IdeaStorming: underdetermination and information theory

[gusl]

uncritically philosophizing:

* Physics is hard to learn.
* Therefore, the collection of physics theories contains a lot of information.
* Therefore, there must a lot of experimental data to account for, otherwise such complex theories would not be warranted. (What's the relationship between the information content of data observed (theory-relevant information, excluding noise) and the information content of the theory)


criticism:

Problems: physics could be hard to learn due to a priori knowledge (mathematics contains very little information, and yet it is hard)

Is physics hard in the same way that math is hard?

Comments

[jbouwens.livejournal.com]

Therefore, there must a lot of experimental data to account for, otherwise such complex theories would not be warranted.

Is that a valid implication? The inverse is not always true: A swarm displays very complex behaviour (lots of experimental data), yet the theory describing this behaviour consists of only a few rules.

Also, data != information. There can be little experimental data that nevertheless contains a lot of information, requiring complex theories.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

There can be little experimental data that nevertheless contains a lot of information, requiring complex theories.

Please give me an example.

[jbouwens.livejournal.com]

Schrodinger's cat deals with only 1 bit of experimental data, yet it requires quantum mechanics to properly describe.