Ask A Genius 484 – Information and Context
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen and Rick Rosner
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/12/25
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Scott Douglas Jacobsen: There are different forms of information. One in a highly organized system but spread out. Another tightly knit and appears to make information, too.
Rick Rosner: Information probably isn’t information without context and the ability to interpret it as information. The information to the universe is only information to the universe. It is matter, space, and energy to us, not information.
We can pull information out of it. The universe isnt’ an information map to us. The universe is the material universe. That’s not to say that we can at some point become sufficiently technologically advanced to figure out to some extent the information of which the universe is made from.
But if it is holographic, then good luck with that. It probably is given the lack of specificity. The universe is basically a bunch of solar systems. It is not like one means asparagus and another means orange.
The information is probably not that localized. Which means, it is some kind of holographic or distributive deal. In any case, when people think of information, I have not thought about what people think about when they think of “information.”
I think people think information is there for the seeing. You see a stop sign that says, “Stop.” Okay, it is information. All information has a conveyance of what it is via a visual aspect.
I am looking at a vanilla folder, a box from Target, a plant. I suspect the information is conveyed visually. But I suspect the information is only available if you have evolved to interpret the information, as we have done.
Those former examples are bits of information. They are conveyed. But they are only available through my sensory and thought apparatus. This probably applies to all information. The easy information that we see.
There is the big data information is on the way, once we’re half computers in 40 years. We will all sorts of new information in the universe. Because we will have all these new sensory and processing capacities.
All information in the universe may be this way. It may be opaque and unreadable unless you have the right apparatus to read it properly. It doesn’t mean that you need a conscious entity to gather information and to act on information.
Information may only exist to the extent that it is registered by the rest of the universe.
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