[Sigia-l] RE: Data vs. Information

[Listera]

"Carol Butler" wrote:

> Regarding Ziya's example of the stock quotes:
> There are at least 8 data points in your examples:  2 company symbols, 2
> numbers, date, time, category label for the symbols (stocks) and numbers
> (prices).  There's lots of other information in your examples and how much
> is conveyed to the *receiver* of the data varies quite a bit.

I tried to give the most canonical 'data' example: price at time for stocks.
I'm not sure how much this could be 'reduced' further towards (more) 'data'.
So even then 'data' in its most atomic form still reeks of information, at
least to some. Indeed it's quite difficult to stumble upon random or pure
data. It's difficult to construct data that's not immediately information,
at least to some. So, I'm not buying any of these fancy academic definitions
and demarcations between data and information. I'm not even sure it's a
useful paradigm for practical work in IA. It complicates more than it
illuminates or helps.

Best,

Ziya