To clarify the profound relationship between information and the universe, and to avoid common misunderstandings, we need to distinguish between fundamentally different types of information. At the deepest level lies Fundamental Information (also called Cosmic, Ontic Information, or I-Prime). This is the inherent, pre-existing “blueprint” or “code” of the universe itself. It’s not something we create or observe; rather, it determines the laws of physics, the properties of particles, and the very fabric of reality. It’s objective, generative, and potentially unknowable in its entirety, akin to the “bit” in Wheeler’s “it from bit” or the information encoded on the boundary in the holographic principle. Contrast this with Empirical Information, which is the information we obtain through observation and measurement of the physical world. This is the information contained in our data, always a partial and imperfect representation of the underlying Fundamental Information. It’s observer-dependent, descriptive, quantifiable via Shannon entropy, and inherently incomplete, reflecting the limitations of our instruments and the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics. Finally, there’s Synthetic Information, the information we create by processing, analyzing, and interpreting Empirical Information. This includes our models, theories, algorithms – the human-constructed representations of knowledge. It’s abstract, purposeful, and fallible. By distinguishing these three – the universe’s intrinsic informational structure (Fundamental), our data-derived glimpse of it (Empirical), and our constructed understanding based on that glimpse (Synthetic) – we avoid anthropocentrism, clarify the role of observation, and provide a more robust framework for exploring the deep connections between information and the fundamental laws of physics. This nuanced terminology helps us separate the universe’s inherent informational “instructions” from our measurements and interpretations, paving the way for more precise discussions and deeper insights into the informational nature of reality.