Grounding information in thermodynamics and the ungroundedness of language: A missing aspect of anthropogenesis

Standard information theory explicitly excludes an account of reference ("aboutness") and normativity (significance or "usefulness"). These are fundamental defining properties of the concept of 'information' as it is generally understood. Their elision from the formal theory creates a conceptual gap, limiting the scope of its use in biological and cognitive contexts. This essay summarizes a framework for bridging this gap by showing how the referential and normative aspects of information are ultimately expressions of the thermodynamic relationship between an information-conveying medium and its physical context. This requires deconstructing the information concept into a nested hierarchy of three related concepts (structural, referential, and normative information) in which its referential and normative dimensions are fundamentally linked to, and measurable through, the concept of thermodynamic work. Once this interdependence is recognized, the potential physical efficacy of information and its empirical groundedness in the world no longer appear mysterious. Understanding the physicality of these semiotic properties additionally provides a perspective from which to make sense of the unique capacity of human language, which, despite being conveyed by intrinsically ungrounded "arbitrary" symbols, is nevertheless capable of almost unlimited referential capacity.