Assume that significant and meaningful interpretations are kinds of information. Therefore, it might be useful to know a little bit about information in general. In the Web Dictionary of Cybernetics and Systems, a reference created by members of the Principia Cybernetica Project, information is defined as:

INFORMATION 1) that which reduces uncertainty. (Claude Shannon); 2) that which changes us. (Gregory Bateson) Literally that which forms within, but more adequately: the equivalent of or the capacity of something to perform organizational work, the difference between two forms of organization or between two states of uncertainty before and after a message has been received, but also the degree to which one variable of a system depends on or is constrained by (see constraint) another. E.g., the dna carries genetic information inasmuch as it organizes or controls the orderly growth of a living organism. A message carries information inasmuch as it conveys something not already known. The answer to a question carries information to the extent it reduces the questioner's uncertainty. A telephone line carries information only when the signals sent correlate with those received. Since information is linked to certain changes, differences or dependencies, it is desirable to refer to theme and distinguish between information stored, information carried, information transmitted, information required, etc. Pure and unqualified information is an unwarranted abstraction. information theory measures the quantities of all of these kinds of information in terms of bits. The larger the uncertainty removed by a message, the stronger the correlation between the input and output of a communication channel, the more detailed particular instructions are the more information is transmitted. (Krippendorf) Information is the meaning of the representation of a fact (or of a message) for the receiver. (Hornung) http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/Information.html

I propose that information is:

matter or energy that, when it is recognized, designates its own existence and organization, as well as the actions performed by and upon that matter or energy.

And that

Information originates in an entity capable of recognizing organization, though information can be transformed into other arrangements of matter or energy that can exist outside of that entity.

As long as an area of matter and/or energy has an organization that can be received, acknowledged, and processed by an organism or mechanism that is capable of recognition, it can exist as information. A person could recognize information in anything from the scent of Chanel No° 5 to the sounds produced from an mp3 file of Bjork's song "Joga". A mechanism like an infared sensor on a television set might recognize information when a beam of infared light signals the sensor to change mode from "on" to "off". A cat's nervous system might recognize information that causes it to acknowledge the difference between a wall and empty space when its whiskers brush up against a mouse hole. Because all information is carried by organizations of matter and/or energy, all information is somehow manifested in reality ; i.e., information cannot be formed out of what does not exist. As Klaus Krippendorff, Professor of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania said, "Pure and unqualified information is an unwarranted abstraction." If all information is real, then an individual area of information can be distinguished by the qualities and properties it possesses, its relationship to other matter and/or energy or information, and its behavior. For instance, a representation is not just any given area of information-- it is a particular area of information that stands or substitutes for another organization of information, matter, and/or energy in function or thought or both. One representation, like a picture of Nicole Kidman in a newspaper ad, can substitute for another representation of completely different substance, like the same picture printed on a poster, posted on a billboard, or coded as a negative image on film. A DVD recording of the metal band Meshuggah playing a live concert is an audiovisual representation of that event. The information coded in a single gene located in a strand of fox DNA is a representation of the way a particular trait-- like blue eyes or red fur-- is manifested in the fox's body. next page | " information systems " 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9