Fleeting thoughts: Information monism

Prehistory and background:

Information monism have a few independent historical roots, which turn out to feed a single corpus nowadays:

1 Quantum mechanics has been gradually reformulated entirely in terms of an information theory, that of quantum information, since the middle of 20th century. Thus quantum information, a generalization of the concept and quantity of information, underlies all physical world as a universal substance for quantum mechanics is a universal physical theory.

2 Shannon (1948)’s information mathematically equivalent or relative to the thermodynamic quantity of entropy generates an interdisciplinary paradigm, according to which the conception and mathematical formalism of information underlies and unifies a series of scientific areas such as thermodynamics, mechanics, relativity, chemistry, genetics, ecology, evolution theory, sociology, psychology, cognitive science, and many others as well as all technical applications of information theory such as computer.

3 There is a viewpoint in philosophy and meta-philosophy, according to which the opposition of monism and dualism (pluralism) can be reconciled considering their opposition itself as the initial ground of all being. That single initial element has the same formal and mathematical structure as a bit of information: a single “sell”, in which are “recordable” (or selective) two disjunctive options: either monism or dualism (pluralism).

Thesis: 

One can speak of the ontological concept of information definable as the division and unity of two disjunctive initial elements, which can be interpreted in many different ways. The quantity of information measureable in units of bits corresponds to that concept just as to all other ways for information to be introduced. Particularly, quantum information representable as that generalization of information referable to infinite series or sets and measureable in units of qubits (quantum bits) can be anyway seen as a series of classical bits having a certain, but transfinite length.

A few main arguments:

1 The historical development in science, technics and philosophy sketched above contains the option for that ontological generalization.

2 The introduction of information as an ontological concept corresponds to the boom of information technology and its applications and huge influence on both society and human progress nowadays.

3 The ontological concept of information generates a universal meta-paradigm corresponding to both intention and intension of monism to define a single initial element of both cognition and being.

4 Though being originally formulated ontologically and therefore only quantitatively, it admits naturally a very simple quantity (that of information), which furthermore corresponds absolutely exactly to the existing and established definitions of the quantity of information.

5 That ontological concept of information works in direction to unifying ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ both as fundamental philosophical categories and in certain scientific areas. Its application to mathematics and its foundation is especially important for mathematics being roughly speaking a science of quantity needs crucially an ontological conception about the corresponds of ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’. That is not less important for all other sciences applying mathematical models.

6 A series of unifications and resolvable fundamental problems is outlined: mathematics and physics, finiteness and infinity, mind-body problem, etc.