[Sigia-l] data as information?

[Eric Scheid]

On 30/6/05 2:57 PM, "Alexander Johannesen" <alexander.johannesen at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> If your perception of reality confuses you, that's your problem. Please do
>> adjust your set.
> 
> No, I think the thing which needs adjusting here is the
> reality-to-philosophy ratio, because it is *only* on the philosophical
> level that 'data' exist, not in reality. Which data are you hence
> referring to? I've referred to Schrodingers cat in another post which
> really points to what the problem is; you cannot hold data in
> isolation and point to it, because the very pointing implies some form
> of translation or interpretation of where the finger points. There is
> no data as such, only interpretation of noise.

I think we're in violent agreement here: data is distinguished from noise by
having the attribute that it can be evidence towards information. You cannot
look at an item in isolation and say "that is data" or "that is noise".

Earlier I referred to Ziya's question of what is between data and
information, and pointed out that the more interesting question is what is
between noise and information. It's implicit that without those two
neighbours that there can be no "between". Thus the meaning of 'data' is
intrinsically entangled with 'noise' and 'information'.

> Hmm, we were talking about the theory where you state  "Data is the
> evidence of a relationship between two things" Are you saying data
> could be noise? *confused*

No, more like "noise could be data".

e.