PrawnOfFate comments on Removing Bias From the Definition of Reductionism - Less Wrong

1 Post author: RogerS 27 March 2013 06:06PM

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Comment author: PrawnOfFate 18 April 2013 01:37:27AM 0 points [-]

OK, not strictly "conserved", except that I understand quantum mechanics requires that the information in the universe must be conserved

..absent collapse..

But what I meant is that if you download a file to a different medium and then delete the original, the information is still the same although the descriptions at quark level are utterly different.

But a 4D descriptions of al the changes involved in the copy-and-delete process would be sufficient to show that the information in the first medium is equivalent to the information in the second. In fact, your problem would be false positives, since determinism will always show that subsequent state contains the same information as a previous one.

Comment author: RogerS 19 April 2013 09:26:34PM 0 points [-]

..absent collapse..

Ah, is that so.

But a 4D descriptions of all the changes involved in the copy-and-delete process would be sufficient..

Yes, I can see that that's one way of looking at it.

In fact, your problem would be false positives

I don't think so, since the information I would be comparing in this case (the "file contents") would be just a reduction of the information in two regions of space-time.

Comment author: PrawnOfFate 20 April 2013 12:39:30AM -1 points [-]

I don't think so, since the information I would be comparing in this case (the "file contents") would be just a reduction of the information in two regions of space-time.

And under determinsim, all the information in any spatial slice will be reproduced throughout time. Hence the false positives.

Comment author: RogerS 20 April 2013 02:07:30PM 0 points [-]

I'm not clear what you are meaning by "spatial slice". That sounds like all of space at a particular moment in time. In speaking of a space-time region I am speaking of a small amount of space (e.g. that occupied by one file on a hard drive) at a particular moment in time.

Comment author: PrawnOfFate 20 April 2013 02:11:20PM -1 points [-]

Your can prove conservation of information over small space times volumes without positing information as an ontological extra ingredient. You will also get false positives over larger space time volumes.

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