I come to this question, "What is information?", through some obscure route of reflection, breaking down the nature of experience into components. (I don't like the word "components" because is implies a degree of discreteness I don't really intend, but I'll stick with it until I think of a better word.)
I begin by conceding as axiomatic that randomness be a cause which leads undifferentiated chaos to coalesce into patterns. Some would dispute this, especially in the context of information, but there are examples in the sciences (physics and biology) where this is demonstrated through observation and experimentation.
Information is the capacity of a pattern to be recognized independently by more than one agent or by a single agent at multiple, independent instances.
I believe this is the most rudimentary definition of information. A few things to note about this definition. It establishes information as objective and durable. By "objective" I mean that it has a structure which is not wholly dependent upon the agent of observation. In other words, it isn't a day-dream. By durable I mean simply that it has duration, allowing for observation, experimentation or verification beyond the initial encounter. A few other things to note about this definition: it does not imply that the recognized pattern between multiple agents is the same, only that there is a communicable identity. For example, two entities, a bee and a humming bird, are both able to perceive a flower. Now, if they were capable of communicating with each other, through a series of repetitions of pointing to examples they would be able to establish a common understanding of the identity of a particular type of flower. They could go around the garden and say, "This is flower X, but this is not flower X" with very high levels of agreement. However, the pattern that each sees is not the same because the visible spectrum of light for the bee and the humming bird is different. The flowers look different to each other but the patterns imbued in the flower conveys information which can be used for objective verification.
Now here is an interesting line of inquiry:
pareidolia. This is the case where the human capacity to recognize patterns would seem to be misfiring. Is our brain identifying information where there is none? No. Information is there, it is real, but the brain is performing a larger pattern recognition action, seeking a short-cut to the interpretation of the information. Human brains do this really well, but an undisciplined perception can overreach.
Finally, information is not meaning. Meaning is a construct which agents place upon information. Is it a shortcut to the consumption of information, similar to pattern recognition? Perhaps I'll say more about that at another time. I need to think about it.
