Emergence and Evolution of Meaning

• Published in: TripleC Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 13 - 35
• Main Authors: Díaz Nafría, José M., Zimmermann, Rainer E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Salzburg TripleC Communication, Capitalism & Critique, published by Information Society Research 01.01.2013; Paderborn University: Media Systems and Media Organisation Research Group
• Subjects: Biosemiotics; Electromagnetic Theory; Meaning; Perception; Philosophy of Information; Quantum Gravity; Sustainable development; Unified Theory of Information; Vision
• ISSN: 1726-670X; 1726-670X
• DOI: 10.31269/triplec.v11i1.334

The category of meaning is traced forward starting from the origin of the Universe itself as well as its very grounding in pre-geometry. Different from many former approaches in the theories of information and also in biosemiotics, we will show that the forms of meaning emerge simultaneously (alongside) with information and energy. Hence, information is always meaningful (in a sense to be explicated) rather than its meaning would show up as a later specification of information within social systems only. This perspective taken has two immediate consequences: (1) We follow the GDI as defined by Floridi, though we modify it somehow as to the aspect of truthfulness. (2) We can conceptually solve Capurro’s trilemma. Hence, what we actually do is to follow the strict (i.e. optimistic) line of UTI in the sense of Hofkirchner’s. While doing this, we treat energy and information as two different categorial aspects of one and the same underlying primordial structure.