Re:Procedural Building Generation in Unreal Engine 3
by jerf on Monday December 13, 2010 @01:01AM
(#1999533)
"If I get a CD that has code on in that lets me generate level upon level how much information is that CD carrying?"
The information content of something is rigidly bounded by the size of the code and the size of the input. Compress the CD's image with an "optimal" compressor (don't forget the decompression code in the total), add a couple of bytes for your random seed, done.
It doesn't matter how gloriously complicated the end result may be. The fact that you can precisely reconstruct the end result with the contents of the original CD, plus your randomization seed, plus your psuedorandom algorithm, means that that is all there is.
You can add more information by pulling from some random source that is irreducible, such as a quantum random number stream. Then, to reconstruct the result, you'd need to be fed the previously-random numbers as well.
It isn't actually possible for computation to add information. It is always bounded by the computation specification plus the input data. It can chew it and mangle it and present it and yea verily project entire universes from it, but the very definition of a computation's information content is basically the minimal seed necessary to recreate it.
The information content of something is rigidly bounded by the size of the code and the size of the input. Compress the CD's image with an "optimal" compressor (don't forget the decompression code in the total), add a couple of bytes for your random seed, done.
It doesn't matter how gloriously complicated the end result may be. The fact that you can precisely reconstruct the end result with the contents of the original CD, plus your randomization seed, plus your psuedorandom algorithm, means that that is all there is.
You can add more information by pulling from some random source that is irreducible, such as a quantum random number stream. Then, to reconstruct the result, you'd need to be fed the previously-random numbers as well.
It isn't actually possible for computation to add information. It is always bounded by the computation specification plus the input data. It can chew it and mangle it and present it and yea verily project entire universes from it, but the very definition of a computation's information content is basically the minimal seed necessary to recreate it.
See http://lesswrong.com/lw/vh/complexity_and_intelligence/ , which, incidentally, directly takes on your question about fractals in a subsequent post.