the ontological status ('reality') of information

[mirrormundo]

We (I at leat) use to think of information as data that one needs to achieve something, for instance to increase knowledge. So in this view there is no objective 'free-floating' information: there has to be a need, a question first. That is, there has to be someone / something to interpret the information. For example: "at 2 pm" is not information, unless I want to know when the bus to X leaves. Also, a piece of text (book) only contains information if there is someone to read it; a book on a shelf is just ink and paper, until someone opens it and starts to read. So in my view information is relational and perspectival; presupposes a relation to an observer who wants to know about what he/she is investigating.

 

But in physics the idea developed (since Maxwell, Boltzmann, Leó Szilárd, Turing, Landauer, Hawking, 't Hooft, Verlinde, Susskind) that information is something real, like matter / energy and time / space. Information then is not about meaning, but about 'difference', about being not the same, and about unexpectedness (inprobability). So a particle / thing / system is different from other thing in it's specific characteristics in comparison to all other things. >> http://youtu.be/NsbZT9bJ1s4?t=8m45s

 

It is a vital idea in contemparary physics, also relating to other subjects like complexity, self-organization, emergence, evolution, etc.

 

My question is: how can that be objectively quantisized? What counts as information? An answer to the question: "has it been observed by the hubble-telescope?" would count for one bit of information (yes/no) But that's probaly not a legitimate question. Well, what is then? Who asks the questions? What decides what the information is? Obviously it's immanent in the thing itself... But then again not physically located in the same place, according to Susskind. I can't get my head around it.

 

Anyone???

 

 

[elfmotat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory

[Endy0816]

If we're talking about physics, I generally think of the properties as defining the informational content.

 

ie. mass, charge, spin, etc.