Information in a Physical World

To construct a comprehensive theory of information, meaning and intentionality, the book develops a naturalistic perspective based on Peircean biosemiotics. It re-examines key issues such as referential information, the metaphysics of form, misrepresentation, reference and sense, offering new explanations and insights.

It analyzes the notion of information conceptually, showing that it is not a simple concept, but rather comprises hierarchically nested aspects: Structural, referential and normative. By defining form negatively as a constraint, it offers a naturalistic account of structural information. It then addresses the normativity of referential relations through the concept of interpretation, introducing the notion of operational interpretation to explain the minimal normativity of reference. The book further argues that the three types of reference―symbolic, indexical and iconic―are asymmetrically interdependent: Symbolic reference depends on indexical reference, which in turn depends on iconic reference. This semiotic framework helps to resolve many long-standing problems in the philosophy of language. Finally, the book argues that convention is inherently a semiotic concept. As such, symbolic reference has two aspects of conventionality: The sign vehicle and the referential relation. This semiotic explanation offers a deeper understanding of real-world communication scenarios.

The book will be of interest to researchers and advanced students in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of biology, philosophy of cognitive science, semiotics, biosemiotics and linguistics.

Liqian Zhou is an associate professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research interests include philosophy of information, philosophy of biology, philosophy of mind and cognition, and biosemiotics.