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Quotes from Bit from It — Julian Barbour

born 1937 United Kingdom

← All quotes by Julian Barbour

10 quotes

Information theory would never have got off the ground if structured things—configurations—did not exist.

Bit from It (2011)

Ontological primacy should not be given to information but to things, as has always been the standpoint of realists.

Bit from It (2011)

Shannon-type message sources could not exist if the universe were not subject to laws of nature and far from thermal equilibrium.

Bit from It (2011)

There is one metalaw of science: it cannot exist without structured things. Structured variety is the ground of being. That is what gives content to both science and life.

Bit from It (2011)

I argue... this weakens but not necessarily destroys the argument that nature is fundamentally digital and continuity an illusion.

Bit from It (2011)

Probabilities without things are... nothings.

Bit from It (2011)

I find no reason to reverse the standard assumption of physics... what we experience can be explained by the assumption of an external world governed by law.

Bit from It (2011)

[S]ymbols have no meaning if divorced from the entities that they represent.

Bit from It (2011)

Shannon information... [which] he also called entropy or uncertainty... involves things (...Shannon ...messages) and probabilities for those things.

Bit from It (2011)

It is a mistake to believe that the digits 0 and 1, being abstract, represent the immaterial. Quite... the contrary... they stand for something quintessentially concrete.

Bit from It (2011)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Julian Barbour (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.