 The fact that the ratio 2:1 is cited as an example also illustrates the deep connection between the notion of forms and the idea that the world was governed by mathematical principles. Plato believed under influence of an older Pythagorean (Pythagoras 572–ca. 500 BCE) tradition that “everything that emerges and happens in the world” could be measured by means of numbers (Politicus 285a). On various occasions Aristotle mentions the fact that Plato associated ideas with numbers (Vogel 1968: 139). Although formal mathematical theories about information only emerged in the twentieth century, and one has to be careful not to interpret the Greek notion of a number in any modern sense, the idea that information was essentially a mathematical notion, dates back to classical philosophy: the form of an entity was conceived as a structure or pattern that could be described in terms of numbers. Such a form had both an ontological and an epistemological aspect: it explains the essence as well as the understandability of the object. The concept of information thus from the very start of philosophical reflection was already associated with epistemology, ontology and mathematics.