What is Information?

Discuss any topics related to metaphysics (the philosophical study of the principles of reality) or epistemology (the philosophical study of knowledge) in this forum.
Gertie
Posts: 2181
Joined: January 7th, 2015, 7:09 am

Re: What is Information?

Post by Gertie »

Philo_soph
Existing property --> human agent (user, interpreter, analyzer, observer) --> information produced
neat :)

-- Updated May 31st, 2017, 8:45 am to add the following --

James
Consider a different property of the rock: its mass. This property only becomes relevant if something interacts with the rock, but we still say it is a property of the rock and not a property of the interaction.
Right, mass is a property of the rock. If the rock erodes due to weather, that is a process of interaction between the stuff the rock is made of and wind and rain.

Stuff and Processes. These exist independent of any observer/describer.

You, a conscious creature, can observe and describe that stuff and those processes. You can describe the properties of the rock as grey, a metre tall, weighing 20 stone, etc. You can describe the processes of of erosion in detail. You can call those descriptions 'information' about the properties of the rock and the processes of erosion.

The properties of the rock and its processes exist independently, carry on regardless of whether someone (a conscious creature) describes them in terms of 'information', and don't change just because they are described in terms of 'information'.

Rocks and rain don't understand the concept of 'information', because they are not conscious. They simply interact according to the laws of physics. We can describe their processes in an abstracted way as 'exchanging information', which can be a useful way in some contexts for us to think about what's going on. But it's only description. But it's the stuff and processes themselves following the laws of nature where cause and effect is located, not in the description.
Chriswl
Posts: 21
Joined: May 28th, 2009, 9:10 pm

Re: What is Information?

Post by Chriswl »

JamesOfSeattle wrote:
Which would be a shame as the everyday notion of information has yielded some very interesting and surprising results in the form of Shannon's information theory and related developments. It seems very philosophically interesting to me.
Shannon's information theory is hardly based on the everyday notion of information. His theory is based on a very specific notion of communicating coded information without regard to the meaning that information. Philosophers want to be able to tie meaning to that information in some useful way, and to do that they a need a concept for the basis of information. That's what I am trying to provide.

*
Maybe "everyday" is the wrong word. But it is this notion of information that has had most practical effects in our everyday lives because of the technical advances it has enabled. Without Shannon who would have though there was anything philosophically interesting to say specifically about information, in addition to the traditional related subjects of belief, knowledge, facts, truth etc.

I don't really follow why attaching meaning to symbols is especially problematic. Very roughly, meaning is use, isn't it?

-- Updated Wed May 31, 2017 1:12 pm to add the following --
Eaglerising wrote:Phio_soph & Chriswl – Basically are you saying that matter created consciousness?
I definitely want to avoid saying anything at all about consciousness. You don't need consciousness for information or meaning. For example, I assume honey bees are not conscious to any significant degree. But it makes sense to say that the dance they use has meaning i.e. "nectar over in this direction." It communicates, it delivers a message. Mindless robots can also trade information that has meaning in the context of the tasks they are carrying out.

That's why I talked about "agents" rather than minds, beings, persons etc.
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