanta article, but without meaning to sound dismissive, a lot of this seemed like reexpressing some of the same ideas in different w

It's hard to tell from the Quanta article, but without meaning to sound dismissive, a lot of this seemed like reexpressing some of the same ideas in different ways. The constructor and resource theories seemed very similar to me, for instance. I was also extremely puzzled by the dismissal of probabilistic or statistical models as being fuzzy or something. Probability has always been the domain of possibility -- this is basically the Jaynesian-style account of probability. It's always seemed to me to be the case that at some level statistics is about selective loss of information -- that is, as you go from descriptions at the particle level to group-level statistical accounts, you summarize (in a coding sense) the ensemble of particles' behavior to shed information required to maintain complete information about the ensemble. To make an analogy, if you wanted to know people's heights, at some point storing information about 1 million person's heights would become burdensome, so you'd replace it with a single number (e.g., the mean) instead. That's not to say what's being discussed in the article isn't interesting, but it just seems like a different level of analysis or something? There's also different ways of representing amount of information in the quantum realm vs classical realm, so there's that, but it's also the case that a chamber of gas will generally involve a lot of molecules in many classical cases. I also had the sense that there was probably something more fundamental that you could invoke that would integrate a lot of this, at the level of logic or computational theory or something. But maybe at this level the difference is sort of moot.

thingification 4y ago
> I was also extremely puzzled by the dismissal of probabilistic or statistical models as being fuzzy or something. Probability has always been the domain of possibility Perhaps you're just saying that probability is useful in some practical ways? Deutsch agrees (see video below). But if that's not all you're saying: If the "domain of possibility" (which I interpret to refer to quantum mechanics and thermodynamics) can be described without the whole concept of probability, why not eliminate it? Why eliminate it, though? As Deutsch says "We don't need a reason: Physics likes to do without things"? [1] You may say constructor theory adds new fundamental concepts. I don't know constructor theory so I don't know whether that's true. In cany case, what's not to like about probability concepts? In what way are they "fuzzy or something", as you put it? Deutsch points out here [2] (few minutes later in the same talk as the other link) a sense in which probability statements don't describe physical facts: for example "drawing to an inside straight is very risky" is logically consistent with any sequence of cards in a poker game. I think that's the "fuzziness" they want to eliminate from Physics. He then goes on to deal with some objections to that idea such as "in the long run, probability statements describe physical facts". If the game of Physics is describing physical reality, and we don't need that specific kind of fuzziness, success would seem to me an advance in Physics. [1] https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=13m12s https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=13m12s [2] https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=14m18s https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=14m18s
ravi-delia 4y ago
Obviously probability is great and all, but the second law really really holds. Honestly, you could tell me you made energy out of nothing and I wouldn't rule it out unless you could do work with it. But like, why should every physical law we look at have states distributed in such a fashion? Especially with information brought in, and worse, quantum information? You're right that this is mostly reshuffling but it's still neat, and helps give an intuition for why we'd expect it to work out like this

thingification 4y ago

> I was also extremely puzzled by the dismissal of probabilistic or statistical models as being fuzzy or something. Probability has always been the domain of possibility Perhaps you're just saying that probability is useful in some practical ways? Deutsch agrees (see video below). But if that's not all you're saying: If the "domain of possibility" (which I interpret to refer to quantum mechanics and thermodynamics) can be described without the whole concept of probability, why not eliminate it? Why eliminate it, though? As Deutsch says "We don't need a reason: Physics likes to do without things"? [1] You may say constructor theory adds new fundamental concepts. I don't know constructor theory so I don't know whether that's true. In cany case, what's not to like about probability concepts? In what way are they "fuzzy or something", as you put it? Deutsch points out here [2] (few minutes later in the same talk as the other link) a sense in which probability statements don't describe physical facts: for example "drawing to an inside straight is very risky" is logically consistent with any sequence of cards in a poker game. I think that's the "fuzziness" they want to eliminate from Physics. He then goes on to deal with some objections to that idea such as "in the long run, probability statements describe physical facts". If the game of Physics is describing physical reality, and we don't need that specific kind of fuzziness, success would seem to me an advance in Physics. [1] https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=13m12s https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=13m12s [2] https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=14m18s https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=wfzSE4Hoxbc&t=14m18s

ravi-delia 4y ago

Obviously probability is great and all, but the second law really really holds. Honestly, you could tell me you made energy out of nothing and I wouldn't rule it out unless you could do work with it. But like, why should every physical law we look at have states distributed in such a fashion? Especially with information brought in, and worse, quantum information? You're right that this is mostly reshuffling but it's still neat, and helps give an intuition for why we'd expect it to work out like this