[Sigia-l] Serious Discussion of IA Research?

[Ed Housman]

Challenge: I see no serious discussion of what research needs to be done
in our field. 
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> With IA insisting that information is not data and yet cannot provide
> a pragmatic distinction, doing IA research is like shooting in the
> dark.
 
> Boniface
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Hmm.. I don't see "Info vs. Data" as the basic barrier.  What we
call the stuff is not a black-or-white issue.  Probably it is a
matter of context.  It's Info when the stuff is critical for
a decision; it's Data when it's just that pulsing gooie
subtance that holds a system together ... that maintains the
routine flow of bit patterns among cooperating nodes.

Architectural issues like these appear to be relevant:

1. media
2. nodes
3. context
4. content and form
5. detection, generation, encryption and decryption of bit streams

They are the architectural material that correspond to
wood, steel, nails, etc. of physical architecture.

They, unfortnately, are not solid things prone to analysis
by the laws of physics and chemistry.  We need a new Newton
to work out the laws of Information.  Perhaps Information
needs to be considered a type of etherial substance.  After all,
it takes energy and binding-power to move the stuff through
space and time.

And because of the multiple data control languages (those in
the mind, and those in the computer), the processes within nodes
right now defy general analysis.  (E.g. C++ and thought)

But again I ramble, groping for a science behind information
phenomena, and should be ignored.

--Ed