Unified Information Theory
Writing about information is difficult because everything from enzymes in dirt to the dirt itself to the bodies put in that dirt by elaborate war machines to the war machines and how and why they came into existence contains information. So, how do we talk about all of these different forms of data or information. The following post attempts to build a theoretical framework, describing information in a comprehensive way so that all data-related phenomenon can be talked about using similar terminology. This is the first step in placing war in a broader context, which is my ultimate goal. The foundational concept underpinning this framework is that all information systems leverage localized constraints or rules to generate a global logic or pattern.[1] With that in mind, the following paper describes the rules governing base units of information and how their behaviors create and change the information environment. Future posts will describe how these localized constraints scale and effect the behavior of large-scale human-led information systems, which increasingly subsume all aspects of life to include war and strategy.
Rule 1: Memes are the base unit of data in human-led information systems and they consist of two essential components, an idea and an ideology. Ideas solve a specific problem, representing a new way of understanding an aspect of the environment. Most, potentially all, ideas form under turbulent conditions of competition either for survival, or to make money, or to ensure political relevance, or to achieve academic prestige. To stay alive, an idea needs protection like a pine seed needs a pine cone to survive the violent process of birth and growth. Ideology provides that protection by breaking the idea into easily (mis)understood concepts or products, which followers spread. Ideology also gathers followers for a specific school of thought to help it confront other groups with competing ideas or belief structures.
Thus, memes contain two dichotomous facets. The first an idea that is focused on solving a real problem or filling a niche in an environment. In a sense, an idea is a fact or ground truth because it addresses a real need. To meet that need, the idea focuses on truth and accuracy (i.e. engineering) to achieve a specific goal. Whereas, an ideology connects ideas to emotions by telling a story about an idea’s relevance, making the idea easier to spread and advance. However, the ideology is not constrained by the need for accuracy and truth. By gathering followers and connecting their feelings to an idea, ideologies leverage passion and mass against perceived attacks on the idea and a surrounding set of beliefs. If you feel an emotional response when someone questions your “facts,” typically, it’s because you are arguing for a set of ideas that you don’t fully understand or that do not have the broad explanatory power you think they do but to which your personal feelings and even identity are attached.
Rule 2: Memetic fitness is determined by one of two factors: 1) a memes ability to spread and combine with other concepts to create technological or cultural revolutions; 2) a memes ability to reduce collective burden by offloading labor intensive tasks onto specialists/automation. Fitness refers to the ability to survive and thrive within a specific environment. Memetic fitness is determined by the ability to combine and proliferate, creating a superstructure of computation that makes sense of the world. Highly fit memes combine well with other memes to enable the exponential growth of each, assuring survival and dominance within a specific context. The most fit memes create cultural or technologic ages where a conglomeration of schools of thought such as democracy and free market capitalism comingle with tangible products such as cities, cars, and fossil fuel energy to dominate the intellectual landscape.
Another way to improve computational capacity or fitness is by increasing the time that each person and machine has for analytical tasks. This is done either by offloading labor intensive tasks onto a small group of highly productive specialists or simplifying tasks that consume large blocks of time for everyone. Once simplified, the tasks are then automated. With additional free-time, each person or machine gains the ability to explore and specialize. This process reveals more of the physical and conceptual space, allowing more memes to emerge, combine and proliferate.
Rule 3: Memes solve specific problems or occupy a niche within a particular environmental context. The type of information that one gleans from the environment is directly related to the type of problem an actor attempts to solve or the niche that one intends to fill. Without an objective, there is no way to discern the signal (i.e. relevant information) from the noise (i.e. irrelevant or less relevant information) within a given environment. At the environmental level, however, there is no such thing as noise (irrelevant or less relevant information) because all data contributes to a more holistic understanding of macro and micro phenomena. The relevance of information is determined strictly by the objective with which one engages the information ecosystem.
Rule 4: There is no way for a meme or its supporting human systems to engage with other memes or actors in an information environment without changing. One of the most common misconceptions about the information ecosystem is that one can unilaterally shape it. Actually, there is no way to engage with the information environment without it shaping you. Because information relevance is linked to a specific objective, one must collect data from the environment and evaluate its quality based on that objective. To collect said data, one develops specially designed tools, and the skills to use those tools. To assess the data, one adopts a particular perspective on the world. Further, one learns by observing objects, an adversary, friend or client. Based on the information one receives, he/she adapts his/her tools, behavior, and perspective in an effort to optimally influence the other actor. I call this process the collect-assess-influence-assess-adapt information cycle (this cycle is different from the observe, orient, decide, act cycle described by John Boyd in that no one actor in the information space can unilaterally dominate another the way Boyd dominated other fighter pilots). Since no two actors approach the information environment with the exact same objective, each run of the collect-assess-influence-assess-adapt feedback loop changes both actors, moving them further from their starting conditions, and always off course from their originally intended end state. Accepting this inevitably gives one or both actors the ability to define a range of satisfactory outcomes for their engagement.
Rule 5: Memes have a limited lifespan but an unlimited desire for survival. At some foundational level, the rules constraining the behaviors of data present as a set of preferences used by data to achieve a specific design. For instance, genes gave humans the ability to live long lives and procreate, which gives the impression that genes want each of us to live to mating age, enjoy sex and raise children so that our genes might combine and proliferate. However, genes do not care about a particular species, about individuals within that species, or their personal enjoyment. Instead, the process of genetic evolution benefited from species that reached mating age and procreated, and selected for species that had the motivation to do both things.
Similarly, memes present as if they have a specific agenda, when they do not. Their goals seem to include living a long vibrant life and gathering as many followers as possible (i.e. your favorite social medial influencer). But no such objective actually exists.
Memes thrive if they combine and proliferate, and solve specific problems. Since the environment is ever-shifting, the relative value of a specific idea constantly changes. That does not mean that great ideas such as capitalism or socialism ever truly die. It merely means that the relative quantity or strength of an idea within a particular period of time changes to suit specific conditions. Hence Isaac Newton’s quip “If I have seen further, it’s by standing on the shoulders of giants.” By combining the ideas of previous mathematicians with his own, Newton created calculus, which dominated the fields of math and science for generations. But his idea did not completely replace the ideas that came before his, nor did his form of calculus completely outcompete Gottfried Leibniz’s calculus, which was created at the same time. Most schools use a combination of mathematical principles when teaching calculus to include both Newton’s and Leibiz’s contributions.
Finally, memes appear to want long lives because of the personal value that their followers feel as a result of their potency. People help memes proliferate by creating emotional bonds with the underlying ideas. Thus, as the value of an idea fades, so too does the personal worth of an adherent decline. To avoid confronting the possibility that one wasted part of their life supporting a losing cause, adherents commit more virulently to their ideology attacking successor memes in an effort to overwhelm and suppress them.
Rule 6: Depth of analysis within a specific field of study or meme is determined by the strength of the bonds within that field, and the breadth of analysis is determined by the looseness of bonds. Like other information systems such as the universe or evolution, human-led information system simultaneously engage in both deep specialization and broad probing analysis. The type of analysis is generally dependent on the strength of the bond between the actors or elements within that system. For instance, of the four forces of physics, the strong force creates tight bonds that enable development of the elements and deep specialization within the atomic realm. However, as the forces weaken the variation in types of possible phenomena explodes and includes galaxies of various formations, dark matter, black holes, stars, planets, life, asteroids and so on.
The same is true of genetics. A species of flora or fauna explores a particular specialty. Whereas, a domain of plants or animals covers a broad array of potential species with loose connections filling a wider field of possible niches.
Bonds in human-led systems probably included family, tribe, religion, state, social network, and communications network. The family bond provided close knit communities laser focused on the collection of food and protection of the young. As bonds loosened, the focus on food and protection diminished and more time was spent examining other areas of intellectual interest. Regardless of system, a combination of bonds is required to both explore the physical and information frontiers, and to create areas of deep specialization in domains of apparent importance.
Conclusion. Years ago, I concluded that more of our lives – to include the conflicts in which we engage – would take place in the information space. I came to my conclusion without understanding where the idea came from, as though – without my knowledge – I was giving expression to a unique set of ideas in the same way that I give expression to a distinctive combination of genes. In the years since, I have come to believe that people are more like tuning forks than thinking machines. We absorb and vocalize the ideas and ideologies in our surroundings, and, if we tune our antennae just right, we can give voice to a reality that already exists but no one else hears. The above rules come less from years of data crunching and computation than from engagement and disengagement with Twitter and a new reading list, which allowed me to absorb new ideas and combine them with old ones. That said, there is a deepness in these principles that I have never before experienced. A profundity, which was only attainable once I pushed aside the standard signals emitting from the professional background that I once occupied. These thoughts may not be the bottom, they may not fully describe information, and I may not be the right tuning fork. But they do represent the basement floor, the foundational concepts of information as I understand them.
[1] Neil Gershenfeld “Self-Replicating Robots and the Future of Fabrication,” Lex Fridman Podcast, Episode 380 (30 minutes 30 seconds into podcast).