Is Information Necessarily Physical?

Many scientists and philosophers claim that information must be stored in a physical substrate. This assumption—while often useful for empirical science—is far from proven, and it rests on deeper metaphysical presuppositions that deserve scrutiny.

1. The Physicalist Assumption in Science

Within mainstream physics and information theory, the dominant view is that information is inseparable from the physical world. For example:

• Information must be instantiated in a physical medium—a hard drive, a neuron, a magnetic field, a quantum state.
• Claude Shannon's theory of information concerns signal transmission, noise, entropy, and capacity—all measurable in physical systems.
• Landauer’s Principle famously declares: “Information is physical,” emphasizing that erasing a bit of information has a thermodynamic cost.

However, this view stems from methodological naturalism, not a demonstration that non-physical instantiations of information are impossible. It reflects the limitations of what science is equipped to measure and test—not necessarily the boundaries of reality itself.

2. Philosophical Counterpoint: Information as Abstract

From a broader philosophical perspective, information need not be tied to physical matter:

• Mathematical truths (like the Pythagorean theorem) are informational, but are not physical objects. They exist whether or not any material being encodes them.
• Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics sees information as a kind of form, which can exist apart from matter in spiritual beings or souls.
• Platonism posits that abstract entities—including forms and perhaps information itself—exist in a non-physical realm.
• Idealism asserts that mind is the fundamental substance, and information is ultimately mental rather than material.

In all these views, information can exist immaterially, either in an abstract realm or within non-physical minds.

3. Can Immaterial Beings Store and Transmit Information?

If immaterial beings—such as God, angels, or souls—exist, then it follows naturally that they can store and communicate information. For instance:

• In Christian theology, angels are said to have pure intellect and operate without physical brains.
• God is often conceived as omniscient—His act of knowing contains all information eternally and immaterially.
• Souls in many religious traditions are said to retain memory and knowledge, even apart from the body.

This opens up the conceptual space for information to be housed in a non-material substrate. Such transmission would not depend on electromagnetic signals or chemical reactions, but on forms of communication that science does not (yet) describe.

4. Bridging the Gap: Information as Fundamental

Some modern thinkers propose that information itself is more basic than either matter or mind:

• Philosophers like David Chalmers and Luciano Floridi suggest that both physical and mental phenomena emerge from information.
• Floridi’s idea of dedomena treats information as the structural fabric of reality—neither mental nor material, but foundational.
• This view resembles a kind of dual-aspect monism or structural realism: the world is made of informational patterns that manifest as either mind or matter.

Conclusion

The widespread belief that information must be physical is a working hypothesis, not a metaphysical necessity. While it's productive within the scope of empirical science, it doesn't preclude the possibility of immaterial beings who store, process, and transmit information in ways that transcend matter and energy.

If such beings exist, then they would embody a different kind of information system—one that may be more ordered, more complete, and more unified than anything in the physical domain. The exploration of such possibilities requires us to step beyond the boundaries of physics and engage with metaphysical, theological, and philosophical inquiry.