2001/09/19 by Ariel Caticha · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat.stat-mech #gr-qc #physics.class-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.1477054
published as AIP Conf.Proc. 617 (2002) 302 · Presented at MaxEnt 2001, the 21th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods (August 4-9, 2001, Baltimore, MD, USA)
arxiv created 2001/09/19 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
I explore the possibility that the laws of physics might be laws of inference rather than laws of nature. What sort of dynamics can one derive from well-established rules of inference? Specifically, I ask: Given relevant information codified in the initial and the final states, what trajectory is the system expected to follow? The answer follows from a principle of inference, the principle of maximum entropy, and not from a principle of physics. The entropic dynamics derived this way exhibits some remarkable formal similarities with other generally covariant theories such as general relativity.