You sometimes hear breathless fans of computers, AI, Artificial life, Complexity theory and virtual reality proclaim the "everything is just information" or "all processes are just computations" or similar sentiments. This is wrong. Sad and wrong. Frightening and wrong. A little history will show why.
During the Scientific Revolution a lot of scientists were captivated by the new mechanical philosophy. The invention of new theoretical tools like Newtonian Physics and new instruments like reliable clocks allowed for a drastic and powerful new vision of the world. Scientists could understand simple, regular motion in isolated systems and used that understanding to explain a lot of the universe and build some nifty devices. But they went further than that -- they actually came to conceive of all of Nature as one giant Clock, and all that it contained as constructed of simple, clocklike mechanisms.
In the 1800's, the new scientific understanding of thermodynamics and the new industrial technologies provided another vision of the world. Nature was now conceived as a giant Steam Engine, either powering us ahead to a brilliant future or slowly running out of fuel.
And now, a bunch of net-drunk self-styled visionaries are so taken by information theory and information technology that they are repeating the same reductive imperialism, claiming that all natural processes are just information processing and that everything is really, ultimately, just information. Well, get over yourselves.
If you really want to be Postmodern and cutting-edge, you'll realize that pluralism is where it's at.
Everything is not any one thing anymore.
