Abstract
This article is an attempt to capture, in a reasonable space, some of the major developments and currents of thought in information theory and the relations between them. I have particularly tried to include changes in the views of key authors in the field. The domains addressed range from mathematical-categorial, philosophical and computational approaches to systems, causal-compositional, biological and religious approaches and messaging theory. I have related key concepts in each domain to my non-standard extension of logic to real processes that I call Logic in Reality (LIR). The result is not another attempt at a General Theory of Information such as that of Burgin, or a Unified Theory of Information like that of Hofkirchner. It is not a compendium of papers presented at a conference, more or less unified around a particular theme. It is rather a highly personal, limited synthesis which nonetheless may facilitate comparison of insights, including contradictory ones, from different lines of inquiry. As such, it may be an example of the concept proposed by Marijuan, still little developed, of the recombination of knowledge. Like the best of the work to which it refers, the finality of this synthesis is the possible contribution that an improved understanding of the nature and dynamics of information may make to the ethical development of the information society.
Highlights
The radical It-from-Bit position of Wheeler that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and the views of Bekenstein that the physical world is made of information itself, and concludes that the whole of nature is a huge system of information processes, in which information exists independently of human thought
The original motivation for the development of a philosophy of information (PI) by Floridi was in response to a broader perceived need to place the entire field of information and its technology on a sound intellectual basis, as captured in Floridi’s definition [7]: “ The philosophy of information (PI) is the philosophical field concerned with (a) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilization and sciences, and (b) the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems
The advantage of a physical view of information such as that of Logic in Reality (LIR) is that given the dialectical properties of energy, information-as-process describes the actual evolution of cognitive processes and information-as-concept serves as the unifying concept between the fields of physics, biology, neuroscience and mind
Summary
The Eastern fable of the blind men and the elephant has been used as a colorful metaphor for the different ways in which the nature and properties of information appear to different. Yixin Zhong [2] has used the fable in another way, by looking at the content of levels of understanding of the “information” available from a hierarchical systems perspective. In this interpretation, one considers the elephant in terms of partial sets of its external components. There are some seven or eight principal structures and systems, which can be listed as follows: cytoskeleton (endoplasmic reticulum); vacuoles; external membrane; ion-transport channels; cytoplasm (intracellular medium); mitochondria; nucleus; ribosomes, etc These structures, all “working together” can be fancifully associated with the structures of thinking about information listed above. A cell suggests, in the phrase of Wolfgang Hofkirchner, the unity-diversity in the nature of information that is, perhaps, beginning to be understood
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