School of Information Management & Systems.   Spring 1997.   M. Buckland.
Infosys 101: Information Systems.    "INFORMATION" AND OTHER WORDS

Information is often NOT defined. There are varied definitions.

"Where is the life we have lost living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" T.S. Eliot 1934.
"The difference that makes a difference." ?Bateson
"Bookes com doun from heven for informacioun of mankynde" Trevisa 1387

Words ending in "-ation" are commonly ambiguous. cf. "Regulation." "Foundation"
- Thing (Record, document, signal)
- Action, Process (Act of informing: Moral shaping; news)
- Outcome (Knowledge acquired).
Compare "intelligence" - also tricky, e.g. "military intelligence": Ability or news?

Difference between word and thing (phenomenon). Words name ("denote") things. Hence it is possible for one word to denote many things (e.g. "Tank"). Multiple words can denote the same thing (e.g. "Goal" "Jail"). Reverse it: Identify phenomena: Negotiate names. Names easier to change than phenomena.

Language is a human, social, cultural activity. Every social group has its own special form of language. Hence what words mean varies from group to group, from context to content, and from time to time. Hence localized usages, e.g. "Information"
-- in legal use: A formal accusation, indictment. What an informer delivers.
-- In computer context: What is stored and operated on. "Information processing"
-- Logic and formal philosophy: An assumption of truth: If it isn't true it isn't information, i.e. Truth = Consistent with some a priori assumption.
-- Management science: Reduction of Uncertainty; Novelty; What brings form from chaos. If you do not find a signal novel / unexpected the you are not informed and so it was not information.

Conventional communication model: Sender - Coder - Transmitter- Decoder - Receiver. Not wrong but incomplete and/or misleading for human communication, because human being do not passively receive "information", they actively construct meaning from what they perceive.

Data; Information; Intelligence / Knowledge; Wisdom.
Life, energy, matter. Information mysticism.

Human / social activities too complex / undefinable for simple descriptions.

Metaphor: Information : "formal collection of symbols that carry meaning" Dictionary of Computing
SIGN A mark or gesture expressing a meaning.
SIGNAL A state or process that serves to transmit messages.
SYMBOL That which, by custom or convention, represents something else, often with an emotional as well as intellectual significance.
SEMIOTICS The study of signs, especially, but not only, of words.
-- SEMANTICS Study of what signs mean.
-- SYNTAX In language, rules for the formation of permissible constructions. Grammatical constructions. Difference between "Blind Venetian" and "Venetian blind" is syntax.
-- PRAGMATICS How signs are used in practice.
DENOTE, DENOTATION What a sign indicates (directly).
CONNOTE, CONNOTATION What a sign implies, beyond what is denoted.
INFORMATION THEORY Mathematical theory of signally efficiency. Associated with Claude Shannon. Noise as unpredictable distortion in communication flow. Unrelated to meaning.
(Revised 2/14/97)