“In general, the shorter the possible representation… the less random… On this view we recognize science to be the search for algorithmic compressions.”

— John D. Barrow

New Theories of Everything (2007)
Context: We say that the string is 'random' if there is no other representation of the string which is shorter than itself. But we will say that it is 'non-random' if there does exist such an abbreviated representation.... In general, the shorter the possible representation... the less random... On this view we recognize science to be the search for algorithmic compressions.<!--Ch. 1, p. 11

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In general, the shorter the possible representation… the less random… On this view we recognize science to be the searc…" by John D. Barrow?

John D. Barrow 58

British scientist 1952–2020

Related quotes

“It is simplest to think of mathematics as the catalogue of all possible patterns. …When viewed in this way, it is inevitable that the world is described by mathematics. …In many ways the search for a Theory of Everything is a manifestation of a faith that this compression goes all the way down to the bedrock of reality…”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

New Theories of Everything (2007)

“We are robust when errors in the representation of the unknown and understanding of random effects do not lead to adverse outcomes —fragile otherwise.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 107

“In view of the dramatic effects that alternative representations may produce on search and recognition processes, it may seem surprising that the differential effects on inference appear less strong. Inference is largely independent of representation if the information content of the two sets of inference rules [one operating on diagrams and the other operating on verbal statements] is equivalent—i. e. the two sets are isomorphs as they are in our examples”

Herbert A. Simon (1916–2001) American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist

Source: 1980s and later, "Why a diagram is (sometimes) worth ten thousand words," (1987), p. 71, as cited in: Bauer, Malcolm I., and Philip N. Johnson-Laird. " How diagrams can improve reasoning http://mentalmodels.princeton.edu/papers/1993diags%26reasoning.pdf." Psychological Science 4.6 (1993): 372-378.

“Knowledge is encoded in models. Models are synthetic sets of rules, and pictures, and algorithms providing us with useful representations of the world of our perceptions and of their patterns.”

Didier Sornette (1957) French scientist

Source: Why Stock Markets Crash - Critical Events in Complex Systems (2003), Chapter 5, Modeling Financial Bubbles And Market Crashes, p. 134.

“In many ways life is less random than we think.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Travis McGee series, One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)
Context: In many ways life is less random than we think. In your past and mine, there have been times when we have, on some lonely trail, constructed a device aimed into our future. Perhaps nothing ever comes along to trigger it. We live through the safe years. But, for some people, something moves on the half-forgotten path, and something arches out of the past and explodes in the here and now. These are emotional intersections, when lives cross, diverge, then meet again.