According to mathematical theories, information is considered only as a quantitative aspect. Scientists do not attach much importance to its value. Based on their theories, it turns out that a text consisting of 100 words and 100 words drawn from fiction or scientific literature carry the same amount of information. Philosophy strongly disagrees with this. What do philosophical concepts of information think on this issue?
Information and knowledge
M. Openkov and L. Mikeshina attempted to compare information and knowledge. As a result of research, they came to the conclusion that information is knowledge that exists without a person. For clarity, we can give such an example, for example, a composer writes music when creating music. Sheet music is information. The performer reads these notes and thanks to his musical knowledge creates music.
Simply put, information is not tied to a specific person, it simply exists and is accessible to everyone equally. And it depends only on a person whether he will be able to turn it into knowledge with his abilities and experience. Based on this idea, the basic philosophical concepts of information appeared, which exist today. Therefore, it is worth considering each of them separately.
Infonigilism
In fact, the basic philosophical concepts of information that exist today have six directions. The first is the concept of infonigilism. Its representatives deny the existence of information as an entity, it is rather a ghost that no one has ever seen, because it can not be measured or recorded using equipment. Information cannot be identified, therefore it is considered as emptiness. M. Setrov argued: "No one saw the information either as a property or as a substance, only because it does not exist." The idea that information is fiction is also confirmed by A. Sokolov, a follower of the socio-informational approach.
The second concept of this approach insists that there is information, as it were, but not in the physical world. Thus, the nature of most supernatural phenomena that are not recognized by science can be explained.
The third philosophical concept of information in this segment states that information exists, but it has no form.
Materialistic theory
Studying the basic philosophical concepts of information, one cannot ignore materialistic theory. It states that information has a material nature and exists in objective reality. True, in this approach, not everyone thinks alike. Representatives of the attributive concept argue that information is an attribute that is inherent in all levels of matter, and functionalists say that information is the quality of systems that can turn it into a function. To really understand what the basic philosophical concepts of information exist, these postulates should be considered separately, in addition, they have long become full-fledged philosophical directions.
Attributive and functional theory
Philosophers of attributive scientific direction regard information as matter. They connect it with reflection, which turns information into a physical phenomenon. Although with this approach, the criterion of separation of reflective and informational phenomena is lost.
The functional theory of information is also not so simple, it is represented by two varieties: anthropocentric and cybernetic. The first concept insists that information exists in the human mind and society, that is, it is an exclusively human property. Cybernetic theory says that information is inherent in all self-governing systems, it is a signal (data transmission through the Network, for example) or structure (social structure of society, etc.).
Panformist theory
And this is not all about the basic philosophical concepts of information. Next on the agenda is pan-informist theory. Its representatives assert that in the process of creation, information was the primary element, and matter was the secondary. I. Yuzvishin, president of the International Informatization Academy, argued that information is the foundation of the world and is the main element of the Universe, which is capable of creating life forms.
The author assures that the whole world, all living and existing, consists of information, and thanks to it the elements can regenerate the creation of food, fuel, etc. He firmly believes that by assimilating more and more information, it can be subordinated to himself, and then humanity will receive the ability to create information machines that send to the past or future and overcome space at any speed.
By the way, science fiction writers and popularizers often use the main ideas of this theory.
Subjective reality
In conclusion about the philosophical concepts of information, I would like to consider it from the point of view of subjective reality. According to this theory, scientists assume that information is the property of exclusively subjective consciousness. Beyond its borders, information a priori does not exist. That is, this is what is available exclusively to subjects. Representatives of this theory believe that information that goes into the depths of consciousness is memory. And its main function is to store the received data and return it to the field of consciousness, if necessary.
The information that has been rethought by the subject, ordered and stored, is called knowledge, which is also exclusively subjective reality. If the information is presented in a symbolic form and placed on some medium, then it will become objective and will join the material world.
Here they are, these semantic information theories. Philosophical concepts that do not recognize information in a quantitative aspect, but with undisguised enthusiasm ascribe new properties, possibilities and boundaries of habitat to it.