English

Beyond information: A bit of meaning

Quantum Physics 2013-11-07 v1 History and Philosophy of Physics

Abstract

Is our world just information? We argue that our current notion of information has one serious shortcoming: It is quite literally meaningless. We suggest a meaningful extension of the notion of information that is dynamic, internal, approximate, contains an element of randomness, and is layered. This new notion of information derives from the interactions of material objects. Our answer to the essay question then is Bit from It or, more appropriately, Bit++ from It. We discuss how our new notion of information sheds light on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics and how it can be applied in philosophy and computer science.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1311.1341,
  title  = {Beyond information: A bit of meaning},
  author = {Olaf Dreyer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.1341},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

Submission to the 2013 FQXi essay contest. 12 pages, 3 figures