The Tree of Nature: The Essence of Nature Is Information & Communication (Science-Meets-Philosophy Forum)

The Evolution of Meaning is based upon the premise that the Universe consists of information processing events. ‘InformationвЂTM is to be understood here not in the bare mathematical sense, but in the full active life/observation/meaning sense. From this viewpoint, the scientific description of Nature is seen to involve not only the fabric of spacetime, material aggregates and the forces acting between them, but also various equally real and fundamental groups of laws and law-like entities, as well as the concepts of subjectivity and value-oriented essential dimensions. Each of these fundamental parameters is shown to comprise four sub-parameters; all of them together forming a well-structured Tree of Everything which leads on to both testable scientific predictions, and to sensible conjectures about manвЂTMs place in the world. The Universe constitutes a self-unfolding and meaningful story in which events do not pass away into non-existence but instead remain forever as an indelible part of the whole. Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 What is it All About? -- The Scientific Method -- The Tree of Nature -- The Tree of Everything -- -- ch. 2 The Material Base of Nature -- Atoms -- Elementary Particles -- Up Quark and Down Quark -- Electron -- Electron-Neutrino -- Matter -- Three Families of Matter -- -- ch. 3 Information Processing Events -- Gravity -- The Electromagnetic (EM) Force -- The Nuclear Forces -- The Four Types of Forces -- Something to Wonder About -- The Interaction between Particles -- The Information-Processing Triplet of Parameters -- -- ch. 4 Law-like Information -- The General Information Cycle -- The Reality Status of the Laws of Nature -- The Emergence of Law-Like Information -- Biological Events -- Conscious Events -- Mental Causation -- The Conceptual Level -- The Category of Conscious Events -- Cultural Events -- The Four Categories of Law-Like Information -- -- ch. 5 Universal History -- Spacetime -- The Spacetime Tetrad -- Spacetime and Law-like Information -- The History Triplet of the Tree of Everything -- Subjectivity -- -- ch. 6 Subjectivity -- Physical Perceptions -- Elementary Feelings -- Propositional Perceptions -- Volitions -- Four Aspects of Subjectivity -- -- ch. 7 The Essential Dimensions -- Freedom -- Truth, Goodness and Beauty -- The Four Essential Dimensions -- -- ch. 8 What is it All About? -- The Universe as a 'Meaning Circuit' -- The Superstructure of the Tree of Everything -- Why Does the World Exist? -- The Top Node of the Tree of Everything -- -- ch. 9 Predictions and Conjectures. The Tree of Nature; Contents; Acknowledgement; Table of Contents; Introduction; Chapter 1. The Universe Consists of Information; EPR and Non-Locality; The Scientific Status of Information; The Structure of Information Processing Events; Factual Information; Law-Like Information; The Unity of Nature; Four Categories of Events; Chapter 2. Elementary Communicative Events. The Interaction of Two Electrons; Causality and Explanation; The Reality Status of the Laws of Nature; At the Edge of Contradiction: Law and Freedom of Action; Einstein, Heisenberg and Gödel Represents an IT-based approach to understanding Nature in the light of present-day scientific knowledge. This title leads to the following testable prediction: A successful quantum-gravity theory will involve the notion of a strong complementarity between gravity and the strong nuclear force.