English

Entropic Dynamics: Mechanics without Mechanism

Quantum Physics 2018-02-23 v2 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Entropic Dynamics is a framework in which dynamical laws such as those that arise in physics are derived as an application of entropic methods of inference. No underlying action principle is postulated. Instead, the dynamics is driven by entropy subject to constraints reflecting the information that is relevant to the problem at hand. In this work I review the derivation of quantum theory but the fact that Entropic Dynamics is based on inference methods that are of universal applicability suggests that it may be possible to adapt these methods to fields other than physics.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1704.02663,
  title  = {Entropic Dynamics: Mechanics without Mechanism},
  author = {Ariel Caticha},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1704.02663},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Invited chapter to appear in "Recent Advances in Info-Metrics" edited by M. Chen and A. Golan. Version 2 includes an improved treatment of the prior and added remarks on the differences between Entropic Dynamics and hidden-variable theories. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1509.03222

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:12:19.226Z