Significant (or Useful) Information
Neuroanthropologist Terrence Deacon laid out a 3-nested conception of information in which the lowest level is just a quantitative measure of the content communicated by the information, and the highest level is the significance or meaning of the information:
- Shannon information (referring to the mid-20th century theory by Claude Shannon) is the most minimal and basic conception of information.
- Referential information, in which information is understood to be about something, is emergent from Shannon's information.
- Significant - or useful - information is emergent from referential information.
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In the beginning, there was matter and energy. There was no meaning to it. Yet, now there is plenty of meaning–at least to us, in the sense that we use the term: significance. So, where did all this meaning come from? How did meaning enter a universe that lacks inherent meaning?
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