Information
Information is any entity or form that resolvesuncertainty or provides the answer to aquestion of some kind. It is thus related todata and knowledge, as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts.[1] As it regards data, the information's existence is not necessarily coupled to an observer (it exists beyond an event horizon, for example), while in the case of knowledge, the information requires a cognitive observer.
Information is conveyed either as the content of a message or through direct or indirectobservation. That which is perceived can be construed as a message in its own right, and in that sense, information is always conveyed as the content of a message.
Information can be encoded into various forms for transmission and interpretation (for example, information may be encoded into asequence of signs, or transmitted via a sequence of signals). It can also be encryptedfor safe storage and communication.
Information reduces uncertainty. The uncertainty of an event is measured by its probability of occurrence and is inversely proportional to that. The more uncertain an event, the more information is required to resolve uncertainty of that event. The bit is a typical unit of information, but other units such as the nat may be used. For example, the information encoded in one "fair" coin flip is log2(2/1) = 1 bit, and in two fair coin flips is log2(4/1) = 2 bits.
The concept that information is the messagehas different meanings in different contexts.[2]Thus the concept of information becomes closely related to notions of constraint,communication, control, data, form,education, knowledge, meaning,understanding, mental stimuli, pattern,perception, representation, and entropy.
Etymology
The English word apparently derives from theLatin stem (information-) of the nominative (informatio): this noun derives from the verbinformare (to inform) in the sense of "to give form to the mind", "to discipline", "instruct", "teach". Inform itself comes (via Frenchinformer) from the Latin verb informare, which means to give form, or to form an idea of. Furthermore, Latin itself already contained the word informatio meaning concept or idea, but the extent to which this may have influenced the development of the word information in English is not clear.
The ancient Greek word for form was μορφή(morphe; cf. morph) and also εἶδος (eidos) "kind, idea, shape, set", the latter word was famously used in a technical philosophical sense by Plato (and later Aristotle) to denote the ideal identity or essence of something (see Theory of Forms). "Eidos" can also be associated with thought, proposition, or even concept.
The ancient Greek word for information isπληροφορία, which transliterates (plērophoria) from πλήρης (plērēs) "fully" and φέρω (phorein) frequentative of (pherein) to carry through. It literally means "bears fully" or "conveys fully". In modern Greek the word Πληροφορία is still in daily use and has the same meaning as the wordinformation in English. In addition to its primary meaning, the word Πληροφορία as asymbol has deep roots in Aristotle's semiotic triangle. In this regard it can be interpreted to communicate information to the one decoding that specific type of sign. This is something that occurs frequently with the etymology of many words in ancient and modern Greek where there is a very strongdenotative relationship between the signifier, e.g. the word symbol that conveys a specific encoded interpretation, and the signified, e.g. a concept whose meaning the interpreter attempts to decode.
In English, “information” is an uncountablemass noun.
Information theory approach
In information theory, information is taken as an ordered sequence of symbols from an alphabet, say an input alphabet χ, and an output alphabet ϒ. Information processing consists of an input-output function that maps any input sequence from χ into an output sequence from ϒ. The mapping may be probabilistic or deterministic. It may have memory or be memoryless.[3]
As sensory input
Often information can be viewed as a type of input to an organism or system. Inputs are of two kinds; some inputs are important to the function of the organism (for example, food) or system (energy) by themselves. In his bookSensory Ecology[4] Dusenbery called these causal inputs. Other inputs (information) are important only because they are associated with causal inputs and can be used to predictthe occurrence of a causal input at a later time (and perhaps another place). Some information is important because of association with other information but eventually there must be a connection to a causal input. In practice, information is usually carried by weak stimuli that must be detected by specialized sensory systems and amplified by energy inputs before they can be functional to the organism or system. For example, light is mainly (but not only, e.g. plants can grow in the direction of the lightsource) a causal input to plants but for animals it only provides information. The colored light reflected from a flower is too weak to do much photosynthetic work but the visual system of the bee detects it and the bee's nervous system uses the information to guide the bee to the flower, where the bee often finds nectar or pollen, which are causal inputs, serving a nutritional function.
As representation and complexity
The cognitive scientist and applied mathematician Ronaldo Vigo argues that information is a concept that requires at least two related entities to make quantitative sense. These are, any dimensionally defined category of objects S, and any of its subsets R. R, in essence, is a representation of S, or, in other words, conveys representational (and hence, conceptual) information about S. Vigo then defines the amount of information that R conveys about S as the rate of change in thecomplexity of S whenever the objects in R are removed from S. Under "Vigo information", pattern, invariance, complexity, representation, and information—five fundamental constructs of universal science—are unified under a novel mathematical framework.[5][6][7] Among other things, the framework aims to overcome the limitations of Shannon-Weaver information when attempting to characterize and measure subjective information.
As an influence that leads to transformation
Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns.[8][9] In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern.[citation needed]Consider, for example, DNA. The sequence ofnucleotides is a pattern that influences the formation and development of an organism without any need for a conscious mind. One might argue though that for a human to consciously define a pattern, for example a nucleotide, naturally involves conscious information processing.
Systems theory at times seems to refer to information in this sense, assuming information does not necessarily involve any conscious mind, and patterns circulating (due to feedback) in the system can be called information. In other words, it can be said that information in this sense is something potentially perceived as representation, though not created or presented for that purpose. For example, Gregory Batesondefines "information" as a "difference that makes a difference".[10]
If, however, the premise of "influence" implies that information has been perceived by a conscious mind and also interpreted by it, the specific context associated with this interpretation may cause the transformation of the information into knowledge. Complex definitions of both "information" and "knowledge" make such semantic and logical analysis difficult, but the condition of "transformation" is an important point in the study of information as it relates to knowledge, especially in the business discipline of knowledge management. In this practice, tools and processes are used to assist a knowledge worker in performing research and making decisions, including steps such as:
- Review information to effectively derive value and meaning
- Reference metadata if available
- Establish relevant context, often from many possible contexts
- Derive new knowledge from the information
- Make decisions or recommendations from the resulting knowledge
Stewart (2001) argues that transformation of information into knowledge is critical, lying at the core of value creation and competitive advantage for the modern enterprise.
The Danish Dictionary of Information Terms[11] argues that information only provides an answer to a posed question. Whether the answer provides knowledge depends on the informed person. So a generalized definition of the concept should be: "Information" = An answer to a specific question".
When Marshall McLuhan speaks of media and their effects on human cultures, he refers to the structure of artifacts that in turn shape our behaviors and mindsets. Also, pheromonesare often said to be "information" in this sense.
Comments
Post a Comment