Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution

by Carlo Rovelli

The existence of such relevant correlations reveals the physical foundation of the notion of meaning: relevant relative information. Relative information in the (physical) sense given by Shannon—which is relevant in the (biological, therefore ultimately also physical) sense clarified by Darwin. This is a precise way in which we can say that its information on the concentration of sugar has meaning for the bacterium. Or that the thought of the tiger in my brain, that is, the corresponding neuronal configuration, actually signifies the tiger, an existential threat. It is correlation that matters: about which the organism “cares.”