"… a person can understand things that he is no longer able to imagine" (Lev Landau)
If you start asking passers-by what information is, you can get many different answers, each of which will be correct in its own way, but the very essence of the phenomenon still eludes.
Usually, information is called:
- any information about any previously unknown objects;
- meaningful description of an object or phenomenon;
- selection result;
- signal content, messages;
- a measure of diversity, reflected diversity;
- an entity preserved under computational isomorphism;
- reduced uncertainty;
- a measure of the complexity of structures, a measure of organization;
- the result of the reflection of reality in the mind of a person, presented in his inner language;
- semantics and pragmatics of the data presentation language;
- attribute of matter and much, and much more.
However, all these definitions are only intuitively close and opportunistic cliches. Therefore, I propose to speculate about information without relying on them - abstracting as much as possible.
Any object consists of its constituent parts. Moreover, it possesses a quality that the elements that form it do not have. When the elements are brought together, quality arises. When lying apart, quality disappears. Car parts heaped up do not form a car. The collected parts form the car - a new quality and essence.
Any chemical element has certain qualities. These qualities are not present in its constituent elements, but appear when these elements are combined. Any quality literally comes out of nowhere. The essence of the car is not in any of its parts, but the combination of these parts gives rise to this essence. This effect is close to information. It has no quality, but it is the cause of all qualities.
The nature of our world has an informational essence. Everything that surrounds us: the entire visible and invisible world - information in one form or another. The space-time material-energetic universe is information "swirling" into energy and further into matter. Its reflection is observed in the known and unknown laws of physics.
What are the laws of physics, we have no idea. They are considered constant forces, but from what follows such a conclusion, no one can really justify. The opposite can be just as easily assumed. Information is absolute being. Lack of information is absolute nothingness. These are two ontological opposites, thus constituting a single whole, which simultaneously exists and does not exist.
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Let's take a look at this essence in general terms. For example, 2x2 = 4 there is information. If tomorrow all records with this information disappear, will the information itself disappear? If all round objects disappear, will the very idea of a circle disappear? If all atoms disappear, will the idea of the atom disappear? And further ascending higher - if the planets and stars disappear, will the idea of planets and stars disappear?
If before the pot was the idea of a pot; before the universe there was an idea of the universe; before the plane was the idea of an airplane, which means that information does not depend on its carriers. Before any of the listed material objects, the idea of a pot, the universe and an airplane existed. One cannot conceive of the emergence of an airplane, a pot, or the universe before an idea.
Plato spoke of the world of ideas, the projections of which form the material world. This seems to be true. An idea is structured information. It is like an alphabet from which words and sentences arise, and according to them the material embodiment of certain images is built. Information is the essence of "building material". An idea is a concrete "blueprint" of an object.
It is impossible to admit an ordered movement before the information providing the parameters of this movement. Information is already embedded in the word "orderliness". Therefore, it is that due to which existence exists, thought is thought, will wills, creativity is created, and so on. She is the beginning of all beginnings and the cause of all that exists. She created physical laws, space, energy, matter and time.
The question cannot be raised where it came from, for it was before existence. It is as if it "swirled" into energy as energy "swirled" into matter. We cannot imagine how it happened (as well as imagine the "twisting" of energy into matter). As it was not clear what information is and how it turns into energy and then matter, it remains so.
But what can I say about a lack of understanding of such complex things. We still do not know what motion is: if a motionless body occupies a specific place in space … if a flying arrow occupies a specific place in space every moment of its flight, it turns out that the movement consists … of standing.
Any existence is always movement. There is no existence without movement. The basis of movement is information. This means that information existed before any … existence. The term "existence" does not apply to information. It cannot be said that it exists, for it is before all existence.
In search of an answer, let's start with a statement of fact: everything that exists is recorded. It does not matter who acts as a fixer: a person or another entity. Just as the object and the way in which it is discovered are not important. It is important that everything that exists can be fixed.
Fixation is possible provided that the known laws of nature apply. For example, the process of seeing occurs due to the action of laws that make photons of light reflect from an object. If the laws that ensure the movement of photons cease to operate, there will be no opportunity to see in our understanding.
Being is the domain of the law. Nothingness is the area of inaction of the law, absolute nothing. It cannot be understood as an undeveloped endless dark and empty space, without end and edge. There is no space beyond the boundaries of being. Space is only where laws operate. It may be completely empty, but if it is filled with laws, this is being.
Reflections led us to understand: the cause of space is the laws that organize the movement of energy and matter. The first being is space. The movement of energy began in it, which gave birth to matter and time appeared. The essence of any law is information …
We came to the conclusion: information was before space, energy, matter, time and all forms of existence that once began to exist. We cannot think about what it was, but it turns out unambiguously: information precedes all existence, while not being anything from existing.
From the totality of the above, it follows: the nature of our world has an informational essence. Everything that surrounds us: the entire visible and invisible world - information in one form or another. The space-time material-energetic universe is information "swirling" into energy and further into matter. Its reflection is observed in the known and unknown laws of physics.
It is impossible to pose a question about the nature of information, because this essence is not captured in our being. One cannot even think about it approximately. All emerging images are carriers of information, while the information itself is not thought of. Thought has no face, for thought is a face, but its forms are not perceptible. Forming space, energy, matter and time, information is not at the same time any of the above.
Let us illustrate the insubordination of information to the fundamental laws of conservation, which say - "how much something has disappeared somewhere - exactly as much of it has arrived somewhere." When you inform the child that 2x2 = 4, this information appears in the child, but it does not disappear from you, i.e. it is preserved 100% in both places, demonstrating its immateriality (insubordination to the laws of conservation).
Interaction between objects, in the process of which one acquires some substance, and the other does not lose it, is called information interaction. In this case, the transmitted substance is called information.
And now a fragment of the direct speech of St. Gregory the Theologian about the Holy Trinity:
"… which acquires in Three singly, and embraces the Three separately, without distinction in essences and natures, does not increase and does not diminish, through additions and subtractions, is equal everywhere, everywhere the same as the one beauty and the one greatness of heaven."
What can better illustrate the truth of the maxim about the immaterial essence of information, as one of the fundamental principles of the material world?
From the definition given in two paragraphs above, two most general properties of Information follow. First - Information cannot exist outside the interaction of objects. Second - Information is not lost by any of them in the course of this interaction.
Information in isolation from its carriers does not exist, but it does exist. This is the essence of divine being, which was before all existence. Information seems to be “exhaled” by God, like an artist “exhales” an era from himself with his works. She is eternal, reflected in our world in its temporary material forms. It stitches the whole world, not being anything that the world is (space, time, energy and matter). But thanks to information, all of the above exists and, as a result, the world itself.
Information has three key properties: completeness, reliability and timeliness. Everything else is disinformation.
As I write these lines, the words come to my mind: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Amazing depth of insight, considering that the “Word” is in some way an “information message”.