In the Beginning was Information

3 Information is a Fundamental Entity3.1 Information: a Fundamental QuantityThe trail-blazing discoveries about the nature of energy in the 19thcentury caused the first technological revolution, when manuallabour was replaced on a large scale by technological appliances –machines which could convert energy. In the same way knowledgeconcerning the nature of information in our time initiated the secondtechnological revolution where mental “labour” is savedthrough the use of technological appliances – viz. data processingmachines. The concept “information” is not only of prime importancefor informatics theories and communication techniques, butit is a fundamental quantity in such wide-ranging sciences ascybernetics, linguistics, biology, history, and theology. Many scientiststherefore justly regard information as the third fundamentalentity alongside matter and energy.Claude E. Shannon was the first researcher who tried to defineinformation mathematically. The theory based on his findings hadthe advantages that different methods of communication could becompared and that their performance could be evaluated. In addition,the introduction of the bit as unit of information made it possibleto describe the storage requirements of information quantitatively.The main disadvantage of Shannon’s definition of informationis that the actual contents and impact of messages were notinvestigated. Shannon’s theory of information which describesinformation from a statistical viewpoint only, is discussed fully inthe appendix (Chapter A1).The true nature of information will be discussed in detail in the followingchapters, and statements will be made about informationand the laws of nature. After a thorough analysis of the informationconcept, it will be shown that the fundamental theorems can beapplied to all technological and biological systems and also to allcommunication systems, including such diverse forms as the gyrationsof bees and the message of the Bible. There is only one prerequisite,namely that the information must be in coded form.44