Information is neither matter nor energy. In some setups one can calculate lower bounds on the amount of matter or energy required to store or transmit a certain number of bits. In near equilibrium thermodynamics the amount of energy needed to store or transmit one bit is proportional to the absolute temperature. In physics we have both bits, qubits and e-bits, and these are incompatible notions of information.

As in Shannon, information is ultimately defined as uncertainty reduction. What constitutes uncertainty reduction depends on the entity experiencing and changing its uncertainty, especially its current state of uncertainty..

In communication theory, the entity is a message decoder (receiver, machine of some kind) at the end of a channel, and its state of uncertainty regarding messages is objectively defined using probabilities p based on the relative frequencies of message occurrence.

More generally, however, the entity could be any subjective entity (a person for instance), whose state of uncertainty may be subjectively defined by the subjective probabilities p the entity assigns to expectations regarding the state or outcome if some matter of interest to the entity.

In any case, Shannon's measure of uncertainty reduction due to any informative event, for any entity -- namely, information=-ln(p) -- can be applied, giving only one uniform definition of information for all cases. The definition is so flexible that it encompasses any information acquisition or loss event, and no new definition seems to be required.

Ronald

Dear Ronald,

no critical comment. What You describe is exactly Shannons Information Theory. That is specialized to physical facts which make mathematical enumberations possible. Shannon was using physical senders, physical channels and physical receivers. All had predfined physical properties. So his enumberations were possible for this special equipment.

But in Information Sciences the term Information is wider - it includes all - realy all - usages of the term.

Dear Peter,

One Bit was defined by Shannon. So you come into mathematically Information Theory. 1 Bit can bee a certain amount of storage too. So you have a different definition.

Shannon didn't want "psychological considerations" - he excludet them - he only wanted physical emumberations for predefined physical equipments (signal-sender,-transmitter and -receiver).

Today we know that this point of view was too narrow. In Information Sciences which was founded soon after Shannon in about 1968 this term "Information" was the research object. I think in last years we have found a possible unified definition by using the term Information very wide - otherwise we can't define it unified.

Because of this fact the name "axiom" is used - to remind on nature-scientific basics and amounts.

Look at my publications - I am not alone with my opinion.

Munesh,

you are mixing the term energy and the term Entropy (=changing of energy). In general you are using Shannons Information Theory (= in predefined surroundings).

But Information is much more and wider in his semantic and meaning of his word. Information exists since OLD GREEK and ROMANS (over 2000 years). What we search in Information Sciences is a unifying definition and fixing of that so great grown term .

John Wheeler, in an interview in Scientific American, was asked what he saw as the future of physics. His answer went something like, "I don't exactly know but it will have something to do with information." That is vague but tantalizing.

This is an issue that goes back at least as far as Plato in his "Analogy of a Sphere" in which he called the archetypal information upon which a sphere is based as "more real" than the physical sphere that will eventually rust away.

I am working on a paper that postulates the unification of forces in physics will result from and understanding of the information content embedded in gravitation. It has not been published but has been reviewed by several experts and thought valid. 

Gravitational "force" is a manifestation of the information - one way that the information can be expressed in space/time but it is not the information itself, which being non-material, is not bound by space/time. I postulate that the information of gravitation is shared between gravitational centers.

I have a mathematical model of momentum to show how the unified force effect could produce boson energy but  I'm now looking for a way to model the information content (besides verbally).

I will look further into information sciences for clues. Any ideas are welcome.

Dear David,

Information is not a phanatsic thing of our mind. Information Content is defined by SHANNON (about 1950) as mathematical ability to change the states of (didital) signals from 1 to 0 in a predefied physical real sender-channel-receiver-system.

His theory was soon too narrow. Today Information is necessarily related to Human Being. I write this to you to prevent you for too phantastic imaginations.

Gravitation is a welldefined force in classical Physics - in Quantum Mechanic it's not clear. Too many other forces (Electromagnetic - Nuclear Strong Forces) are state of the art. Graviton Boson is said to be not yet found.

Your intention to unify all forces is not new , because some similar properties where found (Coulomb's Law, Gravitation by Newton). But till now nobody can find the solution of your problem. You can get famous if you can find it! 

Thank you Franz. I would settle for advancing something that could be built upon. The question is: How does the information inherent in a relationship, for example, the relationship that exists between two centers of gravity, relate to the force.

The information for this relationship is like a blueprint of sorts, it must be "stored" in some way to be available, perhaps in the relationship itself. Yet it is not material.  It is an idealization. Yet, physics works with idealizations, for example, with "point particles."

I have mathematics for the formation of bosonic energy near a gravitational center that might be correct. Or maybe not. Either way, what I still lack is a way to model how non-material information inherent in relationship forms or informs physicality.

I don't think this is only a philosophical question. I believe the answer will be needed for the next phase of physics. My paper doesn't really need this for completion, but it would be nice to have an answer for this seemingly unanswerable question.

Its amazing how many unanswerable questions in science have been answered by hard-headed people. I'm happy the see that there are others who wonder about such things! 

David,

thanks for your lines. One step forward was for me (I follow this topic since over ten years) was, tah immaterial Information can be reduced necessarily to havin a relation to a Human Being. That condition brought for me a brake through. Skn that moment of thisreduction I feel I have found my unified definition of the term Information. Look at https://www.plbg.at

“Is Information matter, energy or anything else ?”

- to answer to this question it is necessary before to understand what are “matter”, “Energy”, and “Information”. All these phenomena/notions are fundamentally transcendent/uncertain/irrational in the mainstream philosophy and sciences – and all other really fundamental phenomena/notions, though; including in this case necessary ones “Consciousness” and “Matter” – so everything in Matter, including “matter”.

So the answer is possible only after the fundamental phenomena/notions above are scientifically defined, what is possible, and is done, only in framework of the Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s “The Information as Absolute” conception https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260930711_the_Information_as_Absolute DOI 10.5281/zenodo.268904,

- brief, but clear enough, explanation what the phenomena/notions above are see in at least first 10 pages, including section “What is Life” of https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358801098_Title_page_Article_type_Review_Title_The_informational_physical_model_some_selected_fundamental_problems_in_physics.

More see the link above, here only quite briefly:

(i) – in the conception above it is rigorously proventhat there exist nothing else than some informational patterns/systems of the patterns that are elements of the absolutely fundamental and absolutely infinite “Information” Set.

Which - the Set - exists absolutely objectively, because of it fundamentally – logically - cannot be non-existent, and so exists absolutely eternally, having no Beginning and no End.

(ii) Utmost common [uniquely scientific, though] definition of “Information” is

“Information is something that is constructed in accordance with the set/system of absolutely fundamental Rules, Possibilities, Quantities, etc. – the set/system “Logos” in the conception”

- and nothing else.

By another words the Logos’s elements aren’t some “information” – though verbally are defined as some informational patterns, these elements make something to be some informational pattern/system. Including “Matter” – and so “matter”, and "Consciousness”, are nothing else than some informational systems;

- whereas the absolutely fundamental phenomenon/notion “Energy” is some “Logos” set element, as, say that the absolutely fundamental phenomena/notions “Space”, “Time”.

More see the link above; to read SS posts in https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_information2#view=6234a02460f0b03533715b49it is useful as well..

Cheers

Information is brain cognition.It's the brain's response to changes in the outside world.

... would say : I information is including all recognitions and reactions of a Human Being. Brain cognition ia a main part of it.

I offer any questions. How to communicate with the stone, how to communicate with the sun, Is the stone happy. Is the stone sad.

This is another description of the information. Mutual cognition between different individuals.

Olivier Denis Are you talking about quantum superposition？

Franz Plochberger

My new paper on information theory. A new information measurement method and formula are given. Information entropy has been broken in the direction of data compression

Franz Plochberger

Give me the official answer. It's not necessarily true. I believe that information must have two key attributes: it can be understood and it can be transmitted.

1. Understandable

Information is brain cognition.It's the brain's response to changes in the outside world.

2. Transitivity

The information must have a delivery process.This process is the perception of the five senses (perhaps the six senses，perhaps the seven senses) of human beings.

------

The key to consider here is how much individual understanding is required.Either subjective or objective understanding is acceptable.

Objective understanding is a complex situation that involves the so-called right and wrong of information. The results obtained by each parser of the information need to be clustered and analyzed, and the comprehensive results need to be compared with consensus to determine whether they are correct or not.

Subjective understanding is almost always correct, and it does not require contrast.I think it's happy, it's happy. I think it's sad, it's sad.

Olivier Denis

I recognize the wave function, but I don't recognize this statement. I have other understandings of the wave function, but what I am saying now cannot be recognized.

My next paper is in preparation, and it may give you a big surprise.

The scientific answer to the thread question is given in the SS post April 7, 2022 on page 2 – the scientific explanations of what are “Information, matter, energy” are given in the Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s “The Information as Absolute” conception, though now there exist more recent version of the conception - seehttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/363645560_The_Information_as_Absolute_-_2022_ed

Including in the conception it is pointed that in mainstream philosophy and sciences all really fundamental phenomena/notions, first of all in this case “Matter”– and so everything in Matter, i.e. “particles”, “fields”, etc., “Consciousness”, “Space”, “Time”, “Energy”, “Information”, are fundamentally completely transcendent/uncertain/irrational,

- and so really when the mainstream addresses to these phenomena/notions the results completely logically inevitably can be – and, since the addressings in the mainstream are innumerous – are, nothing else than some transcendent – and so scientifically senseless - mental constructions.

As that are the posts that appeared after the SS post above, as, say,

“…Information is brain cognition. It's the brain's response to changes in the outside world. …..”

“…... would say : I information is including all recognitions and reactions of a Human Being. Brain cognition ia a main part of it. ….”, - etc.

- “brain cognition” isn’t “information”, that is process when “brain” processes , using mostly Logical Rules, just informational patterns that are downloaded in “brain” mostly from material body’s sensors; and, at that, really that brain does fundamentally only as some auxiliary functional module of the whole processing system – the fundamentally non-material consciousness.

Though that is only a very particular case – the information coming from sensors existed/exists of course completely objectively really and completely independently on - some sensor sees the information, and/or some “brain” processes it or not.

Etc., more see the link above. Recent [yesterday and today, that begin as “DC again”] two SS posts on page 12 in https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_Special_Relativitys_kinematic_time_dilation_have_a_physical_effect_on_matter_and_how_you_can_test_this#view=646e6d9df8842be9aa0af1fa/12

- are relevant to this thread question.

Cheers

Information is always a systematic order of patterns with some raw data. Here it contains some energy sequence which stimulate the transmission function for communication. During an experiment in my lab when i exited the particles with a mini reactor , the particles start changing their behaviors accordingly. So particles can carry atomic information .

Dear

Olivier Denis

As my experiment on controlling entangled information with prospective to teleported particle. I am experimenting on real object teleportation and wait for the result. Real object teleportation is not perfectly obey the quatum properties. Soon it will be proved.

Just have found an Axiomatic definition of Information as term.

look at Information Scientific Axioms (plbg.at)

From the last series of posts it looks as worthwhile to remind here, that in the SS posts in this thread, including the last one, it is rigorously scientifically explained – what the absolutely fundamental phenomenon/notion “Information” is, as that more in detail is explained in the SS&VT “The Information as Absolute” conception [the link see the last SS post above], and the thread question is rigorously scientifically answered, briefly:

- in the conception it is rigorously proven that there exist nothing else than some informational patterns/systems of the patterns that are elements of the absolutely fundamental and absolutely infinite “Information” Set;

- Including in the conception the utmost fundamental in mainstream philosophy and science phenomena/notions “Matter” and "Consciousness” become be scientifically defined – they both are nothing else than some informational systems;

- besides, most of other fundamental, and so “just philosophical” – and so Meta-scientific – phenomena/notions are correctly defined also, including in this case that are “absolutely fundamental” phenomena/notions “Space”, “Time”, and “Energy/Momentum”;

- while the utmost general scientific definition of “Information” is

“Information is something that is constructed in accordance with the set/system of absolutely fundamental Rules, Possibilities, Quantities, etc. – the set/system “Logos” in the conception” .

Including, say, “Space”, “Time”, and “Energy/Momentum” aren’t an “information”, that are the Logos set elements; and every real concrete informational pattern/system exists absolutely obligatorily only in its concrete space, changes only in the same universal for all the Set elements time dimension, and at creation of the pattern/system absolutely obligatorily a concrete portion of energy/momentum is spent, and the pattern/system further contains this portion.

Just since both – despite that are fundamentally different – informational systems “Matter” and “Consciousness” [say, human’s consciousness] are made from the one stuff “Information”, the consciousnesses are able to obtain and to process fundamentally sometimes adequately and sometimes non-adequately information that is in the fundamentally non-conscious environment, including in “matter”, i.e. in particles, bodies, galaxies, etc.

Any attempts to define information outside the conception above, i.e. in framework of the mainstream philosophy and sciences, because of that in the mainstream all really fundamental phenomena/notions, including “Information” are fundamentally transcendent/uncertain/irrational,

- completely logically inevitably results only in the – quite correct in this case - “definition” that “Information is a data that describe something”; what any living being, including humans, know only instinctively, and use this “definition” even not knowing the word “information” at all; as, say, bacteria also do,

- and so really this “definition” isn’t a definition, that is nothing else than a tautology of words “information”, “description”, and “data”, and from this definition really nothing useful in science follows, besides, of course, though trivial, but fundamentally obligatory, usage in everyday instinctive practice.

To read SS posts in

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_an_information_particularly_a_physical_law_itself_be_some_special_kind_of_matter_and_transform_into_energy_and_mass /6 and SS posts on pages 4,5,6 in

https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_is_time11#view=63c940bafa2ccd380d0b4943/8

- it is useful as well

Cheers

Please,

See here on Researchgate my article Quantum Information Selforganization and Consciousness

The thread question “Is Information matter, energy or anything else ?” is clearly and rigorously scientifically answered in SS posts in the thread, if briefly – Information is absolute phenomenon, as that completely rigorously proven in the Shevchenko-Tokarevsky’s “The Information as Absolute” conception, recent version of the conception see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/363645560_The_Information_as_Absolute_-_2022_ed

- nothing exist besides some informational patterns/systems of the patterns that are elements of the absolutely fundamental and absolutely infinite “Information” Set. Including the observable huge system “Matter” – and so everything in Matter, including any “matter” is/are some the Set’s elements,

- while Energy - and “Space”, “Time”, “Change” , “Logical Rules”, etc. – aren’t “Information”, that are elements of the “Logos” set, all elements of witch determine every concrete patter/system as it be just “made from information”.

Including in the conception it is rigorously proven that Matter and any consciousness are fundamentally different informational systems, and so any consciousness fundamentally cannot “emerge” form any material structure, even a structure essentially is based on some “selforganization”, say, as a crystal, etc.

More see the SS posts above and links in the posts, about what is “consciousness on Earth”, which resides in every living being on Earth, fundamentally essentially operates outside any matter, and after death of a living being returns to somewhere in the Set outside Matter, see the SS&VT first approximation functional model of the consciousness in https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329539892_The_Information_as_Absolute_conception_the_consciousness

Cheers

Information isn´t absolute - you try to make it to an Absolut.

So Information is made by you to an own term in Philosophy.

But this term exists since the time of Romans - you cant´t make it new.

“…Information isn´t absolute - you try to make it to an Absolut.

So Information is made by you to an own term in Philosophy.

But this term exists since the time of Romans - you cant´t make it new. ….”

- that “this term [“Information is a data that describe something”] exists since the time of Romans” – that is, of course quite correct; and this term exists till now in whole mainstream philosophy and sciences, despite that it really is nothing else than some completely transcendent instinctive wording of people that have only some instinctive understanding of what they say.

Including, say, people 100 000 years before Romans used instinctively but well adequately to the reality – and having no any knowledge – why that is so? “Information that is a data that describe something”, having at that in their languages no words “information”, “description”, “data”.

Though really every living being uses instinctively but well adequately to the reality– and having no any knowledge – why that is so? the term “Information that is a data that describe something”,

- and quite equally mainstream philosophy and sciences uses instinctively but sometimes adequately to the reality – having at that no any knowledge – why that is so? the term “Information that is a data that describe something”…

More about what are Information matter, energy, and all other fundamental phenomena/problems, though, see the SS posts above in the thread and links in the posts.

Cheers

Data is stored Information ! Information is mental only, not materialistic! Please! That´s some central sentences in Information Science.

I worked over 30 years in the front of Applied Informatics!

Bur you don´t have to take my results in science.....

Information is what has traditionally been named "energy" .............

Yes, Energy is a logically right and usefull way, but it's allready reservated for next scientifix discipline Energetics in sequence of Physics.

P.S.: in Information Science we have the main problem that Information is well known since Old Romans. It has got about 560 synonyms in Philosophie of Middle Age ( see Raphael Capuro in his publications). The reason for creating this new science (about 1967) was the immens importantness after finding the first Computer (Zuse, 1942).

So my personal intention was, to find one, new, worldwide unified definition of this old and well known term in Age of Information. My scientific result is published first time in 2012 : https://www.plbg.at/Werke/english/Foundations%20of%20HO.pdf

Coming from Information Theory and Cybernetics multiple definitions,

Could it be possible that information is a building, and matter and energy be the substrate, the basic elements like mortar and the movements?

Centering the perspective on an intelligent agent, matter and energy are necessary, but they are perceived by their structure with respect to the agents structure, perceived indirectly.