Suppose an area of matter and/or energy can exist as information if another entity, organism or mechanism can acknowledge it. If all information is carried by organizations of matter and/or energy, then itall information is somehow manifested in reality ; i.e., information can only be formed out of what exists. As Klaus Krippendorff, Professor of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania said, "Pure and unqualified information is an unwarranted abstraction." If all information is real, then an individual area of information can be identified by its qualities and properties, its relationship to other matter and/or energy or information, and its behavior.

If information is created or develops as different entities interact, then no carrier of information exists in isolation. Thus, no information can exist in complete isolation. Likewise, if all information is made of an organization of moving matter and/or energy, no information can exist for a unique instant. Therefore, information marks at least one difference, or degree of difference among existing entities of matter and/or energy in both time and space.

What a person knows about any information is limited by what she deduces when she observes parts of the world or speculates about conceptual entities in a particular situation. If a person can determine how, and in what capacity, a particular organization of matter and/or energy is acting as information, she can classify it as existing, potential, or possible information. She can describe or define information by recreating it or by using some kind of symbolic or notational system to represent it. The word "information" is a part and product of human language; the substance that comprises information can exist outside of human consciousness and existence (assuming that there is an existence outside of human consciousness.) In fact, the information existing in and generated by human minds is most likely only a very small part of the information in the universe.

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