What is Information?

It is assumed that the development of information theory has to be based on fundamental concepts and laws. The ontological premises for information genesis are considered. The nature of information is related to constructive relationships existing in nature. Information is defined in terms of the fundamental concept of code transformations, which are characterized by thesauruses and languages. An attempt is made to show the opportunities for symmetric interpretation of instructive and receptive information within the limits of the general semantic definition of information. Development of natural language tends to transfer from subject to object semantics. A technosphere information basis is introduced and an analogy is drawn to the information of the biosphere's genetic stock.

The most fundamental question in the philosophy of information "What is information?" has not received yet a definite answer free from commonly recognized deficiencies. In my earlier work I have proposed a definition of information as an identification of the variety. The definition is based on the concept of the one-many relation, a philosophical theme as old as philosophy itself. The rich tradition of the theme established through the centuries of philosophical discourse is in a clear contrast to the common sense concepts such as "uncertainty" usually utilized in attempts to set foundations for the concept of information. An identification of the variety can have two basic forms of a selection of one out many in the variety, or of the structure uniting the variety (many) into one. The distinction of the forms of identification leads to the distinction between the selective and structural information. However, since every occurrence of one type of information is always accompanied by the other, selective and structural information can be considered just different manifestations of the uniform concept of information. The selective information can be easily identified with the concept of information in its usual understanding. The structural manifestation of information has been considered usually in the context of integration of information. In the present paper the analysis of the concept of information based on the one-many relation is being carried out in the three perspectives. First, the philosophical aspects of information are considered. Then, the concept of information is being identified in a selection of very different domains. For instance, Hutcheson's concept of beauty dominating classical aesthetics since 18 th century, understood as "unity in variety," provides an example of an idea very close to structural information. Integration of the neuronal activity in the brain considered as a basis for consciousness by Edelman and his collaborators can be also viewed as an example of structural information in a different domain. Finally, an attempt is being made to identify a mathematical formalism which reflects the distinction of the selective and structural information. of the numerous former attempts to define the meaning of this uniform concept of information. In particular, I cannot accept the two most popular formulations of the definition of information as a "resolution, reduction of uncertainty" or as a "difference which makes a difference" [3], as their logical status and explanatory value are not much different from the expressions of desperation in dozens of other attempts to grasp the meaning of information such as "We conclude that we are not able to say confidently of anything that it could not be information" [4], or "Information is anything that we can count or use as information" .

Annual review of information science …, 2003

2011

This is an attempt to develop a systematic formal theory of information based on philosophical foundations adequate for the broad context of pre-systematic concept of information. The existing formalisms, in particular that commonly called information theory, consider only some aspects of information, such as its measure. In spite of spectacular successes of Shannon's entropy and its generalizations, the quantitative description did not help in the development of the formal description of the concept of information itself. In this paper, the brief review of the contexts in which the term information is being used is followed by similarly brief presentation of philosophical foundations incorporating such aspects of information as its selective and structural manifestations, information integration and semantics of information presented in more extensive form in other publications of the author. Finally, based on these foundations, a mathematical formalism is proposed with an expl...

2008

Abstract Whether viewed as a Rawlsian primary good or as the building material of an entire Infosphere, the notion of information plays a fundamental role in the development of CE. We analyze this notion from the monosemic perspective of lexical semantics (Ruhl 1989) and offer a definition that provides a suitable basis for CE work in that it is not restricted to (true) propositional content and derives, rather than asserts, the ethical value of information.

First Paragraph: At the core of the philosophy of information is the ‘ti esti’ question that inaugurated several branches of philosophy from Plato onwards. Just what is information? The term is undoubtedly vague and still an important part of the modern linguistic landscape. We live in the “information age,” we read “information” in the papers, we can gather “information” on, say, the salt gradients of the currents in the Pacific Ocean, and we can talk about the amount of “information” that can be delivered over a wireless connection. Yet, as several philosophers have pointed out, we can scarcely say precisely what the term means. Given that it is also used differently across different fields of study (biology, communications, computer science, economics, mathematics, etc.), it is a hallmark of the philosophy of information to undertake this clarifying task, if the term “information” is to be informative at all. So, first and foremost, this research area examines the term in its multiplicity of meanings and clarifies its many uses.

Information Theory and the Philosophy of Science, 2024

This paper is an exploration of the implications of information theory. It begins with a Socratic definition of information, identifies two basic types of information and distinguishes between information and communication. It further seeks to find the locus of information, and explores how non-physical information is used to explain physical phenomena.

Information Systems Frontiers, 2001

The term ‘Information’ is widely used in the rhetoric of the Information Society, a rhetoric which some critics have judged to be empty, at least in part because of the overextension and inconsistent use of this word. We review the emergence of the concept of Information, identify a number of dimensions of similarity and difference in the way that the

Triplec Communication Capitalism Critique Open Access Journal For a Global Sustainable Information Society, 2009

This text provides an overview of the complex history of the concept of information in the Greek-Latin as well as in the Medieval and Modern traditions. It connects the Latin etymology of the term informatio with the Greek concepts of eidos/idea and morphé and shows how the objective meaning of information ("giving form to something") becomes obsolete in modernity where only the communicational meaning ("telling something (new) to someone") remains. Information theories in the 20th Century are related to the development of technical systems of message transmission. They give rise to a renaissance of the objective notion of information but under a different framework as the one of the classic pre-modern philosophy. Establishing a connection between the concepts of information and message several options are presented leading to a concept of information based on a theory of messages.