>>22086193Imagine a classic polytheistic pantheon. You have a sprawling, loosely connected network of deities, each with their own domains, personalities, preferred rituals, and often conflicting agendas. This is, information-theoretically speaking, a mess.
High Shannon Entropy: The sheer number of variables is staggering. Each god is a distinct entity, requiring its own set of associated data: myths, attributes, relationships, and crucially, prediction algorithms. To navigate a polytheistic world, a believer must maintain and constantly update a vast database of probabilities. What will appease Zeus today? Is Poseidon in a stormy mood, and if so, how does that interact with Apollo's influence on the harvest? The uncertainty, and therefore the Shannon entropy of the system, is extremely high.
Low Information Density: While the total amount of data is large, the information density – the ratio of useful, predictive information to raw data – is low. Many of the myths and rituals are contradictory, redundant, or simply irrelevant to practical outcomes. A vast amount of cognitive effort is expended on maintaining the system, but the predictive power gained is minimal. This is analogous to a poorly compressed file: lots of bits, but little meaningful content.
Computational Overhead: This high-entropy, low-density system creates a significant computational burden. The believer must constantly perform complex probabilistic calculations, weighing the potential influence of multiple, potentially antagonistic agents. This has real energetic consequences. Brains are expensive organs to run, and unnecessary computation consumes precious resources. In a pre-scientific world, where survival is often a razor-thin margin, this inefficiency represents a selective disadvantage.
Therefore, the triumph of monotheism is not a historical accident, but a consequence of its superior informational architecture.
