Minor correction

From: Eric Hawthorne <egh.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2003 12:29:17 -0800

I said

> "nothing" is a universe in which there is no difference, and thus no
> structure. i.e. That
> state of the bitstring has zero entropy, or zero information. So it is
> truely "nothing."


I guess you could define a zero-entropy state is having "maximum order"
or "simplest structure"
rather than having no structure. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that
fully random (maximum entropy)
states of the qu-bitstring (i.e. boring, unobservable universes in which
there's nothing but random noise)
are truely the ones that have no structure.

So you can choose which kind of "nothing" you prefer to call "nothing".
You can choose
the zero-entropy state (simplest structure, maximum order, no
difference), or
any maximum entropy (all random, no structure, just noise) state and
call that "nothing" or
at least "nothing interesting".

It's only in the middle of this information-state-space somewhere, where
there is a judicious
mix of order and disorder, where interesting, observable structures and
universes can form.
Received on Sun Nov 16 2003 - 15:37:04 PST