Information

Information can be thought of as the

resolution of uncertainty; it is that which
answers the question of "What an entity is"
and thus defines both its essence and
nature of its characteristics. The concept
of information has different meanings in
different contexts.[1] Thus the concept
becomes related to notions of constraint,
communication, control, data, form,
education, knowledge, meaning,
understanding, mental stimuli, pattern,
perception, representation, and entropy.

The ASCII codes for the word "Wikipedia" represented

in binary, the numeral system most commonly used
for encoding textual computer information

Information is associated with data, as

data represent values attributed to
parameters, and information is data in
context and with meaning attached.
Information also relates to knowledge, as
knowledge signifies understanding of an
abstract or concrete concept.[2]

In terms of communication, 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, 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 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.
Etymology
The English word "Information" apparently
derives from the Latin stem (information-)
of the nominative (informatio): this noun
derives from the verb informare (to inform)
in the sense of "to give form to the mind",
"to discipline", "instruct", "teach". Inform
itself comes (via French informer) 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 is

πληροφορία, 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
word information in English. In addition to
its primary meaning, the word
Πληροφορία as a symbol 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 strong
denotative 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 uncountable

mass 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 book Sensory Ecology[4]
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
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.[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.
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".[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, pheromones are often said to be
"information" in this sense.

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

The mathematical universe hypothesis

suggests a new paradigm, in which
virtually everything, from particles and
fields, through biological entities and
consciousness, to the multiverse itself,
could be described by mathematical
patterns of information. By the same
token, the cosmic void can be conceived
of as the absence of material information
in space (setting aside the virtual particles
that pop in and out of existence due to
quantum fluctuations, as well as the
gravitational field and the dark energy).
Nothingness can be understood then as
that within which no matter, energy, space,
time, or any other type of information
could exist, which would be possible if
symmetry and structure break within the
manifold of the multiverse (i.e. the
manifold would have tears or holes).
Physical information exists beyond event
horizons, since astronomical observations
show that, due to the expansion of the
universe, distant objects continue to pass
the cosmological horizon, as seen from a
present time, local observer point of view.

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. Toyabe et al.
experimentally showed in nature that
information can be converted into work.[12]
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.
In thermodynamics, information is any
kind of event that affects the state of a
dynamic system that can interpret the
information.

The application of
information study
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.

Technologically mediated
information
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.[13] This is
the informational equivalent of almost 61
CD-ROM per person in 2007.[14]
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.[13]

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.[14]

As of 2007, an estimated 90% of all new

information is digital, mostly stored on
hard drives.[15]
As records
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 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".[16] 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".[17]

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."[18]

Semiotics
Michael Buckland has classified
"information" in terms of its uses:
"information as process", "information as
knowledge", and "information as thing".[19]

Beynon-Davies[20][21] 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.

See also
Abstraction
Accuracy and precision
Anti-information reduces certainty
Classified information
Complex adaptive system
Complex system
Cybernetics
Data storage device#Recording medium
Engram
Exformation
Free Information Infrastructure
Freedom of information
Information and communication
technologies
Information architecture
Information broker
Information continuum
Informatics
Information ecology
Information engineering
Information geometry
Information inequity
Information infrastructure
Information management
Information mapping
Information metabolism
Information overload
Information processor
Information sensitivity
Information superhighway
 Information quality (InfoQ)
Information warfare
Infosphere
Internet forum
Lexicographic information cost
Library science
Meme
Philosophy of information
Propaganda model
Quantum information
Receiver operating characteristic
Satisficing

References
1. A short overview is found in: Luciano
Floridi (2010). Information - A Very
Short Introduction . Oxford University
Press. ISBN 978-0-19-160954-1. "The
goal of this volume is to provide an
outline of what information is..."
2. "Information - Definition of Information
by Merriam-Webster" . Merriam-
webster.com. Retrieved 1 May 2017.
3. Stephen B. Wicker, Saejoon Kim
(2003). Fundamentals of Codes,
Graphs, and Iterative Decoding .
Springer. pp. 1 ff. ISBN 978-1-4020-
7264-2.
4. Dusenbery, David B. (1992). Sensory
Ecology . New York: W.H. Freeman.
ISBN 978-0-7167-2333-2.
5. Vigo, R. (2011). "Representational
information: a new general notion and
measure of information" (PDF).
Information Sciences. 181 (21): 4847–
59. doi:10.1016/j.ins.2011.05.020 .
. Vigo, R. (2013). "Complexity over
Uncertainty in Generalized
Representational Information Theory
(GRIT): A Structure-Sensitive General
Theory of Information" . Information. 4
(1): 1–30. doi:10.3390/info4010001 .
7. Vigo, R. (2014). Mathematical
Principles of Human Conceptual
Behavior: The Structural Nature of
Conceptual Representation and
Processing. New York and London:
Scientific Psychology Series,
Routledge. ISBN 978-0415714365.
. Shannon, Claude E. (1949). The
Mathematical Theory of
Communication.
 9. Casagrande, David (1999).
"Information as verb: Re-
conceptualizing information for
cognitive and ecological models"
(PDF). Journal of Ecological
Anthropology. 3 (1): 4–13.
doi:10.5038/2162-4593.3.1.1 .
10. Bateson, Gregory (1972). Form,
Substance, and Difference, in Steps to
an Ecology of Mind. University of
Chicago Press. pp. 448–66.
11. Simonsen, Bo Krantz.
"Informationsordbogen - vis begreb" .
Informationsordbogen.dk. Retrieved
1 May 2017.
12. Merali, Zeeya (14 November 2010).
"Demonic device converts information
to energy : Nature News" . Nature.
doi:10.1038/news.2010.606 .
Retrieved 1 May 2017.
13. Hilbert, Martin; López, Priscila (2011).
"The World's Technological Capacity to
Store, Communicate, and Compute
Information". Science. 332 (6025): 60–
65. Bibcode:2011Sci...332...60H .
doi:10.1126/science.1200970 .
PMID 21310967 . S2CID 206531385 .
Free access to the article at
martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.ht
ml
14. "World_info_capacity_animation" .
YouTube. 11 June 2011. Retrieved
1 May 2017.
15. Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive
Population. Eduardo Pinheiro, Wolf-
Dietrich Weber and Luiz Andre Barroso
1 . ISO 15489
17. Committee on Electronic Records
(February 1997). "Guide For Managing
Electronic Records From An Archival
Perspective" (PDF). www.ica.org.
International Committee on Archives.
p. 22. Retrieved 9 February 2019.
1 . Willis, Anthony (1 August 2005).
"Corporate governance and
management of information and
records". Records Management
Journal. 15 (2): 86–97.
doi:10.1108/09565690510614238 .
19. Buckland, Michael K. (June 1991).
"Information as thing". Journal of the
American Society for Information
Science. 42 (5): 351–360.
doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-
4571(199106)42:5<351::AID-
ASI5>3.0.CO;2-3 .
20. Beynon-Davies, P. (2002). Information
Systems: an introduction to
informatics in Organisations.
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. ISBN 978-
0-333-96390-6.
21. Beynon-Davies, P. (2009). Business
Information Systems. Basingstoke:
Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-20368-6.

Further reading
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 .
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.
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

Look up information in Wiktionary, the

free dictionary.

Wikiquote has quotations related to:

Information
Wikimedia Commons has media
related to Information.

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

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