- Today is a very good day. I found lots of interesting and useful articles for my diploma, I spent 4 hours on coffee breaks where I was gently caressed by warm sun and gentle wind. Not to mention excellent company. And I also learned a new concept:
- Information exists only in the consciousness of an intelligent individual and describes the knowledge about certain objects, events... If an intelligent individual wants to share it with another, he must translate this into data, send this data to him and hope he will render it into information similar to his.
- So what is the great breakthrough of repeating ancient Greek philosophy concept? The practical implications, because by use of this informational science concept, I finally realised how crucial the way you pack information into data is.
- If you are unclear about what I wanted to say in this post, it is not packed correctly (my fault) or you are intellectually unable to produce the expected information ( your mommy's fault - for choosing a stupid sexual partner :) ).
- Practically I have learned that every time you want to get a certain information into someones head be careful to: 1. pack information into most easily decodeable data 2. be aware of the receivers limitations.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Data v. Information
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5 comments:
I am not a big fan of differentiating between information and data. The problem is as soon as you start to explain physical phenomena as streams of information (which is what information physics is doing) there always (this can be inferred from the laws of thermodynamics) exists a Turing machine that will accept given bits (data).
For example no matter what utter nonsense you say there will be air particles that accept it (transforming it into what we call sound in the process) just as they would accept you reading Kosovel.
Basically I just don't see any benefit in having this distincion because as soon as you start defining what the expected recipients are and what is the intent of the message (when do we consider the recipient to understand the message) you are just constructing new Turing machines that take as input other Turing machines and we are back to information and a pissed-off Ockham.
I really apreciate your comment, because it gives me a valuable view on things. I would call it going to the basic principles (of natural sciences).
However, although I agree with the TM cocept, I believe, there are in fact quite a few reasons for making this destinction:
1. to manage (especially social) situations you need to make them as clear as possible to the subjects. And for example to do so in a compny concerning information security policies and behaviour it is most efficient to define physical phenomena to draw the lines more clearly.
2. in human communication...to stress the importance of what you are saying, for what reason.
So although I agree with you on theoretical level, I feel that the distinction makes sense on practical (=social) one.
If all involved are aware of the distinction, then I suppose it can be a useful tool. Beware though, many people (myself included) use the terms interchangeably.
I will.
I am always trying to take personal views and knowledge into account. Some say it is practical :).
blarneyfellow..
I am in 'love'.. I hope we can share an afternoon one day.
I can't say much about the lumox who wrote the original post!
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