[LINK] Causal Entropic Forces

Qiaochu_Yuan

This paper seems relevant to various LW interests. It smells like The Second Law of Thermodynamics, and Engines of Cognition, but I haven't wrapped my head enough around either to say more than that. Abstract:

Recent advances in fields ranging from cosmology to computer science have hinted at a possible deep connection between intelligence and entropy maximization, but no formal physical relationship between them has yet been established. Here, we explicitly propose a first step toward such a relationship in the form of a causal generalization of entropic forces that we find can cause two defining behaviors of the human “cognitive niche”—tool use and social cooperation—to spontaneously emerge in simple physical systems. Our results suggest a potentially general thermodynamic model of adaptive behavior as a nonequilibrium process in open systems.

I can't actually read the paper, but according to the accompanying article jamesf linked to:

Hoping to firm up such notions, Wissner-Gross teamed up with Cameron Freer of the University of Hawaii at Manoa to propose a “causal path entropy.” This entropy is based not on the internal arrangements accessible to a system at any moment, but on the number of arrangements it could pass through on the way to possible future states.

They are talking about "causal path entropy", a term they defined, not "entropy", the well known physics term. Confusing them would be a bad idea.

Power maximisation and entropy maximisation are closely related concepts

Power maximization is what an intelligent agent does that values power. What you linked to is a statistical tool for finding priors. They are unrelated. Am I misunderstanding something?

You need some background, by the sound of it. The main link between power maximization and entropy maximization is that power is usually acquired in order to perform work, and doing work eventually leads to generating entropy. So: the two ideas often make similar predictions.

As for the link between the Maximum entropy principle of E.T. Jaynes and Maximum entropy thermodynamics, the best resource on that topic which I am aware of is:

Information theory explanation of the fluctuation theorem, maximum entropy production and self-organized criticality in non-e... (read more)

0Richard_Kennaway13y

Here.

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[LINK] Causal Entropic Forces

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[LINK] Causal Entropic Forces

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