  These proofs, and those that follow on from them, are in the tradition of making standard assumptions that are generally accepted within the context of practical calculations in statistical mechanics. It is taken for granted that a probability distribution over at least some region of state space is a meaningful characterisation of the state of a system, and further constraints are usually assumed about what kind of probability distribution this could be. From the point of view of investigating questions about the fundamental consistency of statistical mechanics, this may appear unsatisfactory. If the aim is more modest, of simply investigating the generality of the circumstances under which Landauer's principle might hold, such proofs may still be seen to be of value. It is important to distinguish between, for example, the rather hard problem of providing an explanation of why thermalised systems should be represented by a canonical distribution over the accessible states space, from the somewhat more easy task of deriving the consequences of the empirically justified observation that thermalised systems are well represented by a canonical distribution over the accessible state space.