What is information?
(discussion question from LIBR 202)
My gut reaction to this question was that "everything is information". But I quickly revised this reaction to "everything is a source of information". When I look at a tree, I can estimate how tall it is, see whether it has leaves on it, what color those leaves might be, whether there are any birds in the tree, and I can take it to the next level and infer something about what season it is. These are all little bits of information.
This consideration led me to think that information is an intangible something that exists in the "space" between an object about which information can be known, and my mind (or anyone's mind), which converts it into knowledge as per Nitecki's model. It's like light: generated by a source such as the sun, transmitted through space via radiation, and converted into energy once it reaches a plant's metabolic system (or converted into information itself when it bounces off something and hits my retinae, where it can be used by my brain to create knowledge).
Does this mean that a "mind" is required in order for information to exist? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to perceive it, does that information exist? (I don't limit that to a human mind; animals (and maybe plants?) perceive, share, and act upon information every day of their lives.) Remove all life from the situation, though, and I think the information is still there as a potentiality. But the concept is a human-constructed one and in that sense I think it does require some entity that can know it in order for it to be considered to exist. To inform is to give facts/data/information to someone.
Then I started to think that writing has allowed us to convert this intangible something into tangible objects like books. But does a book really represent a tangible manifestation of the concept called "information"? I can find a whole lot of information in a book, but it seems like the real information to be gained is that "this book says such and such a thing." The information still has to be transmitted, radiation-like, from the book to my mind. The writing on the page is just a wagon to cart the information on part of its journey from its source to my mind, as well as a way to store the information over time.
So when we talk about information science, I guess by my definition we're really talking about the science of devices for transmitting and storing information-books, databases, and such- wagons that can bring us the information we need.
My gut reaction to this question was that "everything is information". But I quickly revised this reaction to "everything is a source of information". When I look at a tree, I can estimate how tall it is, see whether it has leaves on it, what color those leaves might be, whether there are any birds in the tree, and I can take it to the next level and infer something about what season it is. These are all little bits of information.
This consideration led me to think that information is an intangible something that exists in the "space" between an object about which information can be known, and my mind (or anyone's mind), which converts it into knowledge as per Nitecki's model. It's like light: generated by a source such as the sun, transmitted through space via radiation, and converted into energy once it reaches a plant's metabolic system (or converted into information itself when it bounces off something and hits my retinae, where it can be used by my brain to create knowledge).
Does this mean that a "mind" is required in order for information to exist? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to perceive it, does that information exist? (I don't limit that to a human mind; animals (and maybe plants?) perceive, share, and act upon information every day of their lives.) Remove all life from the situation, though, and I think the information is still there as a potentiality. But the concept is a human-constructed one and in that sense I think it does require some entity that can know it in order for it to be considered to exist. To inform is to give facts/data/information to someone.
Then I started to think that writing has allowed us to convert this intangible something into tangible objects like books. But does a book really represent a tangible manifestation of the concept called "information"? I can find a whole lot of information in a book, but it seems like the real information to be gained is that "this book says such and such a thing." The information still has to be transmitted, radiation-like, from the book to my mind. The writing on the page is just a wagon to cart the information on part of its journey from its source to my mind, as well as a way to store the information over time.
So when we talk about information science, I guess by my definition we're really talking about the science of devices for transmitting and storing information-books, databases, and such- wagons that can bring us the information we need.