There are many theories of physical information. This approach by Blazsó doesn't account for information in static structures very well. However, it could be said to demonstrate that static structures (bound state in QM) embody physical information rather than generating it, which does cohere with classical and algorithmic information theory and with some naturalistic theories offered by philosophers. It's also largely pre-theoretic. However, although pre-theoretic and nearly a decade old (not old by philosophical standards - even in the informational turn):
- It cohere/works well with Process ontology (which although by no means authoritative, has enjoyed something of a revival recently, especially in the philosophy of information in biology.)
- It demonstrates (or at least strongly supports the thesis) that pluralism about the nature of information goes all the way down to the lowest LoA (level of abstraction): at physical information.
- It reinforces the case that the distinction between semantic and physical information is an actual or perceived mistake, or at least supports rejecting that information has to be semantic on any subjectivist or cognitivist basis.
- It again demonstrates that the identification of Shannon Entropy with Boltzmann and/or Gibbs entropy is probably a mistake, and that there are other possible characterisations of physical information that better (or at least alternatively) handle problems with the probability space of source states in continuous physical systems. This kind of work, though incomplete and pre-theoretic, reinforces that there are good reasons not to uncritically accept subjectivist, cognitivist, and interpretational conceptions of natural information like those proposed by some philosophers who seek to establish grand-schematic naturalist and evolutionary theories of information (Terrence Deacon, Luciano Floridi, Carlo Rovelli, Hofkirchner). It also typifies the approach of many working physicists which tends to undermine philosophical assumptions about associated necessary semiotic features of natural information. The list of theories of natural and semantic information compiled by the author in the paper is instructional, but also very much incomplete.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258707214_Elementary_information_in_physics Blazsó, T. (2011). Elementary information in physics. Physics Essays, 25(1), 83–90.
Comments