Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: tortoise

You're the one who made the original claim, without citation or documentation (to the best of my knowledge). Don't ask me to backup my claims without first backing up yours. If you want to provide a link or two to some external description of what you're talking about, I'd be more than happy to investigate it further. Perhaps it's a simple case of misunderstanding.

(BTW, you respond very quickly for a tortoise.)


721 posted on 12/29/2005 5:08:44 PM PST by jbloedow
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 720 | View Replies ]


To: jbloedow
You're the one who made the original claim, without citation or documentation (to the best of my knowledge). Don't ask me to backup my claims without first backing up yours.

No offense, but this is all covered in vanilla algorithmic information theory (AIT). Rehashing what someone with a solid math background would consider "basic" is usually considered bad form.

You were referring to a Thing That Exists that has a Minimum Description Length (MDL) of zero (also known as the Kolmogorov Complexity of that Thing). "Information" and "Algorithm" are equivalent in theory, with the caveat that in really old information theory (say half a century ago), this was not really true in practice because the mathematics was not well-developed. In AIT, it is always true and is technically the correct version.

You will discover that anything with a description also has a non-zero Kolmogorov Complexity, and therefore is most certainly an "algorithm". I would point out that Kolmogorov Complexity is the size of the smallest algorithm that can generate a given pattern, which implies the existence of said algorithm.

(BTW, you respond very quickly for a tortoise.)

Which is why I do not get my real work done...

761 posted on 12/29/2005 11:00:25 PM PST by tortoise (All these moments lost in time, like tears in the rain.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 721 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson