If information were really lost in black holes, we wouldn’t be able to predict the future, because a black hole could emit any collection of particles. It could emit a working television set or a leather-bound volume of the complete works of Shakespeare, though the chance of such exotic emissions is very low. It is much more likely to emit thermal radiation, like the glow from red-hot metal. It might seem that it wouldn’t matter very much if we couldn’t predict what comes out of black holes. There aren’t any black holes near us. But it is a matter of principle. If determinism, the
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