https://multisenserealism.com/the-competition/is-it-possible-that-everything-is-made-of-information/

Information does not account for the aesthetic qualities of sensation, feeling, and direct participation which comprise the universe. Because of the great success of the instrument of our era, the computer, many find it irresistible to use the metaphor of information processing to describe the brain, genetics, or physics itself. This is in keeping with the historical trend of describing the universe in terms of the newest and most sophisticated technology. In the industrial era, the universe was considered by many to be a machine, before that a clock, etc.

In my view, this is also a reaction against the anthropomorphic tendencies of religion. Many who view deity concepts as backward and superstitious are subconsciously compelled to the opposite polarity. If the universe is not teleological and divine, then it must be mechanical and generic. If the image of a conscious creator is absurdly naive, then the image of an unconscious process of calculation must be the height of sophistication.

The idea of information as universal is not without appeal. Certainly it provides enormous, even Godlike flexibility, so that no matter what phenomena we find in the universe, from gravitational lensing to the feeling of dizziness, "information" serves as the machina ex deus to religion's deus ex machina. We have substituted sophisticated unrealism for naive realism, turning our own consciousness into an algebraic 'simulation' - a function in which sensory representations 'emerge' as properties of the computations they represent.

In my view, this does not quite work. Like religion, information-theoretic views have an inherent confirmation bias. When it comes to understanding consciousness itself, experiments which are based on measurement alone cannot be trusted to reveal the true nature of measurement itself. Measurement is analogy and metaphor. It can only account for the relation of one phenomena against the index of another, it cannot access the phenomena itself. All conceptualization of forms and functions automatically frame the context so that the appreciation/apprehension of those forms and participation in those functions is overlooked or taken for granted. For this reason, most who favor an info-centric view see information as including consciousness, but this is, in my estimation, a category error. It would be like confusing the code for a program with the electric or motive force that runs a computing machine. They are not merely different, they are diametrically opposed.

A lot of people take offense to Searle's Chinese Room and project their own lack of understanding onto others, even vilifying Searle himself. Likewise, the Hard Problem of Consciousness written about by David Chalmers and Thomas Nagel are harshly treated for daring to set the qualities of awareness apart from the functions that we associate with it. An array of doctrines, from Logical Positivism to Functionalism, to Determinism, Structured Realism, Computationalism and Eliminativism share a deep and abiding intolerance for any thought which departs from the absolute belief in the disbelief of authentic subjectivity or direct perception. By committing to this 'representation without presentation', we make the mistake of amputating no less than half of the universe.

Here are three examples of what I mean. The information of a deck of cards is very easy to compute. Each card gets a number, each suit becomes one of four categories, also numbered with binary codes. You can now play any card game that you care to play. If you want them to look like cards, however, with red and black shapes and royal portraits, that is a much different trick to pull off. You need to invent a video screen, and eyes, colors and shapes, you need to invent human history to give meaning to the prestige of royal rankings. The players themselves need to be conjured into being