March 30, 2024 — Given a box with side S, over a certain timespan t, with minimum voxel resolution V, how many unique concepts C are needed to desc

The Box Method of Science

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2024-05-07 23:00:09

March 30, 2024 — Given a box with side S, over a certain timespan t, with minimum voxel resolution V, how many unique concepts C are needed to describe all the patterns (repeated phenomena) P that occur in the box?

As the size of the cube increases, the number of concepts needed increases. An increasing cube size captures more phenomena. You need more concepts for a box containing the earth than for a thimble containing a pebble.

As your time horizon increases, the number of concepts needed increases, as patterns combine to produce novel patterns in combinatorial ways, and some patterns only unfold over a certain period of time. Although, past a certain amount of time, maybe everything just repeats again.

Why are there any patterns at all? Why isn't the number of concepts zero? Why doesn't every box just contain randomness? There could be infinite random universes, but this one, for sure, contains patterns.

What is a pattern? A pattern is something accurately simulatable by a function. A concept is a function with inputs and outputs that simulates a pattern.