Emotion and Information: Universal States from the Microscopic to the Macroscopic

Emotions are commonly interpreted as subjective states emerging from complex neural systems. In this work, we propose a more general definition: an emotion is an informational load, a configuration of information that transforms the state of a system. By analyzing complex systems, such as the human brain, and elementary systems, such as a photon in the double-slit experiment, we suggest that interaction with information induces state transformations at all scales. In complex systems, these transformations manifest as conscious emotional experiences; in elementary systems, they manifest as physical state changes or “informational explosions” without consciousness. This perspective extends the concept of emotion as a universal phenomenon linked to information processing.