Meaning and Intentionality = Information + Evolution

Abstract

Notions like meaning, signal, intentionality, are difficult to relate to a physical world. I study a purely physical definition of “meaningful information”, from which these notions can be derived. It is inspired by a model recently illustrated by Kolchinsky and Wolpert, and improves on Dretske’s classic work on the relation between knowledge and information. I discuss what makes a physical process into a “signal”.