Shawn,
Though you had no way of knowing it up front, you were destined to lose that one. Your views of information are simply different. Consider the exchange:
"I view meaningful information obtained from a physical message as a physical reality that leads to (possible) physical outcomes. [...] by contrast, the "info content" and the "data content" don't seem to lead to physical outcomes."
Unless one is claiming that particles attach "meaning" to information, then one is bringing consciousness into the picture, without of course, defining consciousness. Conscious interpretations provide the 'meaning' for information extracted from data, as I have argued in earlier comments. [I ignore here automated decoding-and-action systems that, in the end, trace to consciousness.]
The bottom line: "...information is physical..." As you noted, a lot of physicists seem to believe this. We can argue until we're blue in the face. I think it's a semi-religious thing based on naive materialism.
The problem: "...subjective experience is the entirely natural way that information is apprehended in the universe. Subjective experience is meaningful information."
Although we all have it, I don't believe 'subjective experience' was defined in that series of exchanges, so how can you argue with "information = undefined thing"? If someone cares to redefine information as "subjective experience" rather than use Claude Shannon's definition, there's no point in arguing. You can't win this one.
But I did find your arguments interesting.
Edwin Eugene Klingman
