Information

David Deutsch gives definitions of knowledge and information that I like.

He’s developed a mathematically representable theory, called Constructor theory that includes a Constructor Theory of Information.

Here is my rendering of Deutsch’s ideas.

Information is something that is not material but which requires a material substrate for its existence.

Information cannot be created nor destroyed.

The same information can be instantiated in different substrates.

In computer communication, information might be encoded in the memory system of one device, translated into electromagnetic phenomena, transmitted through space or through wires, and ultimately to another device’s memory systems.

In human communication, information embedded in one brain’s substrate is translated into neural firings, then sound vibrations, and then ultimately in the substrate of another brain.

At its most basic level, information requires a material substrate that had attributes that can take on different values.

A piece of information exists when an attribute could be other than it is.

Simple.

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