On The Hierarchical Model Of Information And Its Philosophical Implications

Information is the medium through which living being interacting with its surrounding environment that is a difference which makes a difference for living being.It is a complex phenomenon having three levels:sub-personla,individual and inter-subjetictive.Information cannot be physicaly reduced but naturalistically explainable.The etymology of the concept of information has ontological and epistemological meanings which were lost in epistemology turn and the process of scientization of the concept of information.Sign is the carrier of information.What is transmitted from object to sign,to interpretant in semiosis/information process is Form.There are three aspects of meaning of sign,namely relationships between world affair,sign and consumer of sign:first,stabilizing function referring to the aspect that robustly affording certain purposes of living systems;second,semantic mapping function referring to the aspect that the way sign referring to its reference(world affair);third,conception referring to the aspect the way individual living system(consumers of sign)acquiring the meaning of signs.The referential relationship between a sign and its reference is hierarchical realizing by hierarchical dependence of competences of icon,index and symbol.There are two kinds of codes encoding information into sign:analog and digital code.The hierarchical nature of reference is implemented by the hierarchical dependence and inter-conversion of analog and digital code.The sub-personal level of information,namely dynamic level,can be explained by dynamic theory of information.Since the concept of form can be naturalized through the concept of constraint which can be explained by dynamic theory in turn,the physical dynamic foundantion of information can be described as the interaction of different dynamic systems in which constraints are transmitted due to the fact that both thermodynamic and information entropy can be explained by constraint.Following,it can provide physical dynamic foundation for reference,interpretation and significance.Richness of such dynamics in the nature guarantees the open-endedness of information.However,these dynamic interactions are not themselves information processes.It is intention transforming them into semiosis/information process.The process that transforms physical causal constraints into significant constraint affordance is the individual level of information in which intention as the engine of information plays key role."No meaning without function,no function without intention,no intention without living being.”Therefore,intention originates from the agency of conserving self-identity and affording inner purpose of living being.Living being transforms causal events in the surrounding environment into significant constraint affordance through the capacity of repurposing.The whole situation of information is functional circle of decoupling-re-coupling between living being and information,and its surrounding environment.Value-neutral objects are transformed into meaning-carriers for living being in this functional circle.Functional circles of a living being constitute umvelt of the living being which constitutes infosphere with umwelts of others.The bridges between umvelts are signs which are intersubjective.How the intersubjectivity of information emerges from individual level of semiosis/information process can be explained by Lewis-Skyrms signaling game theory.Signaling game theory can avoid rational assumption and curse of symmetry once envisaged by early game theories through employing Darwian natural selection and evolutionary biology.Signaling system,namely sign,can emerge from signaling game which composed by sender,receriver and signal spontaneously.Even there is no common interest between sender and receiver,signaling system can still emerge.New signals can be invented when there is no signal.Questions of information as,about,and for reality are answered by the hierarchical model of information constructed in the thesis.This model also brings new hope for bridging gaps in philosophy through naturalism in physically irreducible but naturalistically explicable sense.