[2-tpg]

For me, semantic information is information which allows you to predict future world states, or remove uncertainty about current world states, while optimizing for your utility function.

If your utility function is to remove all sense data, then a website with suicide techniques helps you predict future world states (if X then Death), and aligns with your utility function, so it is meaningful information for you.

But then you get into heterophenomenology territory: someone may state they are not hungry, while desperate for sustenance (or vice versa). People may temporarily act counter to their typical utility function. Do we want to allow such craziness to influence the formal value of semantic information?

> has nothing to do with keeping me alive, yet I find it informative.

Imagine having to read the exact same information every day. It won't allow you to adapt to a changing environment or be exposed to new ideas, so you can form new ideas yourself. You'd be stuck in a rut, and as good as non-alive. Soon you'll probably perish out of boredom.

[yters]

I spend long periods of time without ingesting sources of information without getting bored and literally dying. Conversely, if I was constantly bombarded with useful information, I would still go crazy, and that could very well lead to literal death. I think staying alive is one piece of meaningful information out of a very large set of meaningful information, most of which has nothing to do with staying alive.

In other words, meaningfulness is orthogonal to staying alive.