Compression As The God Of All Science
1. Compression Is Prediction : given than a set of events have occured, in known sequence,
and known outcome, what is the most likely next event - this is what compression is
all about, and no this is not a particular model for a compressor, it is what ALL
compressors do (see my "general compression = prediction" at
http://www.cbloom.com/news/predict.html )
2. Science Is Physics : all science, engineering, etc. is really just physics applied
to different macroscopic areas. i.e. chemistry = physics applied to atom-atom &
molecule-molecule interaction ; biology = chemistry applied to large molecules with
lots of C & H & O in them , which is then (by transitive law) again physics, etc.etc.
3. Physics Is A Game : nothing in physics has any real meaning. It's all a bunch of
"rules" which we can use to make reasonably accurate predictions about the world.
Some of these rules are very accurate ( QED, relativistic gravitation) and we say
this makes them more "fundamental" - but all that really means is that they aren't
likely to be made obsolete for quite a while. The "game" of physics is to try to
find the smallest set of simplest rules which can then be used to extrapolate a
whole bunch of other rules, that then make good predictions. Thus, physics is
really nothing more than a prediction game, where the goal is to find the simplest
model that can make good predictions.
[ aside : it is also possible to view physics as a bunch of basis-set transforms :
take a data set, transform it to a new basis, find a transform basis in which the
"rules" are very simple. For example : thermodynamics consists of nothing more
than the fact that the first three member of some basis set are "P,V,T"
(and a couple more) and these are a good approximation of the original basis set
which is "position1,speed1,x2,v2,x3,v3,etc.." ]
4. Physics is Compression : physics is simply prediction (=compression) applied to events
which come from observation of "real-world" phenomena. For example, if I feed in as
events the positions and velocities of particle in gravitational fields, then the
compressor will build a model/dictionary which will eventually make the same predictions
as Newton's laws (or Einstein's).
5. Compression is All Science
Charles Bloom / cb at my domain
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