What is information?

[Alchopwn]

We use the term information nearly every day of our lives, but it is actually a surprisingly slippery concept when you try to pin it down  Wiki Link.  Given that we have come to use this single term "information" to communication, education, data, knowledge, meaning, mental stimuli, representation, entropy etc. is it any wonder that while we all sort-of know what we mean by information, the term seems to remain imprecise and "hard to corral"?  I recall that there was once a drive among economists to try to create an aggregate value for information production as a means to predict when discoveries would occur in science.  It turns out, that because information is qualitative, not quantitative, that proved a bit of an intellectual faceplant.  It is also interesting that while we all consume information, that it isn't actually consumed by that consumption, and can be passed on to another sentient at full value.  On the other hand, intellectual property diminishes in value as more people become informed about it.  Has anyone else bumped into this knotty little piece of philosophy?  If so, please relate your storie, or, if you are feeling brave, try to offer a definition of information that actually covers all its uses.

[zep73]

Information is everything.
The universe is information.
The definition of the universe is "everything".
Science is about retrieving all possible information.
Religion is the wrong assumption of having all possible information.
Every particle in the universe is just information. Charge, speed, position, co-relation.
Math does the best job of organizing all this information.
If any sentient being could achieve all existing information, and use it, it would gain maximum power.

[XenoFish]

38 minutes ago, sci-nerd said:

Information is everything.
The universe is information.
The definition of the universe is "everything".
Science is about retrieving all possible information.
Religion is the wrong assumption of having all possible information.
Every particle in the universe is just information. Charge, speed, position, co-relation.
Math does the best job of organizing all this information.
If any sentient being could achieve all existing information, and use it, it would gain maximum power.

Does it possess it own information or is that what we have assigned to it. In order to make sense of it.

[zep73]

6 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Does it possess it own information or is that what we have assigned to it. In order to make sense of it.

If you're in doubt, there's probaby more.

[XenoFish]

Just now, sci-nerd said:

If you're in doubt, there's probaby more.

Can't answer me? Are you won't answer?

[time100]

1 hour ago, Alchopwn said:

We use the term information nearly every day of our lives, but it is actually a surprisingly slippery concept when you try to pin it down  Wiki Link.  Given that we have come to use this single term "information" to communication, education, data, knowledge, meaning, mental stimuli, representation, entropy etc. is it any wonder that while we all sort-of know what we mean by information, the term seems to remain imprecise and "hard to corral"?  I recall that there was once a drive among economists to try to create an aggregate value for information production as a means to predict when discoveries would occur in science.  It turns out, that because information is qualitative, not quantitative, that proved a bit of an intellectual faceplant.  It is also interesting that while we all consume information, that it isn't actually consumed by that consumption, and can be passed on to another sentient at full value.  On the other hand, intellectual property diminishes in value as more people become informed about it.  Has anyone else bumped into this knotty little piece of philosophy?  If so, please relate your storie, or, if you are feeling brave, try to offer a definition of information that actually covers all its uses.

Information is a broad term. The definitions and minutiae assigned to it are subjective. It directly encompasses  the words you listed, and yet stand alone with its own linguistic identity. Raw data is the embryo of thought. It is objective and factual if collected properly, and there are ways of doing this which are constantly being improved. Data can be accurate, but it's not truth. Meaning is the subjective interpretation of something individuals create, which vary depending on personality, culture, race and educational background. There are infinite combinations. Meaning is derived from the way we react to data. it gets messy because as humans, it's very hard to separate data from the emotions they illicit or the reaction to the teller. Everything is a derivative of a derivative. Communication is the vocabulary of representation and the means through which information affects how people view things. Purpose and intention comes into play. At this point we're getting further from accuracy, but closer to embodying the undying human impulse to classify, qualify, quantify, understand, and create, symbolized with the commission of a work of art or an encyclopedia article or a philosophical debate. Education is the transmission of this meaning, data, values, or knowledge, usually over a long period of time, for some benefit to the student via predictable channels. Knowledge could be a lot of things, but I'd like to think of it as the evolved form of information. It comprises skills, wisdom, experience, which can only be obtained over a long period of time, and has reached some level of universality to be memorialized in some way to set a civic tone or establish a common vision. We must ask if VALUE dictates what is considered information. Does something need to be novel or helpful in order to be information? More than ever we have the luxury to question how information affects us. The first time humans embellished a fact beyond its utilitarian purpose, were they making an aesthetic decision? Yet there are no doubt cases where the ancestral power of this meaning would be called information. At each stage information exists, but its use and identity is changed by each context, which reveals something about how and what it conveys, and while it can be controversial, the awareness nevertheless exists. Information is a silent call from the depth of human instinct and the need to speak and make sense of the world. Information can therefore be the simple sharing of data points with a practical application, or the theoretical design of something abstract without concrete evidence. Information can be the value we place on meanings as well as the meanings themselves.

[Alchopwn]

13 hours ago, sci-nerd said:

Information is everything.
The universe is information.
The definition of the universe is "everything".
Science is about retrieving all possible information.
Religion is the wrong assumption of having all possible information.
Every particle in the universe is just information. Charge, speed, position, co-relation.
Math does the best job of organizing all this information.
If any sentient being could achieve all existing information, and use it, it would gain maximum power.

If information is everything, then it is also nothing, as an absolute set, by being equally relevant to all things is relevant to nothing specifically, and thus meaningful to nothing (yes God I'm looking at you!  Don't think that you can hide up the back of the classroom when you come in late and not get asked questions).

Edited August 4, 2019 by Alchopwn

[+joc]

13 hours ago, XenoFish said:

Does it possess it own information or is that what we have assigned to it. In order to make sense of it.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around....

Information is raw data. We assign order to it to make sense of it. Is information God?  Or is Math God?  2+2=4 whether we know it or not.  

I think that We create knowledge through assigning the information a destination.  

[Alchopwn]

12 hours ago, time100 said:

Information is a broad term. The definitions and minutiae assigned to it are subjective. It directly encompasses  the words you listed, and yet stand alone with its own linguistic identity. Raw data is the embryo of thought. It is objective and factual if collected properly, and there are ways of doing this which are constantly being improved. Data can be accurate, but it's not truth. Meaning is the subjective interpretation of something individuals create, which vary depending on personality, culture, race and educational background. There are infinite combinations. Meaning is derived from the way we react to data. it gets messy because as humans, it's very hard to separate data from the emotions they illicit or the reaction to the teller. Everything is a derivative of a derivative. Communication is the vocabulary of representation and the means through which information affects how people view things. Purpose and intention comes into play. At this point we're getting further from accuracy, but closer to embodying the undying human impulse to classify, qualify, quantify, understand, and create, symbolized with the commission of a work of art or an encyclopedia article or a philosophical debate. Education is the transmission of this meaning, data, values, or knowledge, usually over a long period of time, for some benefit to the student via predictable channels. Knowledge could be a lot of things, but I'd like to think of it as the evolved form of information. It comprises skills, wisdom, experience, which can only be obtained over a long period of time, and has reached some level of universality to be memorialized in some way to set a civic tone or establish a common vision. We must ask if VALUE dictates what is considered information. Does something need to be novel or helpful in order to be information? More than ever we have the luxury to question how information affects us. The first time humans embellished a fact beyond its utilitarian purpose, were they making an aesthetic decision? Yet there are no doubt cases where the ancestral power of this meaning would be called information. At each stage information exists, but its use and identity is changed by each context, which reveals something about how and what it conveys, and while it can be controversial, the awareness nevertheless exists. Information is a silent call from the depth of human instinct and the need to speak and make sense of the world. Information can therefore be the simple sharing of data points with a practical application, or the theoretical design of something abstract without concrete evidence. Information can be the value we place on meanings as well as the meanings themselves.

This is a very good comment and I enjoyed reading it. I makes loads of valid points and I find myself in agreement with pretty much everything here, so let me tease out some topics arising from your comment.

Firstly, while we normally think of subjective and objective as being opposite terms, they aren't, and information as a word seems to face no problem in application to either.  Should we account for this as typical human linguistic sloppiness, or is it a correct assessment of whatever information actually is, that it is able to encompass both terms without issue?

I also note that your comment is not reductionist, which is great, but if we were going to use the term scientifically, how do you think we could reduce it so that it applied to a discrete and specific subject matter?  Also, would that be possible or desirable?

[Alchopwn]

2 minutes ago, joc said:

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around....

Information is raw data. We assign order to it to make sense of it. Is information God?  Or is Math God?  2+2=4 whether we know it or not.  

I think that We create knowledge through assigning the information a destination.  

I particularly liked your last line, as it is very pertinent.  Given that information has no form to take, and is, in fact, intrinsically abstract, how can we turn it into knowledge?  How can our subjective opinion create a destination for information?  How can both truth and lies be information?  You are probably familiar with the idea of a signal-to-noise ratio LINK, so we might say that lies represent noise not signal, but just because information is wrong, doesn't mean it isn't information.  One might even say that the lies an enemy tells can be very illuminating as to their true purpose, and thus even a lie is valuable if it is a "known" lie.

[+joc]

24 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

Information is a broad term. The definitions and minutiae assigned to it are subjective. It directly encompasses  the words you listed, and yet stand alone with its own linguistic identity. Raw data is the embryo of thought. It is objective and factual if collected properly, and there are ways of doing this which are constantly being improved. Data can be accurate, but it's not truth. Meaning is the subjective interpretation of something individuals create, which vary depending on personality, culture, race and educational background. There are infinite combinations.

Meaning is derived from the way we react to data. it gets messy because as humans, it's very hard to separate data from the emotions they illicit or the reaction to the teller. Everything is a derivative of a derivative. Communication is the vocabulary of representation and the means through which information affects how people view things. Purpose and intention comes into play. At this point we're getting further from accuracy, but closer to embodying the undying human impulse to classify, qualify, quantify, understand, and create, symbolized with the commission of a work of art or an encyclopedia article or a philosophical debate.

Education is the transmission of this meaning, data, values, or knowledge, usually over a long period of time, for some benefit to the student via predictable channels. Knowledge could be a lot of things, but I'd like to think of it as the evolved form of information. It comprises skills, wisdom, experience, which can only be obtained over a long period of time, and has reached some level of universality to be memorialized in some way to set a civic tone or establish a common vision.

We must ask if VALUE dictates what is considered information. Does something need to be novel or helpful in order to be information? More than ever we have the luxury to question how information affects us. The first time humans embellished a fact beyond its utilitarian purpose, were they making an aesthetic decision? Yet there are no doubt cases where the ancestral power of this meaning would be called information. At each stage information exists, but its use and identity is changed by each context, which reveals something about how and what it conveys, and while it can be controversial, the awareness nevertheless exists.

Information is a silent call from the depth of human instinct and the need to speak and make sense of the world. Information can therefore be the simple sharing of data points with a practical application, or the theoretical design of something abstract without concrete evidence. Information can be the value we place on meanings as well as the meanings themselves.

I agree...it is a good read...however........NOT in its original presentation.  In fact, I only read it because @Alchopwn said it was.  Otherwise...I never would have bothered...because of the Wall of Words factor.  

So...I broke it up into paragraphs which now makes it ...a very good read.   You are welcome!

[+joc]

27 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

One might even say that the lies an enemy tells can be very illuminating as to their true purpose, and thus even a lie is valuable if it is a "known" lie.

The Germans in WWII were very good at accessing information from prisoners of war.  Give them a nice meal.  Talk nicely to them.  Get them to open up a bit about their personal lives.  Without ever mentioning troop movements or such things they would generally get the information they wanted by gleaning the signal from the noise.    

Edited August 4, 2019 by joc

[Vorg]

Anything acknowledged is information. If it is unacknowledged there is no information to pass.

[lightly]

Ok I'll give it my guesstimatiion.    ..Information can be anything perceived ?   Or ,in the case of objective reality, anything that exists?  Even if it isn't perceived?

(example). there is information on the next page.    .        .              .

[Alchopwn]

12 minutes ago, lightly said:

Ok I'll give it my guesstimatiion.    ..Information can be anything perceived ?   Or ,in the case of objective reality, anything that exists?  Even if it isn't perceived?

(example). there is information on the next page.    .        .              .

Sorry to do this, but if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?  Physics says no, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to kick physics in the ass for that answer.

[lightly]

6 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

Sorry to do this, but if a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?  Physics says no, but that doesn't stop me from wanting to kick physics in the ass for that answer.

I say it does make a sound.  Physics says sound is vibrations?  ..we needn't "hear" them for them to exist?

[Alchopwn]

1 hour ago, South Alabam said:

Anything acknowledged is information. If it is unacknowledged there is no information to pass.

This is a deceptively good reply for a one-liner.  Kudos S.A.  

What about the case of the person who doesn't see the bus, or hear the bus beeping, and crosses in front of it and is run down despite everyone else acknowledging the bus' reality?

[Alchopwn]

Just now, lightly said:

I say it does make a sound.  Physics says sound is vibrations?  ..we needn't "hear" them for them to exist?

That is my take on the matter too, but physics says "no observer, no information".

[lightly]

Just now, Alchopwn said:

That is my take on the matter too, but physics says "no observer, no information".

Well then,. Physics is wrong.    

[Vorg]

3 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

This is a deceptively good reply for a one-liner.  Kudos S.A.  

What about the case of the person who doesn't see the bus, or hear the bus beeping, and crosses in front of it and is run down despite everyone else acknowledging the bus' reality?

That's a good example.

[Alchopwn]

3 minutes ago, lightly said:

Well then,. Physics is wrong.    

Actually, practical physicists agree with you, but quantum theory doesn't work on the tree in the same way, just to clarify.  The matter has been subject to considerable debate over time

[Alchopwn]

4 minutes ago, South Alabam said:

That's a good example.

Yes, but you made me work for it. 

[Vorg]

3 minutes ago, Alchopwn said:

Actually, practical physicists agree with you, but quantum theory doesn't work on the tree in the same way, just to clarify.  The matter has been subject to considerable debate over time

I would say anything acknowledged is information, (by observers) but that is not saying anything not yet observed cannot contain information.

[Alchopwn]

18 hours ago, South Alabam said:

I would say anything acknowledged is information, (by observers) but that is not saying anything not yet observed cannot contain information.

Yes, I think that clarification was in order SA, and I agree with you.  On the other hand, back to signal-to-noise ratios, what do you do when you are receiving a message but are unable to recognise the fact ?  A classic example is the numbers station, where it mainly produces a series of meaningless number sequences, but at specific times it will begin to transmit actual coded messages that intelligence operatives in the field can decode.  Thus the message contains genuine and valuable information, but it cannot be acknowledged by anyone who cannot decode it.  Clearly any definition of information needs to be able to handle this sort of case too.

[Vorg]

3 hours ago, Alchopwn said:

Yes, I think that clarification was in order SA, and I agree with you.  On the other hand, back to signal-to-noise ratios, what do you do when you are receiving a message but are unable to recognise the fact ?  A classic example is the numbers station, where it mainly produces a series of meaningless number sequences, but at specific times it will begin to transmit actual coded messages that intelligence operatives in the field can decode.  Thus the message contains genuine and valuable information, but it cannot be acknowledged by anyone who cannot decode it.  Clearly any definition of information needs to be able to handle this sort of case too.

That's another great example. It is information, acknowledged by some and unacknowledged by others. It could be percieved as potential information but until cracked is useless.