Define the word information

Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random and any observable pattern in any medium can be said to convey some amount of information. Whereas digital signals and other data use discrete signs to convey information, other phenomena and artefacts such as analogue signals, poems, pictures, music or other sounds, and currents convey information in a more continuous form.^[1] Information is not knowledge itself, but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation.^[2]

Information is often processed iteratively: Data available at one step are processed into information to be interpreted and processed at the next step. For example, in written text each symbol or letter conveys information relevant to the word it is part of, each word conveys information relevant to the phrase it is part of, each phrase conveys information relevant to the sentence it is part of, and so on until at the final step information is interpreted and becomes knowledge in a given domain. In a digital signal, bits may be interpreted into the symbols, letters, numbers, or structures that convey the information available at the next level up. The key characteristic of information is that it is subject to interpretation and processing.

The concept of information is relevant in various contexts,^[3] including those of constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, proposition, representation, and entropy.

The derivation of information from a signal or message may be thought of as the resolution of ambiguity or uncertainty that arises during the interpretation of patterns within the signal or message.^[4]

Information may be structured as data. Redundant data can be compressed up to an optimal size, which is the theoretical limit of compression.

The information available through a collection of data may be derived by analysis. For example, data may be collected from a single customer’s order at a restaurant. The information available from many orders may be analyzed, and then becomes knowledge that is put to use when the business subsequently is able to identify the most popular or least popular dish.^[5]

Information can be transmitted in time, via data storage, and space, via communication and telecommunication.^[6] Information is expressed either as the content of a message or through direct or indirect observation. That which is perceived can be construed as a message in its own right, and in that sense, all 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 a sequence of signs, or transmitted via a signal). It can also be encrypted for safe storage and communication.

The uncertainty of an event is measured by its probability of occurrence. Uncertainty is inversely proportional to the probability of occurrence. Information theory takes advantage of this by concluding that more uncertain events require more information to resolve their uncertainty. The bit is a typical unit of information. It is ‘that which reduces uncertainty by half’.^[7] 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. A 2011 Science article estimates that 97% of technologically stored information was already in digital bits in 2007 and that the year 2002 was the beginning of the digital age for information storage (with digital storage capacity bypassing analogue for the first time).^[8]

Etymology[edit]

The English word «information» comes from Middle French enformacion/informacion/information ‘a criminal investigation’ and its etymon, Latin informatiō(n) ‘conception, teaching, creation’.^[9]

In English, «information» is an uncountable mass noun.

Information theory[edit]

Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field was fundamentally established by the works of Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley in the 1920s, and Claude Shannon in the 1940s. The field is at the intersection of probability theory, statistics, computer science, statistical mechanics, information engineering, and electrical engineering.

A key measure in information theory is entropy. Entropy quantifies the amount of uncertainty involved in the value of a random variable or the outcome of a random process. For example, identifying the outcome of a fair coin flip (with two equally likely outcomes) provides less information (lower entropy) than specifying the outcome from a roll of a die (with six equally likely outcomes). Some other important measures in information theory are mutual information, channel capacity, error exponents, and relative entropy. Important sub-fields of information theory include source coding, algorithmic complexity theory, algorithmic information theory, and information-theoretic security.

There is another opinion regarding the universal definition of information. It lies in the fact that the concept itself has changed along with the change of various historical epochs, and in order to find such a definition, it is necessary to find common features and patterns of this transformation. For example, researchers in the field of information Petrichenko E. A. and Semenova V. G., based on a retrospective analysis of changes in the concept of information, give the following universal definition: «Information is a form of transmission of human experience (knowledge).» In their opinion, the change in the essence of the concept of information occurs after various breakthrough technologies for the transfer of experience (knowledge), i.e. the appearance of writing, the printing press, the first encyclopedias, the telegraph, the development of cybernetics, the creation of a microprocessor, the Internet, smartphones, etc. Each new form of experience transfer is a synthesis of the previous ones. That is why we see such a variety of definitions of information, because, according to the law of dialectics «negation-negation», all previous ideas about information are contained in a «filmed» form and in its modern representation.^[10]

Applications of fundamental topics of information theory include source coding/data compression (e.g. for ZIP files), and channel coding/error detection and correction (e.g. for DSL). Its impact has been crucial to the success of the Voyager missions to deep space, the invention of the compact disc, the feasibility of mobile phones and the development of the Internet. The theory has also found applications in other areas, including statistical inference,^[11] cryptography, neurobiology,^[12] perception,^[13] linguistics, the evolution^[14] and function^[15] of molecular codes (bioinformatics), thermal physics,^[16] quantum computing, black holes, information retrieval, intelligence gathering, plagiarism detection,^[17] pattern recognition, anomaly detection^[18] and even art creation.

As sensory input[edit]

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 book Sensory Ecology^[19] biophysicist David B. Dusenbery called these causal inputs. Other inputs (information) are important only because they are associated with causal inputs and can be used to predict the 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 for photosynthesis 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[edit]

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 the complexity 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.^[20][21][22] Among other things, the framework aims to overcome the limitations of Shannon-Weaver information when attempting to characterize and measure subjective information.

As a substitute for task wasted time, energy, and material[edit]

Michael Grieves has proposed that the focus on information should be what it does as opposed to defining what it is. Grieves has proposed ^[23] that information can be substituted for wasted physical resources, time, energy, and material, for goal oriented tasks. Goal oriented tasks can be divided into two components: the most cost efficient use of physical resources: time, energy and material, and the additional use of physical resources used by the task.This second category is by definition wasted physical resources. Information does not substitute or replace the most cost efficient use of physical resources, but can be used to replace the wasted physical resources. The condition that this occurs under is that the cost of information is less than the cost of the wasted physical resources. Since information is a non-rival good, this can be especially beneficial for repeatable tasks. In manufacturing, the task category of the most cost efficient use of physical resources is called lean manufacturing.

As an influence that leads to transformation[edit]

Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns.^[24][25] In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern. Consider, for example, DNA. The sequence of nucleotides 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 Bateson defines «information» as a «difference that makes a difference».^[26]

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^[27] 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, pheromones are often said to be «information» in this sense.

Technologically mediated information[edit]

These sections are using measurements of data rather than information, as information cannot be directly measured.

As of 2007[edit]

It is estimated that the world’s technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 – which is the informational equivalent to less than one 730-MB CD-ROM per person (539 MB per person) – to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007.^[8] This is the informational equivalent of almost 61 CD-ROM per person in 2007.^[6]

The world’s combined technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was the informational equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day in 2007.^[8]

The world’s combined effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was the informational equivalent of 6 newspapers per person per day in 2007.^[6]

As of 2007, an estimated 90% of all new information is digital, mostly stored on hard drives.^[28]

As of 2020[edit]

The total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 64.2 zettabytes in 2020. Over the next five years up to 2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes.^[29]

As records[edit]

Records are specialized forms of information. Essentially, records are information produced consciously or as by-products of business activities or transactions and retained because of their value. Primarily, their value is as evidence of the activities of the organization but they may also be retained for their informational value. Sound records management^[30] ensures that the integrity of records is preserved for as long as they are required.

The international standard on records management, ISO 15489, defines records as «information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business».^[31] The International Committee on Archives (ICA) Committee on electronic records defined a record as, «recorded information produced or received in the initiation, conduct or completion of an institutional or individual activity and that comprises content, context and structure sufficient to provide evidence of the activity».^[32]

Records may be maintained to retain corporate memory of the organization or to meet legal, fiscal or accountability requirements imposed on the organization. Willis expressed the view that sound management of business records and information delivered «…six key requirements for good corporate governance…transparency; accountability; due process; compliance; meeting statutory and common law requirements; and security of personal and corporate information.»^[33]

Semiotics[edit]

Michael Buckland has classified «information» in terms of its uses: «information as process», «information as knowledge», and «information as thing».^[34]

Beynon-Davies^[35][36] explains the multi-faceted concept of information in terms of signs and signal-sign systems. Signs themselves can be considered in terms of four inter-dependent levels, layers or branches of semiotics: pragmatics, semantics, syntax, and empirics. These four layers serve to connect the social world on the one hand with the physical or technical world on the other.

Pragmatics is concerned with the purpose of communication. Pragmatics links the issue of signs with the context within which signs are used. The focus of pragmatics is on the intentions of living agents underlying communicative behaviour. In other words, pragmatics link language to action.

Semantics is concerned with the meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act. Semantics considers the content of communication. Semantics is the study of the meaning of signs — the association between signs and behaviour. Semantics can be considered as the study of the link between symbols and their referents or concepts – particularly the way that signs relate to human behavior.

Syntax is concerned with the formalism used to represent a message. Syntax as an area studies the form of communication in terms of the logic and grammar of sign systems. Syntax is devoted to the study of the form rather than the content of signs and sign-systems.

Nielsen (2008) discusses the relationship between semiotics and information in relation to dictionaries. He introduces the concept of lexicographic information costs and refers to the effort a user of a dictionary must make to first find, and then understand data so that they can generate information.

Communication normally exists within the context of some social situation. The social situation sets the context for the intentions conveyed (pragmatics) and the form of communication. In a communicative situation intentions are expressed through messages that comprise collections of inter-related signs taken from a language mutually understood by the agents involved in the communication. Mutual understanding implies that agents involved understand the chosen language in terms of its agreed syntax (syntactics) and semantics. The sender codes the message in the language and sends the message as signals along some communication channel (empirics). The chosen communication channel has inherent properties that determine outcomes such as the speed at which communication can take place, and over what distance.

The application of information study[edit]

The information cycle (addressed as a whole or in its distinct components) is of great concern to information technology, information systems, as well as information science. These fields deal with those processes and techniques pertaining to information capture (through sensors) and generation (through computation, formulation or composition), processing (including encoding, encryption, compression, packaging), transmission (including all telecommunication methods), presentation (including visualization / display methods), storage (such as magnetic or optical, including holographic methods), etc.

Information visualization (shortened as InfoVis) depends on the computation and digital representation of data, and assists users in pattern recognition and anomaly detection.

• 

  Partial map of the Internet, with nodes representing IP addresses

• 

  Galactic (including dark) matter distribution in a cubic section of the Universe

• 

  Information embedded in an abstract mathematical object with symmetry breaking nucleus

• 

  Visual representation of a strange attractor, with converted data of its fractal structure

Information security (shortened as InfoSec) is the ongoing process of exercising due diligence to protect information, and information systems, from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, destruction, modification, disruption or distribution, through algorithms and procedures focused on monitoring and detection, as well as incident response and repair.

Information analysis is the process of inspecting, transforming, and modelling information, by converting raw data into actionable knowledge, in support of the decision-making process.

Information quality (shortened as InfoQ) is the potential of a dataset to achieve a specific (scientific or practical) goal using a given empirical analysis method.

Information communication represents the convergence of informatics, telecommunication and audio-visual media & content.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Liu, Alan (2004). The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information. University of Chicago Press.
• Bekenstein, Jacob D. (August 2003). «Information in the holographic universe». Scientific American. 289 (2): 58–65. Bibcode:2003SciAm.289b..58B. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0803-58. PMID 12884539.
• Gleick, James (2011). The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. New York, NY: Pantheon.
• Lin, Shu-Kun (2008). «Gibbs Paradox and the Concepts of Information, Symmetry, Similarity and Their Relationship». Entropy. 10 (1): 1–5. arXiv:0803.2571. Bibcode:2008Entrp..10….1L. doi:10.3390/entropy-e10010001. S2CID 41159530.
• Floridi, Luciano (2005). «Is Information Meaningful Data?» (PDF). Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 70 (2): 351–70. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00531.x. hdl:2299/1825. S2CID 5593220.
• Floridi, Luciano (2005). «Semantic Conceptions of Information». In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2005 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
• Floridi, Luciano (2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Logan, Robert K. What is Information? — Propagating Organization in the Biosphere, the Symbolosphere, the Technosphere and the Econosphere. Toronto: DEMO Publishing.
• Machlup, F. and U. Mansfield, The Study of information : interdisciplinary messages. 1983, New York: Wiley. xxii, 743 p. ISBN 9780471887171
• Nielsen, Sandro (2008). «The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use». Lexikos. 18: 170–89.
• Stewart, Thomas (2001). Wealth of Knowledge. New York, NY: Doubleday.
• Young, Paul (1987). The Nature of Information. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-92698-4.
• Kenett, Ron S.; Shmueli, Galit (2016). Information Quality: The Potential of Data and Analytics to Generate Knowledge. Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley and Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118890622. ISBN 978-1-118-87444-8.

External links[edit]

• Semantic Conceptions of Information Review by Luciano Floridi for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Principia Cybernetica entry on negentropy
• Fisher Information, a New Paradigm for Science: Introduction, Uncertainty principles, Wave equations, Ideas of Escher, Kant, Plato and Wheeler. This essay is continually revised in the light of ongoing research.
• How Much Information? 2003 an attempt to estimate how much new information is created each year (study was produced by faculty and students at the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley)
• (in Danish) Informationsordbogen.dk The Danish Dictionary of Information Terms / Informationsordbogen

Last Updated:
10 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

• Afrikaans: inligting (af), informasie (af)
• Albanian: informacion (sq) m, informatë (sq) f
• Amharic: ጥቆማ (ṭəḳoma), መረጃ (märäǧa)
• Apache:

  Western Apache: beʼígózíni yíka ntaahí

• Arabic: مَعْلُومَات‎ (ar) f pl (maʕlūmāt), مَعْلُومَة‎ f (maʕlūma)

  Egyptian Arabic: معلومة‎ f (maʿluma)

  Moroccan Arabic: معلومة‎ f (maʿloma)

• Armenian: տեղեկատվություն (hy) (tełekatvutʿyun), տեղեկություն (hy) (tełekutʿyun)
• Asturian: información f
• Azerbaijani: məlumat (az), informasiya
• Bashkir: мәғлүмәт (mäğlümät)
• Basque: informazio
• Belarusian: інфарма́цыя f (infarmácyja)
• Bengali: তথ্য (bn) (tottho)
• Breton: ditour m, keloù (br) m
• Bulgarian: информа́ция (bg) f (informácija)
• Burmese: ပြန်ကြားရေး (my) (prankra:re:)
• Buryat: мэдээсэл (medeesel)
• Catalan: informació (ca) f
• Chamorro: infotmasion
• Chechen: хаам (xaam)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 信息 (zh) (xìnxī), 資訊／资讯 (zh) (zīxùn), 情報／情报 (zh) (qíngbào)

• Czech: informace (cs) f
• Danish: information (da) c, informationer pl
• Dutch: informatie (nl) f
• Esperanto: informo
• Estonian: informatsioon (et), teave
• Finnish: tieto (fi), informaatio (fi)
• French: renseignement (fr) m, informations (fr) f pl, information (fr) f
• Galician: información (gl) f
• Georgian: ცნობება (cnobeba), შეტყობინება (šeṭq̇obineba), ინფორმაცია (inpormacia), ცნობა (cnoba), ინფო (inpo) (slang)
• German: Information (de) f, Auskunft (de) f
• Greek: πληροφορία (el) f (pliroforía)

  Ancient: μήνυμα n (mḗnuma)

• Haitian Creole: enfòmasyon
• Hebrew: מֵידָע‎ (he) m (meidá)
• Hindi: जानकारी (hi) f (jānkārī), तथ्य (hi) m (tathya), सूचना (hi) m (sūcnā), आगाही (hi) f (āgāhī), विवरण (hi) m (vivraṇ), ख़बर f (xabar), खबर (hi) f (khabar)
• Hungarian: információ (hu), értesülés (hu), tájékoztatás (hu), tudnivaló, felvilágosítás (hu), hír (hu)
• Icelandic: upplýsingar
• Ido: informo (io)
• Ilocano: pakaammo
• Indonesian: informasi (id), maklumat (id)
• Irish: eolas m, fios m
• Italian: informazione (it) f
• Japanese: 情報 (ja) (じょうほう, jōhō), 案内 (ja) (あんない, annai)
• Kannada: ಮಾಹಿತಿ (kn) (māhiti)
• Kapampangan: impormasiun, impormasyun, kabaluan, kebaluan, pamibalu, kapabaluan, kepabaluan
• Kazakh: ақпарат (aqparat), мағлұмат (mağlūmat)
• Khmer: ដំណឹង (km) (dɑmnəng), ព័ត៌មាន (km) (pɔədɑɑmiən)
• Korean: 안내(案內) (ko) (annae), 정보(情報) (ko) (jeongbo)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: agahî (ku) f

• Kyrgyz: информация (ky) (informatsiya), маалымат (ky) (maalımat), билме (bilme)
• Lao: ຂ່າວ (lo) (khāo), ຂໍ້ມູນ (lo) (khǭ mūn)
• Latgalian: zine f, zinis f or pl, jaunums m, jaunumi m or pl, informaceja f
• Latin: nūntius (la) m, scientia (la) f, doctrina f, indicium n, nuntii m pl
• Latvian: informācija f
• Lithuanian: informacija (lt) f (Aukštaitian)

  Samogitian: infuormacėjė f

• Low German:

  Dutch Low Saxon: informaty

  German Low German: informatioon

• Macedonian: информација f (informacija)
• Malay: informasi, maklumat
• Malayalam: അറിവ് (ml) (aṟivŭ), വിവരം (ml) (vivaraṃ)
• Maltese: informazzjoni (mt) f
• Maori: mōhiohio, pārongo
• Marathi: माहिती (mr) f (māhitī)
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: мэдээлэл (mn) (medeelel), өгөгдөл (mn) (ögögdöl)

• Nahuatl: tlanonotzaliztli
• Nepali: जानकारी (ne) (jānkārī), सुचना (sucanā)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: informasjon (no) m

• Old English: ġefrǣġe n, āscung f
• Pashto: معلومات‎ m pl (ma’lumãt), اطلاع‎ (ps) f (etlã’)
• Persian: اطلاع‎ (fa) (etelâ’), آگاهی‎ (fa) (âgâhi), اخبار‎ (fa) (axbâr), استحضار‎ (fa) (estehzâr), معلومات‎ (fa) (ma’lumât), اطلاعات‎ (fa) (ettelâ’ât)
• Polish: informacja (pl) f, wiadomość (pl) f
• Portuguese: informação (pt) f
• Romanian: informație (ro) f
• Romansch: infurmaziun f
• Russian: информа́ция (ru) f (informácija), инфа́ (ru) f (infá) (colloquial), (always plural) све́дение (ru) (svédenije), (always plural) да́нные (ru) (dánnyje)
• Rusyn: інформа́ція f (informácija)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: информа́ција f

  Roman: informácija (sh) f

• Slovak: informácia f
• Slovene: informacija f, informacije pl
• Sorbian:

  Lower Sorbian: informacija f

• Southern Altai: јетирӱ (ǰetirü)
• Spanish: información (es) f
• Swahili: habari (sw), taarifa (sw) class n
• Swedish: information (sv) c
• Tagalog: impormasyon (tl), pabatid, kabatiran
• Tajik: маълумот (tg) (maʾlumot), ахборот (axborot), иттилоот (tg) (ittiloot)
• Tamil: தகவல் (ta) (takaval)
• Tatar: мәгълүмат (tt) (mäğlümat)
• Telugu: సమాచారము (te) (samācāramu)
• Thai: ข่าว (th) (kàao), ข้อมูล (th) (kɔ̂ɔ-muun)
• Tibetan: གནས་ཚུལ (gnas tshul)
• Tigrinya: ሓበሬታ (ḥabäreta)
• Turkish: bilgi (tr), malumat (tr)
• Turkmen: informasiýa, maglumat
• Udmurt: ивортодэт (ivortodet)
• Ukrainian: інформа́ція (uk) f (informácija)
• Urdu: جانکاری‎ f (jānkārī), اطلاعات‎ pl (ittilā’āt), معلومات‎ f pl (ma’lūmāt)
• Uyghur: ئۇچۇر‎ (uchur), مەلۇمات‎ (melumat), خەۋەر‎ (xewer), ئاخبارات‎ (axbarat)
• Uzbek: maʻlumot (uz), axborot (uz), informatsiya (uz)
• Vietnamese: thông tin (vi)
• Welsh: gwybodaeth (cy) f, hysbysrwydd m
• West Frisian: ynformaasje
• Yiddish: אינפֿאָרמאַציע‎ f (informatsye)

Information as a concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation.

Many people speak about the Information Age as the advent of the Knowledge Age Fact|date=February 2007weasel word|date=June 2007 or knowledge society, the information society, the Information revolution, and information technologies, and even though informatics, information science and computer science are often in the spotlight, the word «information» is often used without careful consideration of the various meanings it has acquired.

Etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest historical meaning of the word «information» in English was the act of «informing», or giving form or shape to the mind, as in education, instruction, or training. A quote from 1387: «Five books come down from heaven for information of mankind.» It was also used for an «item» of training, «e.g.» a particular instruction. «Melibee had heard the great skills and reasons of Dame Prudence, and her wise information and techniques.» (1386)

The English word was apparently derived by adding the common «noun of action» ending «-ation» (descended through French from Latin «-tio») to the earlier verb «to inform», in the sense of to give form to the mind, to discipline, instruct, teach: «Men so wise should go and inform their kings.» (1330) «Inform» itself comes (via French) from the Latin verb «informare», to give form to, to form an idea of. Furthermore, Latin itself already even 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 unclear.

As a final note, the ancient Greek word for «form» was «είδος» eidos, and this 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.

Information as a message

Information is the state of a system of interest. Message is the information materialized.

Information is a quality of a message from a sender to one or more receivers. Information is always «about» something (size of a parameter, occurrence of an event, etc). Viewed in this manner, information does not have to be accurate; it may be a truth or a lie, or just the sound of a falling tree. Even a disruptive noise used to inhibit the flow of communication and create misunderstanding would in this view be a form of information. However, generally speaking, if the «amount» of information in the received message increases, the message is more accurate.

This model assumes there is a definite sender and at least one receiver. Many refinements of the model assume the existence of a common language understood by the sender and at least one of the receivers. An important variation identifies information as that which would be communicated by a message if it were sent from a sender to a receiver capable of understanding the message. In another variation, it is not required that the sender be capable of understanding the message, or even cognizant that there is a message, making information something that can be extracted from an environment, e.g., through observation, reading or measurement.

Information is a term with many meanings depending on context, but is as a rule closely related to such concepts as meaning, knowledge, instruction, communication, representation, and mental stimulus. Simply stated, information is a message received and understood. In terms of data, it can be defined as a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn. There are many other aspects of information since it is the knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction. But overall, information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data in a way that adds to the knowledge of the person receiving it.

Communication theory provides a numerical measure of the uncertainty of an outcome. For example, we can say that «the signal contained thousands of bits of information». Communication theory tends to use the concept of information entropy, generally attributed to C.E. Shannon (see below).

Another form of information is Fisher information, a concept of R.A. Fisher. This is used in application of statistics to estimation theory and to science in general. Fisher information is thought of as the amount of information that a message carries about an unobservable parameter. It can be computed from knowledge of the likelihood function defining the system. For example, with a normal likelihood function, the Fisher information is the reciprocal of the variance of the law. In the absence of knowledge of the likelihood law, the Fisher information may be computed from normally distributed score data as the reciprocal of their second moment.

Even though information and data are often used interchangeably, they are actually very different. Data is a set of unrelated information, and as such is of no use until it is properly evaluated. Upon evaluation, once there is some significant relation between data, and they show some relevance, then they are converted into information. Now this same data can be used for different purposes. Thus, till the data convey some information, they are not useful.

Measuring information entropy

The view of information as a message came into prominence with the publication in 1948 of an influential paper by Claude Shannon, «A Mathematical Theory of Communication.» This paper provides the foundations of information theory and endows the word «information» not only with a technical meaning but also a measure. If the sending device is equally likely to send any one of a set of N messages, then the preferred measure of «the information produced when one message is chosen from the set» is the base two logarithm of N (This measure is called «self-information»). In this paper, Shannon continues:

A complementary way of measuring information is provided by algorithmic information theory. In brief, this measures the information content of a list of symbols based on how predictable they are, or more specifically how easy it is to compute the list through a program: the information content of a sequence is the number of bits of the shortest program that computes it. The sequence below would have a very low algorithmic information measurement since it is a very predictable pattern, and as the pattern continues the measurement would not change. Shannon information would give the same information measurement for each symbol, since they are statistically random, and each new symbol would increase the measurement.:123456789101112131415161718192021

It is important to recognize the limitations of traditional information theory and algorithmic information theory from the perspective of human meaning. For example, when referring to the meaning content of a message Shannon noted “Frequently the messages have «meaning…» these semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected «from a set of possible messages»” (emphasis in original).

In information theory signals are part of a process, not a substance; they do something, they do not contain any specific meaning. Combining algorithmic information theory and information theory we can conclude that the most random signal contains the most information as it can be interpreted in any way and cannot be compressed.Fact|date=August 2007

Michael Reddy noted that «‘signals’ of the mathematical theory are ‘patterns that can be exchanged’. There is no message contained in the signal, the signals convey the ability to select from a set of possible messages.» In information theory «the system must be designed to operate for each possible selection, not just the one which will actually be chosen since this is unknown at the time of design».

Information as a pattern

Information is any represented pattern. This view assumes neither accuracy nor directly communicating parties, but instead assumes a separation between an object and its representation. Consider the following example: economic statistics represent an economy, however inaccurately. What are commonly referred to as data in computing, statistics, and other fields, are forms of information in this sense. The electro-magnetic patterns in a computer network and connected devices are related to something other than the pattern itself, such as text characters to be displayed and keyboard input. Signals, signs, and symbols are also in this category. On the other hand, according to semiotics, data is symbols with certain syntax and information is data with a certain semantic. Painting and drawing contain information to the extent that they represent something such as an assortment of objects on a table, a profile, or a landscape. In other words, when a pattern of something is transposed to a pattern of something else, the latter is information. This would be the case whether or not there was anyone to perceive it.

But if information can be defined merely as a pattern, does that mean that neither utility nor meaning are necessary components of information? Arguably a distinction must be made between raw unprocessed data and information which possesses utility, value or some quantum of meaning. On this view, information may indeed be characterized as a pattern; but this is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.

An individual entry in a telephone book, which follows a specific pattern formed by name, address and telephone number, does not become «informative» in some sense unless and until it possesses some degree of utility, value or meaning. For example, someone might look up a girlfriend’s number, might order a take away etc. The vast majority of numbers will never be construed as «information» in any meaningful sense. The gap between data and information is only closed by a behavioral bridge whereby some value, utility or meaning is added to transform mere data or pattern into information.

When one constructs a representation of an object, one can selectively extract from the object (sampling) or use a system of signs to replace (encoding), or both. The sampling and encoding result in representation. An example of the former is a «sample» of a product; an example of the latter is «verbal description» of a product. Both contain information of the product, however inaccurate. When one interprets representation, one can predict a broader pattern from a limited number of observations (inference) or understand the relation between patterns of two different things (decoding). One example of the former is to sip a soup to know if it is spoiled; an example of the latter is examining footprints to determine the animal and its condition. In both cases, information sources are not constructed or presented by some «sender» of information. Regardless, information is dependent upon, but usually unrelated to and separate from, the medium or media used to express it. In other words, the position of a theoretical series of bits, or even the output once interpreted by a computer or similar device, is unimportant, except when someone or something is present to interpret the information. Therefore, a quantity of information is totally distinct from its medium.

Information as sensory input

Often information is viewed as a type of input to an organism or designed device. Inputs are of two kinds. Some inputs are important to the function of the organism (for example, food) or device (energy) by themselves. In his book «Sensory Ecology,» Dusenbery called these causal inputs. Other inputs (information) are important only because they are associated with causal inputs and can be used to predict the 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 device. For example, light is often a causal input to plants but provides information to animals. 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.

Information is any type of sensory input. When an organism with a nervous system receives an input, it transforms the input into an electrical signal. This is regarded information by some. The idea of representation is still relevant, but in a slightly different manner. That is, while abstract painting does not represent anything concretely, when the viewer sees the painting, it is nevertheless transformed into electrical signals that create a representation of the painting. Defined this way, information does not have to be related to truth, communication, or representation of an object. Entertainment in general is not intended to be informative. Music, the performing arts, amusement parks, works of fiction and so on are thus forms of information in this sense, but they are not necessarily forms of information according to some definitions given above. Consider another example: food supplies both nutrition and taste for those who eat it. If information is equated to sensory input, then nutrition is not information but taste is.

Information as an influence which leads to a transformation

Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns. In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern. Consider, for example, DNA. The sequence of nucleotides is a pattern that influences the formation and development of an organism without any need for a conscious mind. 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.

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, pheromones are often said to be «information» in this sense.

(See also Gregory Bateson.)

Information as a property in physics

In 2003, J. D. Bekenstein claimed there is a growing trend in physics to define the physical world as being made of information itself (and thus information is defined in this way). Information has a well defined meaning in physics. Examples of this include the phenomenon of quantum entanglement where particles can interact without reference to their separation or the speed of light. Information itself cannot travel faster than light even if the information is transmitted indirectly. This could lead to the fact that all attempts at physically observing a particle with an «entangled» relationship to another are slowed down, even though the particles are not connected in any other way other than by the information they carry.

Another link is demonstrated by the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment. In this experiment, a direct relationship between information and another physical property, entropy, is demonstrated. A consequence is that it is impossible to destroy information without increasing the entropy of a system; in practical terms this often means generating heat. Another, more philosophical, outcome is that information could be thought of as interchangeable with energy. Thus, in the study of logic gates, the theoretical lower bound of thermal energy released by an «AND gate» is higher than for the «NOT gate» (because information is destroyed in an «AND gate» and simply converted in a «NOT gate»). Physical information is of particular importance in the theory of quantum computers.

Information as records

Records are a specialized form of information. Essentially, records are information produced consciously or as by-products of business activities or transactions and retained because of their value. Primarily their value is as evidence of the activities of the organization but they may also be retained for their informational value. Sound records management ensures that the integrity of records is preserved for as long as they are required.

The international standard on records management, ISO 15489, defines records as «information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business». The International Committee on Archives (ICA) Committee on electronic records defined a record as, «a specific piece of recorded information generated, collected or received in the initiation, conduct or completion of an activity and that comprises sufficient content, context and structure to provide proof or evidence of that activity».

Records may be retained because of their business value, as part of the corporate memory of the organization or to meet legal, fiscal or accountability requirements imposed on the organization. Willis (2005) expressed the view that sound management of business records and information delivered «…six key requirements for good corporate governance…transparency; accountability; due process; compliance; meeting statutory and common law requirements; and security of personal and corporate information.»

Information and semiotics

Beynon-Davies [Beynon-Davies P. (2002). Information Systems: an introduction to informatics in Organisations. Palgrave, Basingstoke, UK. ISBN: 0-333-96390-3] explains the multi-faceted concept of information in terms of that of signs and sign-systems. Signs themselves can be considered in terms of four inter-dependent levels, layers or branches of semiotics: pragmatics, semantics, syntactics and empirics. These four layers serve to connect the social world on the one hand with the physical or technical world on the other.

Pragmatics is concerned with the purpose of communication. Pragmatics links the issue of signs with that of intention. The focus of pragmatics is on the intentions of human agents underlying communicative behaviour. In other words, intentions link language to action.

Semantics is concerned with the meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act. Semantics considers the content of communication. Semantics is the study of the meaning of signs — the association between signs and behaviour. Semantics can be considered as the study of the link between symbols and their referents or concepts; particularly the way in which signs relate to human behaviour.

Syntactics is concerned with the formalism used to represent a message. Syntactics as an area studies the form of communication in terms of the logic and grammar of sign systems. Syntactics is devoted to the study of the form rather than the content of signs and sign-systems.

Empirics is the study of the signals used to carry a message; the physical characteristics of the medium of communication. Empirics is devoted to the study of communication channels and their characteristics, e.g., sound, light, electronic transmission etc.

Communication normally exists within the context of some social situation. The social situation sets the context for the intentions conveyed (pragmatics) and the form in which communication takes place. In a communicative situation intentions are expressed through messages which comprise collections of inter-related signs taken from a language which is mutually understood by the agents involved in the communication. Mutual understanding implies that agents involved understand the chosen language in terms of its agreed syntax (syntactics) and semantics. The sender codes the message in the language and sends the message as signals along some communication channel (empirics). The chosen communication channel will have inherent properties which determine outcomes such as the speed with which communication can take place and over what distance.

References

Further reading

* Alan Liu (2004). «The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information», University of Chicago Press
* Bekenstein, Jacob D. (2003, August). Information in the holographic universe. «Scientific American».
* Luciano Floridi, (2005). ‘Is Information Meaningful Data?’, «Philosophy and Phenomenological Research», 70 (2), pp. 351 — 370. Available online at [http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~floridi/pdf/iimd.pdf Oxford University]
* Luciano Floridi, (2005). ‘Semantic Conceptions of Information’, «The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy» (Winter 2005 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Available online at [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/ Stanford University]

See also

* Informatics
* Information architecture
* Information broker
* Information communication technology
* Information entropy
* Information geometry
* Information highway
* Information ladder
* Information mapping
* Information overload
* Information processing
* Information processor
* Information revolution
* Information sensitivity
* Information science
* Information system
* Information technology
* Information theory
* Infosphere
* Accuracy
* Abstraction
* Algorithmic information theory
* Classified information
* Complexity
** Complex system
** Complex adaptive system
* Cybernetics
* Exformation
* Fisher information
* Free Information Infrastructure
* Freedom of information
* Infornography
* Library and Information Science
* Medium
* Metadata
* Observation
* Philosophy of information
* Physical information
* Prediction
* Propaganda model
* Relevance
* Receiver operating characteristic
* Satisficing
* Shannon–Hartley theorem
** Claude Shannon
** Ralph Hartley
* Systems theory

External links

* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/ Semantic Conceptions of Information] Review by Luciano Floridi for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
* [http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASC/NEGENTROPY.html Principia Cybernetica entry on negentropy]
* [http://www.optics.arizona.edu/Frieden/Fisher_Information.htm Fisher Information, a New Paradigm for Science: Introduction, Uncertainty principles, Wave equations, Ideas of Escher, Kant, Plato and Wheeler.] This essay is continually revised in the light of ongoing research.
* [http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/index.htm How Much Information? 2003] an attempt to estimate how much new information is created each year (study was produced by faculty and students at the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley.)