Information Blindness

Information Blindness

The fact that our species uses information as its exclusive basis for communication makes our species blind to the possibility that other bases of representation exist. The widespread presumption that information is the only available basis for representation is species centric. In hindsight, our exclusive reliance on indirect representation will prove to be no better than the Ptolemaic geocentric astronomy European and Arabic astronomers mistakenly labored under for 1,393 years prior to the advent of Copernican heliocentric cosmology and the start of the scientific revolution.

Since the time of Ptolemy, physicists have learned not to trust centric points of view. First physicists discovered that the earth was not the center of the universe. Then they discovered that the sun was not the center of the universe. Then they realized that our Milky Way galaxy is not the center of the universe. They have learned that there is no center in space. They have learned that space has no preferred direction and no preferred orientation. However, to this day, physicists are still falling into the trap of relying on a centric point of view. Physicists are still relying on the observer centric point of view of information. They still describe the universe from the 3rd person indirect perspective of an observer. Physical existence doesn't depend on any observer. Why should the physical representation of existence be dependent on the perspective of an observer? Why should physical existence be based on information?

The representation of existence is context dependent, not context free. Particulars in existence always exist in some context. Existence uses a relative relational encoding, not a fixed context free encoding. Most importantly, the representation of existence must be consistent and complete. The entire universe must be represented by a single universe of discourse. There can be no domain limitations. There can only be one ontology and one direct representation of existence for the entire universe. All other alternatives increase complexity combinatorially in the number of representations by making it combinatorially more complex to maintain the consistency and completeness of multiple overlapping representations of existence.

The fact that logic, mathematics, and science have succeeded in representing many different limited fixed domains of discourse using many different formal systems each with its own representation, its own ontology and its own ontological consistency rules is not a logically sufficient basis for assuming that information is the basis for the representation of the entirety of existence itself. The ability to represent limited domains of existence is not the same as the ability to represent all of it at once. Representations based on information are incomplete. They are domain limited. They are complex. They are brittle and fail easily in the face of unexpected input. They are inefficient. Most significantly, they require a priori knowledge of what is to be represented before a suitable representation can be formulated. Existence is logically and physically prior to observation. Therefore, the use of information as the basis for the representation of existence violates causality. Continuing to base all representation on information despite this fact is illogical and wasteful in the extreme. The only logical alternative is to move beyond the representation of information to overcome these problems.