Related papers: Anthropic Selection for a Low-Entropy Past
In this paper, we analyze the relationship between entropy and information in the context of the mixing process of two identical ideal gases. We will argue that entropy has a special information-based feature that is enfolded in the…
We propose an alternative anthropic probability for calculating the probabilities in eternal inflation. This anthropic probability follows naturally from the weak anthropic principle, and does not suffer the freak observer or the typicality…
The observed value $\Lambda_{\rm obs}$ of the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is extremely smaller than theoretical expectations, and the anthropic argument has been proposed as a solution to this problem because galaxies do not form when…
The theoretical limits of 'lossy' data compression algorithms are considered. The complexity of an object as seen by a macroscopic observer is the size of the perceptual code which discards all information that can be lost without altering…
The principle of maximum entropy is a broadly applicable technique for computing a distribution with the least amount of information possible constrained to match empirical data, for instance, feature expectations. We seek to generalize…
Model independent arguments following from the Covariant Entropy Principle imply that causal diamonds in the very early universe were entirely filled with a single equilibrated system with finite entropy. A universe where this condition…
Post-inflationary boundary conditions are essential to the existence of our highly structured universe, and these can only come about through quantum mechanical state reductions - i.e., through measurements. The choice is between: An…
We explore the possibility that the dark energy is due to a potential of a scalar field and that the magnitude and the slope of this potential in our part of the universe are largely determined by anthropic selection effects. We find that,…
We describe society as a nonequilibrium probabilistic system: N individuals occupy W resource states in it and produce entropy S over definite time periods. Resulting thermodynamics is however unusual because a second entropy, H, measures a…
Entropy serves as a central observable in equilibrium thermodynamics. However, many biological and ecological systems operate far from thermal equilibrium. Here we show that entropy production can characterize the behavior of such…
We develop the stochastic approach to thermodynamics based on the stochastic dynamics, which can be discrete (master equation) continuous (Fokker-Planck equation), and on two assumptions concerning entropy. The first is the definition of…
The place of an anthropic argument in the discrimination between various cosmological models is to be reconsidered following the classic criticisms of Paul C. W. Davies and Frank J. Tipler. Different versions of the anthropic argument…
We show why the amount of information communicated between the past and future--the excess entropy--is not in general the amount of information stored in the present--the statistical complexity. This is a puzzle, and a long-standing one,…
The shape of an epidemic wave in simple epidemic models applies to a homogeneous distribution of infected people in the population. In large inhomogeneous systems, at country-scale for instance, the wave shape is similar except for the…
We consider the problem of performing predecessor searches in a bounded universe while achieving query times that depend on the distribution of queries. We obtain several data structures with various properties: in particular, we give data…
We develop new modified cosmological scenarios by applying the first law of thermodynamics at the Universe horizon, utilizing a new entropic functional that generalizes the standard Boltzmann-Gibbs-Shannon entropy. In particular, starting…
An observer increases in relative entropy as it receives information from what it is observing. In a system of only an observer and the observed, an increase in the relative entropy of the observer is a decrease in the relative entropy of…
We analyze cosmology assuming unitary quantum mechanics, using a tripartite partition into system, observer and environment degrees of freedom. This generalizes the second law of thermodynamics to "The system's entropy can't decrease unless…
Boltzmann's principle is used to select the "most probable" realization (macrostate) of an isolated or closed thermodynamic system, containing a small number of particles ($N \llsp \infty$), for both classical and quantum statistics. The…
All of the basic microsopic physical laws are time reversible. In contrast, the second law of thermodynamics, which is a macroscopic physical representation of the world, is able to describe irreversible processes in an isolated system…