Zhou L. Information in a Physical World..Meaningless Becomes the Meaningful 2026

Textbook in PDF format

To construct a comprehensive theory of information, meaning and intentionality, the book develops a naturalistic perspective based on Peircean biosemiotics. It re-examines key issues such as referential information, the metaphysics of form, misrepresentation, reference and sense, offering new explanations and insights.
It analyzes the notion of information conceptually, showing that it is not a simple concept, but rather comprises hierarchically nested aspects: Structural, referential and normative. By defining form negatively as a constraint, it offers a naturalistic account of structural information. It then addresses the normativity of referential relations through the concept of interpretation, introducing the notion of operational interpretation to explain the minimal normativity of reference. The book further argues that the three types of reference—symbolic, indexical and iconic—are asymmetrically interdependent: Symbolic reference depends on indexical reference,
Grounding meaning in information
A conceptual analysis of information
Information is physical (negatively)
Interpretation
Reference
Convention