ABSTRACT Since special relativity and quantum mechanics, information has become a central concept in our description and understanding of physical reality. This statement may be construed in different ways, depending on the meaning we attach to the concept of information, and on our ontological commitments. One distinction is between mind-independent ‘Shannon information’ and a traditional conception of information, connected with meaning and knowledge. Another, orthogonal, distinction is between information considered as a fundamental physical entity (Wheeler’s ‘it from bit’), and an ontological agnosticism where physics is about our information of the world rather than about the world itself. Combinations of these lead to various possibilities. I argue that adopting mind-independent information as ontologically fundamental is a hitherto undefended position with important advantages. This position appears similar to Floridi’s informational structural realism, but is fundamentally different. Rather than ‘epistemically indistinguishable differences’, it requires a robust conception of information as consisting of readable and interpretable messages.

中文翻译：

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信息，现实与现代物理学

摘要自从狭义相对论和量子力学以来，信息已经成为我们描述和理解物理现实的中心概念。根据我们对信息概念的重视以及我们的本体论承诺，可以用不同的方式来解释该陈述。一个区别是独立于心灵的“香农信息”和与意义和知识相关的传统信息概念之间的区别。另一个正交的区别是，被视为基本物理实体的信息（Wheeler的“从零开始”）与本体论不可知论之间，即物理学是关于我们的世界信息，而不是关于世界本身。这些的组合导致各种可能性。我认为，采用独立于思想的信息作为本体论的基础是迄今没有防御的立场，具有重要的优势。这一立场看上去与弗洛里迪的信息结构现实主义相似，但根本不同。而不是“在本质上无法区分的差异”，它要求对信息的健壮概念是由可读和可解释的消息组成的。