Determinism: Difference between revisions
→Information by Claude Shannon
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=== Information by Claude Shannon === | === Information by Claude Shannon === | ||
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. Shannon quantifies that value of surprise as the amount of reduced uncertainty of the reciever, known as the information entropy (also Shannon entropy) | 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. Shannon quantifies that value of surprise as the amount of reduced uncertainty of the reciever, known as the information entropy (also Shannon entropy). | ||
According to Shannon, the more likely an event is to occur, the lower the informative content of a message that is delivered to the reciever, becomes. | According to Shannon, the more likely an event is to occur, the lower the informative content of a message that is delivered to the reciever, becomes. | ||
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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. | 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 prone to logical errors, their ability to always predict an event correctly | Since humans are prone to logical errors, their ability to always predict an event correctly would not ensured, even given sufficient data. The informational content of a message about an event they failed to deduce correctly, might still be present to a certain level, but would be restricted by the extent of their error. | ||
All in all, it can be said, that based on Shannon's idea of information, determinism | Also, the average person lacks the scientific expertise to calculate all outcomes of any event as determined by all natural laws. This becomes even harder when we consider the idea of the butterfly effect, as Robert Bishop demonstrated in his article about Chaos, using the following example: " [...] the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Argentina could cause a tornado in Texas three weeks later."<ref>Bishop, R. (2024, October 11). Chaos. ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chaos/</ref> To predict an event, all small events, such as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings, should be considered carefully, and missing even one small event would lead to a false prediction. | ||
All in all, it can be said, that based on Shannon's idea of information, determinism might 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. Furthermore, humans, might misapply their logic, leading to incorrect predictions, and would likely fail to consider all events that are causally linked to their prediction. | |||
== '''Knowledge and Determinism''' == | == '''Knowledge and Determinism''' == | ||