Reality is fundamentally physical.
However, life has the capacity to "model" reality, collecting "information" about the physical world through our senses, and aggregating them into a secondary 'image of reality' with our 'imagination'.
This allows life to convert random information into useful ideas and action.
Example:
Look around you. There are physical things there. Look at one.
Close your eyes.
Now, imagine the physical things around you, with your eyes closed.
The image in your head is not the physical thing nearby.
They both exist.
They are both real.
However, one is the actual physical thing, and the other is an image you've created of the thing in your mind.
This is the duality of scientific reality:
Physical Reality - the basic structure of everything
Informational Reality - a secondary 'informational' layer, that allow life (and tech) to collect data and create models of physical reality.
Both are equally real. But the distinction and relationship have broad implications.
Humanity has yet to change the fundamental understanding of themselves or their ideas to account for this, despite it being a long standing theme.
Luckily, "informational reality" is based on physical reality, and so our understanding of the physical can create a framework for our understanding of the informational.
This means that despite our long history of confusion and error in the area of information, a lot can be borrowed from physics, including the distinction and measurement between physical items and their information, while still allowing precise measurement and predictive values of physical items as well as information.
There's a long history of this, so no need to belabor an explanation.
It's simply worth noting that our understanding of this 'Informational reality' is still poorly defined, and distinct from many well established professions that (like 'information systems' and language) that would benefit greatly with a move to a more scientific and structured approach to information.
Quick example:
Ethical decisions are just information
Law is just information
We currently leave both 'open to interpretation'. In the future, once they are based in a scientific "Physics / Informational" (PI) reality model, all possibilities and relevant data points will be easy to measure, model, and calculate, thus reducing the need for 3rd party human interpretation and feelings in the process.
Much like readings taken from a particle collider, events will be well documented across many variables, and each event can be evaluated and interpreted by computers in real time.
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