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Originally Posted by Doctordick
Quote:
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Originally Posted by modest
I could define the future as information informing the explanation, the past as information not yet available, and the present as a change in the information being explained (i.e. information loss). That would make perfect sense to me if the arrow of time were reversed.
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...First of all, do you mean to say “the future as information in forming the explanation”? If not, you will have to define what you mean by “informing”. If you are going to use the index to indicate “loss of information” then the analysis does not seem to make much sense: we start off with “all possible information” and form a flaw-free explanation. |
Yeah, I didn’t make any sense there. I was intending, but somehow failed miserably, to define the future as lost information, the present as a change in information, and the past as the source of information (the information which gets changed). I’m intending to point out that your definition of past and future assume that the change in information is futureward rather than pastward. Of course, our experience and intuition tell us this is true, but if you’re eliminating all possible presumptions then I’m quite sure that an explanation can cope with information changing from future to past.
To give an example, there is a coin on a table positioned heads-up while a video camera records it. This makes a closed system which we might represent with information. The screen on the video camera (and the camera’s memory) will show the image of a heads-up coin which amounts to a subset of information. With an explanation involving the nature of video cameras and coins and patterns of that sort we can predict another subset of information—the heads/tails value of the actual coin.
When the information changes we now have a coin spinning on the table. The camera’s memory and screen contain no subset of information revealing the coin’s value. Information has been lost in the change. This information loss amounts to a lowering of information entropy as the complete state description of the system has gotten smaller. Without advocating a definition of time, I’ll just point out (as you well know) this lowering of entropy amounts to an arrow of time opposite what physicists normally attribute our universe.
I'd really like to know you understand what I mean before moving on.
~modest
