[HN Gopher] What Is Fundamental? (2009)
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       What Is Fundamental? (2009)
        
       Author : yamrzou
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2023-12-02 16:16 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (backreaction.blogspot.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (backreaction.blogspot.com)
        
       | corethree wrote:
       | Probability theory is fundamental. Outside of the quantum stuff
       | it's some strange macro phenomena that occurs almost separate
       | from physics.
       | 
       | It's strange, I'm no physicist but at the atomic level it seems
       | particles are fundamentally probabilistic. But then even at a
       | macro level completely separate from the underlying physics
       | something like rolling dice will obey the laws of physics but
       | also at a higher macro level it converges on following the laws
       | of probability.
       | 
       | It's also connected with knowledge. I dunno... it's weird, when I
       | think deeply about probability and why it works I get confused.
       | It started with an interest in entropy as this weird macro law
       | that somehow lives separate from physics, but then I realized
       | entropy is just a consequence of probability.
       | 
       | Maybe probability is like logic. Something completely axiomatic.
       | Eh I'm just rambling now.
        
         | passion__desire wrote:
         | Time always increases. Entropy always increases. Entropy is
         | disorder. Disorder means incompressible information. True
         | Randomness provides incompressible information. This implies
         | randomness is being injected into the universe. So injecting
         | randomness is the reason why time increases.
         | 
         | The above is the gestalt formed in my mind after listening to
         | lot of pop physics lectures. Probability distributions from
         | which fundamental particles choose their values are like ways
         | to introduce controlled randomness into the system.
        
         | snarkconjecture wrote:
         | Speaking as a physicist, I think you're basically on the right
         | track! (But also, this is as much philosophy of math/science as
         | it is physics, so I wouldn't quite call myself an authority on
         | this.)
         | 
         | I definitely think of probability as something like a mental
         | framework with a set of axioms that can be applied to anything
         | where the axioms fit well enough, which can be "true" quantum
         | probability or sequential frequentist dice rolls or subjective
         | Bayesian stuff.
        
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