What is information?

In your opinion, is information a physical thing, or a non-physical thing?

I'm interested in an explaination on why you think it's information is physical. If you burn a newspaper, where does the information go? Without a consciousness, it means nothing. It would seem that consciousness is the information processor and without it, information would not exist objectivly.

The dictionary in the OS X Dashboard says:

Information (noun): facts provided or learned about something or someone.

reply to post by dmorgan


What is information Alex. That's $500 dollars.

# a message received and understood
# knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction
# formal accusation of a crime
# data: a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn; "statistical data"

EDIT
I replied to the wrong guy but still.

[edit on 4-5-2009 by watchtheashes]

I suppose it depends on the type of information.

One line of thinking is that all the information that ever was, is and will be is contained in every single particle of the universes.

IMO I believe it is possible to be both.