Born To Do Math 197: The Statistical Arguments for Existence, Spacetime, and Agency
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Born To Do Math
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/11/16
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Rick Rosner: So, the deal is: For the statistical arguments, I agree with you that. I think those can be made based on if you have a moment, then you’ve got a set of most likely next moments and then that ranges from most likely to least likely.
The most likely next moments have roughly, almost exactly, the same information content as the moment you’re starting. Those next possible moments of the universe. They’re very similar to the previous moment. But there is an overall, maybe, a probability.
There is certainly one around the null universe. The next possible moment is likely to be not known. Because if you look at the set of all possible next moments, because we’re assuming there is only one known universe and there is a range of next possible moments that have a little room.
So, the bias is moving towards the more information, especially in super low information universes, but still in the big universe.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: If we want to add a hint or a really tiny sense of quantum mechanics into this, the only example, we have conscious agents in the universe or at the macro scale. So, there will be a directionality to time as well.
So, and even if someone says, “Well, what about a reverse universe or the backwards will seem as if forwards in that reverse universe, but it still has a direction in either case?” So, the arrow of time at a macro scale is there.
So, you have existence. You have time. You have directionality of time. You have agency. I think those are statistical arguments as well. That there is a persistence there. The fact that things are relatively the same from moment to moment and that permits a process like evolution.
That permits existence to continue existing. Like what you argue, in terms of a bias towards order rather than disorder, it’s not to say there is no disorder. There are things that are indelible to some order, but there is a bias or a tendency, statistically speaking, towards these things, including order. So, that’s the facts.
Rosner: So, if you look at it like a triangle with the null universe at the apex of the time, and then the number of possible states with increasing information, the more information you have for any given amount of information, you have a number of possible states that have that much information and the more information, the more possible states.
So, starting with the zero information, the next moment you could move to there is a bias to move to increasing information with the next move and that bias continues to exist. To get to the triangle as you move towards the base, an expanding base like a pyramid of the next level.
The next floor, as you move now is going to have more space than the floor above. So, if you’re moving at random in the pyramid, in a state of more information because there are more states off of your state that have more information as opposed to less.
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