Determinism: Difference between revisions
→Information by Claude Shannon
| Line 162: | Line 162: | ||
As stated in the [[Information|article about information]], Claude Shannon defines information as how suprising a message is to a reciever it is sent to. He quantifies that value of surprise as the amount of reduced uncertainty of the reciever, which is called information entropy (also Shannon entropy) and is probabilistic. | As stated in the [[Information|article about information]], Claude Shannon defines information as how suprising a message is to a reciever it is sent to. He quantifies that value of surprise as the amount of reduced uncertainty of the reciever, which is called information entropy (also Shannon entropy) and is probabilistic. | ||
According to Shannon, the | According to Shannon, the more likely an event is to occur, the lower the informative content of a message is about that event, that is delivered to the reciever, and vice versa. | ||
In a deterministic world, however, any discussion about the probability of an event occurring would become | In a deterministic world, however, any discussion about the probability of an event occurring would become redundant, because all events would happen with certainty, leaving no room for alternative events in the same place and time, which would imply that, by the idea of Shannon, the role of information might be drastically diminished, as it could reduce the amount of informative content of the message to the reciever. | ||
How much the concept of information would lose its significance, depends on the receiver's ability to deduce the content of a message independently, relying on his knowledge about natural laws, his logical reasoning and how much he knows about previous events and their causal relationships to the event in question. | How much the concept of information would lose its significance, depends on the receiver's ability to deduce the content of a message independently (by predicting it), relying on his knowledge about natural laws, his logical reasoning and how much he knows about previous events and their causal relationships to the event in question. | ||
In a deterministic world, where humans would have the ability to deduce any event if given enough data required to deduce it, | In a deterministic world, where humans would have the ability to deduce any event if given enough data required to deduce it, would have access to that data, and apply logic correctly, no amount of information would be obtained from the message about any event, rendering the concept of information, in Shannon's sense, obsolete. | ||
Realistically though, humans would always need at least a basic set of informational statements, which they could use as a starting point to deduce new information based on their own reasoning. | Realistically though, humans would always need at least a basic set of informational statements, which they could use as a starting point to deduce new information based on their own reasoning. | ||
This basic information would represent the fundamental building blocks of the events in the entire universe, fully sufficient to deduce any event at any point in time, if the | This basic information would represent the fundamental building blocks of the events in the entire universe, fully sufficient to deduce any event at any point in time, if logic was applied correctly. These fundamental blocks would include the first events in the universe, all natural laws and the definition of logic. | ||
Since humans are susceptible to logical errors, it is not ensured that they would be able to always deduce an event correctly, so the information content of a message about an event they did not manage to deduce correctly on their own, is still present to a certain extent, which is determined by the amount of error in the recipient's prediction. | Since humans are susceptible to logical errors, it is not ensured that they would be able to always deduce an event correctly, so the information content of a message about an event they did not manage to deduce correctly on their own, is still present to a certain extent, which is determined by the amount of error in the recipient's prediction. | ||
All in all, it can be said, that based on Shannon's idea of information, determinism would likely | All in all, it can be said, that based on Shannon's idea of information, determinism would likely limit the presence of real information with a surprise-factor, but not fully remove it, because any logic used to predict an event requires premises in the form of knowledge about previous events and natural laws. Also, humans, practically might misapply their logic, leading to a false prediction. | ||
== '''Knowledge and Determinism''' == | == '''Knowledge and Determinism''' == | ||