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But if your measurements are unreliable or downright flawed, then it's just garbage-in-garbage-out.

Sounds like the statistics in the papers from the social "sciences".

"There's lies, damned lies, and statistics." --Unknown

I don't think you're going to be able to count the "number of distinct possible configurations" of an even moderately complex living system.




It's more like statistical mechanics and the foundations of the second law of thermodynamics.

Unless entropy is a damned lie. Which I'm not saying it isn't, but claiming such a thing is a pretty strong claim. Possibly one of the strongest claims you can make in physics (which is why it's associated with cranks).

I'd expect some perpetual motion machines after overturning such a principle.

But I do agree you need to be careful defining the scope of microstates and macro states.




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