[Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?

[Andrew Boyd]

Hi Conal,

I think that it gets back to the old definition "Information is data in 
context". Regardless of where/how/how long stored, if someone knows that 
the recording is of a Passenger Pigeon, it doesn't matter how extinct 
the bird is in the wild, it is still a recording of a Passenger Pigeon - 
and will remain so, as long as it has context. It doesn't matter really 
if it is a correctly labled audio tape, or if there is a domain expert 
that recognises the recording for what it is.

If the lable falls off/is lost, and the expert dies, then we have loss 
of context, and the information goes back to being data.Or just so much 
piffle, if you prefer :)

Cheers, Andrew

Conal Tuohy wrote:

>This is how the term "information" is defined in Information Theory, BTW: information depends on the person receiving it. 
>
>For instance, if you don't speak Spanish, then "esto no significa nada" is not information to you. It's just noise. It's data, but not information. Or if you know how to recognise the songs of different birds, then you can acquire information from listening to birds which other people cannot (they would only acquire the information "there is a bird in the tree", rather than "there is a bellbird in the tree"). That's why I think it's not very useful to consider information a substance in its own right, independently of the person (or computer system) being informed. 
>
>Cheers
>
>Con
>
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Andrew Boyd 
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