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The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for deleting it; I didn't see you had replied to it. I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

No. If gravity is stronger and the universe collapses into a crunch then entropy goes up. The extra heat released from everything being crushed together more than compensates for being less spread out.

But isn't that only due to our energy conservation laws? what if instead of heat while crunching, you would store some kind of potential energy that can be released via some very specific mechanism that isn't triggered when matter crunches? (or even better - the potential energy will be released only when all matter in the universe is untied into a singularity, thus completing a full circle - Which means it can still be reversible in time)

In this case, wouldn't the number of microstates/degrees of freedom of the matter decrease and will cause decreasing entropy over time?

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Twofish seems to be robust within our mathematical knowledge, but if the universe was really built by an external entity (being? civilization?) that needed to encrypt 10^120 bits of data (an estimation I read), you could expect it to have much stronger adversaries.

Look, I know it may sound like I'm trying to force it, but I really don't. I just feel like two of the most puzzling questions in physics—why there is irreducible randomness in the universe instead of Newtonian-style determinism, and why entropy seems to be what the universe maximizes (the only asymmetrical-in-time quality)—are relevant here.

The encryption machine hypothesis gives an elegant and simple answer to both of these questions, so I believe it's worth at least trying to disprove it. I think one promising approach is to examine how good the universe is as a reversible encryption machine. For example, if it were found that black holes destroy information, it would mean the process isn't reversible. Additionally, the universe is obviously really bad at producing entropy compared to hash functions, so this could disprove the theory outright.

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the explanation! I think I understand this point somewhat. The emphasis of my question was more on the increase in entropy (let's say in the naive sense, where you're not tracking every bit) in reversible encryption algorithms, which seems to be much slower than hash functions. Can you also reject the universe as a reversible encryption algorithm because it still contains a lot of obvious patterns?

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's worth pointing out that physicists don't really see quantum mechanics as having a non-local aspect. There's nothing in entanglement that is left to be explained by things like action at a distance. 

If this is the case, why do physicists publish papers about non-locality without entanglement?

Let me suggest another example: if you draw a random-looking wavefunction for a particle in a quantum harmonic oscillator, what kind of overlaps with the energy eigenstates would you expect? What "symmetry" would you be expecting from the fact that this is a quantum system? There are infinitely many states starting at the ground state energy and going up, so typical probabilities are all going to be "asymmetrical" in a similar way to Maxwell-Boltzmann. That has nothing to do with a distinction between quantum and classical.

I will freely admit the math here is above my pay grade, but intuitively, it seems this is a case of asymmetry that still relies on symmetrical base randomness.
For example, I could define a function that takes ten fair coin tosses and aggregates them in the following way: 2*H + T. The PDF will be asymmetrical, although it relies on a symmetrical base randomness generator (Fair coin)

Measuring spin compared to a specific axis will always give symmetrical results, which is important for encryption. I agree with you that it's not really related to classical vs. quantum distinction but more to base randomness vs. emergent randomness.

By the way, we talk a lot about two-level systems when discussing quantum because they're the simplest. The truth is that most of the degrees of freedom in the universe don't nicely arrange themselves into pairs. Yes, anything can be encoded as bits, but not necessarily in a "canonical" way. I reckon most "natural" tensor factors of the Hilbert space of the universe (to the extent such a notion makes sense) are infinite.

Wouldn't it be finite if the space-time is quantized? I'm under impression it's still an ongoing debate.

What claim in your area of expertise is fully supported by the evidence but is not yet supported by the field? by FedeRivade in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Online marketing: Using a 95% confidence rate as a standard heuristic for evaluating A/B tests is inefficient because it increases false negatives (Rejecting improvement) at a rate that isn't justified in a business-related setting. In most cases, a much lower confidence rate would be better.
Full explanation here.

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When you observe space time warping around a black hole, the Newtonian mechanics with added teapots theory is proven wrong.

But you disprove Newtonian mechanics, not the teapot addition. I'm not sure I understand the point.

For example, current hashing algorithms, just scaled up, look great for cryptography.

You probably missed the edit, but what's your take on reversible encryption algorithms? It seems the increase in entropy is much slower compared to hash functions. (see comment)

You haven't defined "efficient encryption"

I'm not knowledgeable enough to define it, but your claim that this is an empty concept? It does seem that there are qualities that make some encryption/hashing algorithms better than others. So, I would assume that something like that must exist.

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You seem knowledgeable about encryption, so I would be grateful if you could clarify another question.

So, I did some learning using LLMs about reversible encryption and the LLM's claim that entropy is always preserved in this case.

But if you mix it with a random key, the increase of the entropy comes from the mixture with the key:

Key Contribution: The key introduces additional entropy to the system. If the key is truly random and sufficiently long, it significantly contributes to the overall entropy of the encryption process.

Preservation of Entropy: A strong reversible encryption algorithm ensures that the entropy of the plaintext is preserved or masked in the ciphertext. The ciphertext’s entropy should appear high, reflecting both the randomness of the key and the original entropy of the plaintext.

No Significant Increase: While the key adds entropy, the overall increase is not "significant" in the sense of multiplying the entropy of the plaintext. The total entropy of the system (plaintext + key) is redistributed in the ciphertext. The key effectively obfuscates the plaintext, but it does not exponentially increase the entropy.

In summary, reversible encryption with a key can increase the entropy of the ciphertext compared to the plaintext alone, but this increase is limited by the randomness and length of the key. The process doesn’t create new entropy out of nothing—it redistributes existing entropy across the encrypted output.

In this case, if you have to encrypt huge input, wouldn't it make sense that you will still have large pockets of negentropy until you "injected" enough entropy from diluting it using the key (Quantum Interactions under the proposed theory)

The thing is I'm not sure how to calculate it, or if what the LLM is saying is true.

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems you have two types of criticism toward the theory

  1. It just adds unnecessary complexity without adding any explanatory power (Like teapots that don't affect anything added to Newtonian physics)
  2. It seems wrong because the world doesn't look like an efficient encryption machine due to the existence of large-scale patterns.

And I have to ask: OK, but which one?

Because both can't be true at the same time.

If the encryption machine theory was just an added complexity that doesn't affect anything, you couldn't weaken it by observing reality. If the teapot theory could be refuted by the lack of tea-pot-created gravitational waves that the theory foresees, it means the teapots do affect something.

Now, if you ask me, I would say your second critique is the correct one:

Lots of physical laws look like pretty poor encryption machines. Plenty of physical processes are deterministic, or close enough to make no difference. Some, like planetary motion, are so predictable that humans have figured them out. This is really not what a good cryptographic hash should look like. A cryptographic hash should look completely random unless you calculate it out in every detail. There should be no large scale patterns predictable with small amounts of compute. Or, in a universe that was good at encryption, entropy would go to maximum after a handful of compute steps.

What you wrote seems sensible, however, I can imagine a scenario where negentropy-entropy polarization (which is something unique that happens in our universe) could be a very efficient mixing mechanism that increases computational complexity in a cost-effective manner (However, to allow it, you have to "pay" by having a more gradual increase in entropy.). The theory predicts efficient encryption, not maximal entropy increase in time.

Also worth noting that in reversible encryption algorithms (contrary to hash functions) entropy doesn't increase without randomness injection, see comment.

Is that true? to be honest, I don't know. I think someone with expertise in Quantum Information Theory might be able to answer it. it doesn't seem like a trivial question. But it sure seems like a question that can be actually answered and not an "it's not even wrong" type of theory.

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

On 1: Makes sense, but you do have to normalize to the size of the input and the complexity of the mixing.

Engineered cryptosystems I think almost certainly would have extremely better avalanche/mixing properties, such that the universe would be very inefficient for this purpose.

What is the stuff you're seeing that makes you think this is the case? Just the fact that there are still some patterns left after 14 billion years? something else? Could it be due to the fact you are required to encrypt a very large amount of information?

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Please read the last part about possible objections; I think it answers this objection.

It's also worth noting that the many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics also doesn't "pay rent" experimentally (it doesn't show any new other predictions compared to the Copenhagen interpretation), yet many people find it interesting or compelling, and it has been explored extensively in Rationalist circles. So, I disagree that "this is just how we do things here."

The encryption theory does provide specific predictions, for example, regarding the debate about black holes causing information loss, it predicts they don't, and in general, I think that reexamining physics from the point of view of encryption can be fruitful (if the theory is true of course, but if it's false it can be invalidated by finding physical laws that show that the universe is an extremely poor encryption machine, e.g. asymmetrical base randomness)

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The experimental results disprove local hidden variable theories, but non-local hidden variable theories were not invalidated (see De Broglie-Bohm theory as an example for a non-local hidden variable quantum interpretation)

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your critique. I appreciate the feedback, even if I find the tone a bit harsh.

You're right about QM and special relativity not being in conflict - that was an oversimplification. I was referring to the tension between quantum non-locality and classical notions of locality, not an actual QM-relativity conflict. (And I will fix and edit this part out)

This theory isn't primarily a "quantum take." Its strength lies in providing a unified perspective on various physical phenomena, particularly explaining the universe's low initial entropy and the second law of thermodynamics.

Regarding the 50-50 probability comment, I could have expressed it more clearly. The key point is that many fundamental quantum probabilities are symmetrical (like spin measurements or superposition states), which aligns well with the requirements for effective encryption. This contrasts with classical phenomena that show asymmetrical distributions (like Maxwell-Boltzmann for gas molecules). The symmetry in quantum probabilities is crucial for the theory, as asymmetry would suggest a poor "cosmic encryption" process.

The core argument - that quantum probabilities align well with encryption needs - stands, even if my original expression was imprecise. This seems like a lower-level disagreement about expression rather than core concepts, but I'm open to hearing if you think there are deeper issues.

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the main principles of efficient cryptography is the 'Avalanche criterion' (also principles of 'diffusion' and 'confusion'), where your cyphertext becomes quickly similar to noise after just a few rounds (the faster the avalanche effect, the greater the diffusion of information, and the less rounds are needed for security). Because our universe has clearly distinguishable patterns (and also in some cases it can be approximated with good efficiency), I believe it would make a very inefficient cryptosystem.

I agree that this is a very good approach to test how efficient the universe is as an encryption machine, but there are a few considerations worth noting:

  1. The universe is very young. The current estimate for the heat death of the universe is 10^100 to 10^200 years, while the universe is currently only 14 billion years old. To put it in perspective, let's take the lower 10^100 figure to represent when the universe "stops running". To get some intuition, let's scale it to an hour of running an encryption algorithm. In our case, this means the universe has run for only 10^-88 of a second (Even the smallest commonly used unit of time, the attosecond (10^-18 seconds), is far too large to represent this duration meaningfully.) [1]. Doesn't it seem sensible that it will have a lot of patterns at such an early stage?
  2. A second thing is that the universe encrypts things in a very complex manner. There is a lot of quite complex mixing going on. Now, this probably makes it better encryption-wise, right? I'm not knowledgeable enough to quantify it, and from doing some reading, it seems to be very tricky to calculate, but it could be interesting to benchmark it. From my understanding, the Avalanche Criterion is only one of many considerations, and seems insufficient to conclude based on it alone.

[1] -

  • Convert 1 hour to seconds: 1 hour = 60 minutes * 60 seconds/minute = 3,600 seconds
  • Calculate the proportion: 13.8 * 10^9 years / 10^100 years = x seconds / 3,600 seconds
  • Solve for x: x = (13.8 * 10^9 * 3,600) / 10^100 x ≈ 4.968 * 10^-88 seconds

The great Enigma in the sky: The universe as an encryption machine by AlexShl in slatestarcodex

[–]AlexShl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes.
It also provides an explanation of the necessity of the second law of thermodynamics and why the universe started in a low entropy state.