Absolutely zero information about a system or about the state a system is in seems impossible, unless you don't even know that the system exists. If you know that the system exists and can exist in N possible states, then at least you have the information that the sum of the probabilities of its being in its possible states is unity. The least biased estimate of the probabilities is that they are all equal (see for example Atoms and Information Theory by Ralph Baeirlein), corresponding to the maximum possible value of the entropy S = k ln N. If a system can exist in only 1 state, then S = k ln 1 = 0.

Jack,

What if the "system" can only exist in 1 state?

Information is a special relation. In latest unified definitions it is content of the relation of any object to Human Being. Without Human Being Information is not existent (not even 0).

Information is more then a sum of all probabilistic possible states of a system. It also includes descriptions of a system, his purpose and his history.

Framz, wouldn't that mean absolutely no other form of life besides humans uses any form of information in any way to "live?"

What about a machine learning algorithm, a robot? The pheromones ants use to communicate information to the rest of the colony?

Could you cite where the latest definition is the content of relation of any object to a human being? This seems extremely presumptuous on the part of humanity.

This question seems isomorphic with a question that I posted, regarding the inability to find an object that is only disordered, or only ordered. Here, it is impossible to have zero information, even when the system does not exist; that recognition of non-existence is information.

I resist the notion that information exists only in the case of human observation; the issue is general, and one of needing a means of interpretation, as recognition of information comes upon operation of an interpreter.

Whenever the use of the words disorder and order are used, they are very confusing to me. A few researchers try to define them as something, but in terms of entropy I believe certainty and uncertainty are more accurate, not completely, but close - how certain am of the 3d location and even perhaps moment in time a random bottle of, let say, hydoflouric acid, is within a certain volume I specify at a certain moment? More certain than if I were to throw it onto someone (ok perhaps a gas is a better example)...because then all that HF acid is inside a larger defined theoretical volume. I am more uncertain then. The same can be true for any property. The first ones (order/disorder) seem a little subjectively interpretable. For instance, is my profile picture weird or cool? That's what those words feel like to me.

Yes, information does not exist because of humans. To me, it's essentially the affect one thing has on another, it's dependency vs. independency if you have 2 things. We might assign a label to it, but that doesn't mean it requires us....you have a different definition it seems which is that it requires an interpreter. Maybe thats a message instead?

And yes, the absence of a system IS information when you provide it with the option of either 0 = not there or 1 = there in the context of existence.

A system with only 1 possibly state in complete isolation (you, nor exitance, nor the universe, nor time, nor anything else exist in isolation) can provide no information.

It's just like me saying, "It's just like me saying."

Ironically, in my last post I mentioned degeneracy and how it plus time, information, etc. fuels evolution. Words like "entropy" "consciousness" "fair" "life" "proof" "fact' "mind" "soul" "spiritual" even "universe" "god" "infomation" "symbol" "meaning" "alien" and so many others are ill-defined. However, the more this is pointed out and the more these word are used our language will develop and a generalized and more concrete definition will emerge.

Yes, there is information everywhere because existence itself is a context.

Imagine we isolate our experiment from EVERYTHING else though - its a coin toss, which we toss infinity times. You must also isolate this from the order and amount of times we toss the coin as that could provide a context presumably.

Flip it, it's either heads or.....heads. It is as if binary existed but only with the symbol 0 and no timing context, no length context. etc.

But perhaps here is the most perfect example I came across:

The big bang :) This guy does the most wonderful job at explaining it imo.

“Did the Big Bang Happen at a Point?” 2017. Accessed November 19. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/136860/did-the-big-bang-happen-at-a-point.

"Now wind back to 0.0000000001 seconds after the big bang. There's no special significance to that number; it's just meant to be extremely small. Our grid now has a very small spacing, but it's still infinite. No matter how close we get to the Big Bang we still have an infinite grid filling all of space. You may have heard pop science programmes describing the Big Bang as happening everywhere and this is what they mean. The universe didn't shrink down to a point at the Big Bang, it's just that the spacing between any two randomly selected spacetime points shrank down to zero.

So at the Big Bang we have the very odd situation where the spacing between every point in the universe is zero, but the universe is still infinite. The total size of the universe is then 0×∞0×∞, which is undefined. You probably think this doesn't make sense, and actually most physicists agree with you. The Big Bang is a singularity, and most of us don't think singularities actually occur in the real universe. We expect that some quantum gravity effect will become important as we approach the Big Bang. However, at the moment we have no working theory of quantum gravity to explain exactly what happens."

Ales,

Which of these 2 contains information?

1) What I’m writing right now.

2) What I’m not writing right now.

:)

Ales,

Any information you have to offer is welcome - I did not know about the further segmentations of information as you mentioned. I do believe we may each be defining the word "information" differently - however, I suppose my original question was a bit of a semantical challenge to whomever answers.

Functional or really...I suppose "practical" information - that which is determined to be helpful in subjectively achieving an outcome that is desired I'm personally separating here from "information" - which here I'm defining as the most empirical and universal form of it.

If you define it from a functional standpoint, then the word takes on a very different meaning; however, I will say "deleting" information isn't actually "deleting" it, as "deleting" information is information.

Nathan, I didn't notice your question 6 months ago, so I'm answering it now. If a system can exist in only one state, then its entropy is S = k ln 1 = 0.

Your Question is not clear for me, but look at

http://www.plbg.at/humanorientierung.aspx

Information is more then SHANNONs definitions 50 years ago!

I hope you enjoy and find what you suarch.

At the most empirical level possible, what is information? One can add many adjectives to the word or surround it by many different contexts to focus/shift its meaning, but, I'm not asking that.

I'm just asking what information is at the very core. This may be more of a philosophical question than a scientific one; then again much of science was born out of the curiosities one was pondering while they were philozophizing (I'm surprised that's a word & that chrome did not underline it in red too).

I appreciate your response Franz, I did have a look at your link however, it appears much of it is in German - and although I trust Google gives reasonably accurate translations, the PDFs seem to also be in German - and I've found translating PDFs to be somewhat inaccurate for some reason - I'd have to hope Adobe could correctly format the same document as an exported Word file, then copy and paste that to notepad, then hand that off to google translate hoping it translates things properly. It's likely not trained well for scientific jargon especially jargon that even in English we debate the semantics of. I want to make sure what I'm trying to explain/ask is understood in English first at least, but if you have any other resources I'm open.

Dear Nathan,

in your answer is notices that a reduction of Information to Human Being does make no sense.

I understand, what you mean. You are right but if you read more of my publications you can find that the Human Being is the "first representator" for all living objects and subjects. The critical border is the amount of abilities for mental activities (f. i. understanding, consciously recognition, speaking, acting creativly, reasoning and thinking in single cases). The criterium is given by the biological evolution which gave that abilities to linving organisms in different way. All of them are included in treating Information of course - but in a limited way according their state of mental evolution.

Dear Franz,

I actually was writing a reply to someone else in another project and, ironically, even though I solidified it more while writing it....is, in my opinion, nearly identical to what you just wrote - albeit from a slightly different angle.

So, I have to say, I agree!

Franz,

When you say "first representator," could you define that further?

It feels as if this has become a bit of semantical debate. Sometimes I'd like to just make up a new word to describe something, but it would be pompous to do so....and aso the meaning of a word is defined not by the word, but by its context - so in a way, it's pointless.

But I'm going to do it & see what happens. Ok, we have functional information (basically information useful to us or life, etc.) and then perhaps shannon's reduction in uncertainty (kind of the same thing) definition.

I'm attempting to go deeper and more universal. You know how it appears as if they just keep finding more and more subatomic particles? Well, similarly, if we think of information in a universal context (just forget humans exist, or for that matter, conciousness...classically defined...agh I hate saying that but, just imagine those things don't exist)

(What's beyond what we are only able to see of the universe?)

"Information," whatever it is, is that the end all be all fundamentalness of existence? The most empirical of all things?

I wasn't much of a fan of old men wearing togas for quite some time, but I read some of what Pythagoras wrote and is collected in "The Complete Works of Pythagoras" one day on a whim. Most of it is written from his disciples...and you even begin to wonder if he was actually a person or just some sort of group of people. It's obviously translated somehow from ancient greek so some meaning is lost. That is, until the same words are surrounded and repeated over and over again within a context that points to them meaning the same thing. Like "triangles" - I am quite certain I know exactly what he means when he says that word because in nearly every context the meaning is basically the exact same. When he says "God" he uses that term with contexts that differ..wildly.

But there were two other words he ALWAYS used as a pair together and he was very reptitious about.

Those two words were, as he or one of his disciples or just some guy wearing a toga wrote: "the sameness" and "the difference."

I came across this long after I started this question, but I believe, inherently that that is what information is. He (or whomever wrote said piece) even talks about how these two things are responsible for time and time is responsible for it...it's kind of weird to read such a thing written so long ago.

Aleš Kralj, I sincerely do appreciate your answers in this topic as they have given me greater insight.

However, in each use of your word "information" you precede it by an adjective.

" quantum information "

" chemical information "

" functional information "

You are defining the type or class of "information" you're talking about by doing this, which is fine. Language has adjectives in it for a reason, to do this very thing. However, notice how you hesitate to ever use information as a singular word except as to note I do not understand it, ironically.

I would like to understand it, and appreciate our discussion here; however, could you provide specific examples of why I do not without using adjectives describing the type of information you're talking about such a "functional," "chemical," "quantum", etc.

Thank you and I look forward to your response.

Aleš Kralj , once again I appreciate your response and have learned from it, but, I'm still just looking for "information" without it being further defined or fit into categories. I hesitate to attach this screenshot as I worry it may come across wrong (and let me know if so, as I will remove it then), but I'm merely trying to communicate this idea further.

Looking forward to your response,

Thanks,

Nathan

Or it is enlightening.