[demalk (OP)]

The information about an object is not the object itself. All electrons are identical in principle. So they only convey information about their states. The state is not the object itself either. It is a property of the object. This is information. It cannot exist without the electron.

Correct. However, object information is not the type of information intended here. Objects have no meaning outside classical reality. The electron doesn't know that it is part of a chair. What is meant here, is that what underlies the states of the electron, resides in a yet deeper-rooted fundamental reality which is informational and deterministic in its core. It is not the information about the concept of 'chair' that is hard-coded in the quantum systems of the universe, but the information that describes deterministically the states of the electrons of the chair. This information exists in the same ontological category as the which path information we manage to store in our labs. It has to, otherwise how could they interact in such a rigorous and fundamental way?

[Bill S]

Damalk; somehow I’m going to have to find the time to look more closely at what you are saying.

At a cursory scan there seem to be numerous links with things I have been saying for a few years; not to mention similarities in the responses of others.

There may be little more than a semantic difference between an infinite/eternal, changeless cosmos, of which our perceptions are incomplete, and the “underlying information” idea you are championing.  Certainly, neither has to involve anything supernatural, which. I suspect, is what many people fear.

However, I’m not sure, at this point, if you are saying that information, existing on its own, is the precursor of everything; or if everything, plus its information, has always existed.  The former, I would need to understand better; the latter I would have no problem with. 

[demalk (OP)]

There may be little more than a semantic difference between an infinite/eternal, changeless cosmos, of which our perceptions are incomplete, and the “underlying information” idea you are championing.  Certainly, neither has to involve anything supernatural, which. I suspect, is what many people fear.

Agreed. I hope I am not implying religious/spiritual interpretations, those are the one thing I want to stay away from. If anyone finds any in my words, please share so we can shred them to pieces

However, I’m not sure, at this point, if you are saying that information, existing on its own, is the precursor of everything; or if everything, plus its information, has always existed.  The former, I would need to understand better; the latter I would have no problem with.

Tricky! To me it would seem that the big bang was just the beginning of matter and therefore the illusion of time. But not the beginning of the information that gave rise to all the matter and everything else. The information must have preceded the big bang. Kind of like how you have the software to run a simulation, including all the parameters, rules and values, sitting on an SSD until you press 'go' and everything is set in motion. Before you press 'go', not a single electron has been fired into existence yet, so no matter or time exists. But all the information required to run it, already existed prior to the 'go' moment. i.e. the big bang. So from the perspective of our world, and viewed from within its confines, everything came into existence all at once including the underlying informational layer. As far as we're concerned, that might just as well actually have been the case. But of course, thinking about it as a simulation, the information must have preceded the 'go moment' somehow, somewhere in some shape or form.

[Bill S]

I hope I am not implying religious/spiritual interpretations

By no means. I was simply suggesting that there might be an element of fear of the supernatural lurking in the ranks of the cognoscenti. 

The information must have preceded the big bang.

Must this not have been information about something that also preceded the BB?

BTW, have you looked at the (rambling) "Is it possible to define infinity?" thread? 

[demalk (OP)]

Must this not have been information about something that also preceded the BB?

Prior to the BB, only the informational layer existed. Statically, like a piece of software that isn't being executed. It just sits there with the potential to be executed. The BB marks the instance where the program gets executed, giving rise to our macroscopic, temporally impaired reality (that is, impaired by time). So the information wasn't about something that preceded the BB, the information was about what would 'follow'. It contained, and still contains everything that will ever be within the confines of our reality. Including every 'free choice' and every 'random event'.

So from our perspective, where bees and trousers and Justin Bieber exist; time also exists. But when we look at quantum, where all bees and trousers and Justin are reduced to electrons and photons, we are essentially looking at the static fundamental informational layer. But because we can only observe it through the goggles of a temporally impaired mass of matter, everything seems jittery and uncertain.

Time is obscuring our view of the staticness of the information we consist of. This would be a crazy statement on its own if not for the fact that we have proof of this in the otherwise unexplained behaviour of photons: since a photon doesn't have our temporal goggles on it can experience the fundamental informational layer in its static entirety, thereby naturally incorporating a seemingly future event into its observable behaviour.

'c' therefore isn't the speed of light. The photon is static. It forms a static line between its source and its destination and exists at every point along that line throughout the entire existence of our universe. In essence 'c' is the error margin by which time-prone matter experiences a timeless universe.