From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Jun 24 1998 - 06:13:43 MDT
I would say information is fundamental, but maybe in a trivial
way. Information is really pattern, the distinguishable organization
of something (meaning and similar stuff are higher level things).
That makes it fundamental in an ontological sense, but the question is
if it is the only fundamental stuff. One could postulate that
existence consists of 'quintessence' and information, the ordering of
the quintessence into the world we know. Or one could be a platonic
materialist and say that existence is just made up of information,
with no need for quintessence.
While I like the platonic materialist position (more parsimonious) I
acknowledge that ontological discussions tend to be rather pointless -
there is very little or nothing we can do to find out how things
really are on this level.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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