[Sigia-l] data as information?

[Boniface Lau]

> From: Alexander Johannesen
>
> Let me for the sake of clarity put this in context; this thread
> started with Boniface 

No, this thread was started by Eric Scheid. He asked me a question in
the thread-starting post.


> saying that all IA's treat information as data. 

No, I was referring to IAs as a group. That is very different from
saying "all IAs". BTW, the proper English form is "IAs", not "IA's"
for the two mean very different things.

IAs as a group is a generalization. For example, when people survey a
subset of a population and generalize the result to the whole
population, they are referring to the population as a group.

In contrast, "all IAs" is not a generalization. When people examine
all members of a group and found a universal trait, they say "all
members of that group ..."

Such distinction is very important because the basis of my comment was
primarily the general observation on this list, which is a subset of
the IA population.


> I objected quite strongly to this, a) because all IA's are not
> equal,

Your objection would have a firm ground had I said, "all IAs". But I
did not.


> and b) because "datum can't be demonstrated" and hence can't be talked
> about in any practical and sometimes even abstract way, 

May be that is because, for practical purposes, data and information
refer to the same thing.


[...]
> 
> > and many others.
> 
> I say you're full of it. Back it up, or push off. You're leading a
> silly argument now, just like Boniface "proof" that he is right; "just
> read the archives". Yeah, right.

Remember that people cannot read your mind. They don't know exactly
the level of detail you need for a proof. Thus, when you need more
detail, it is your responsibility to say so. Simply dismissing an
argument as invalid because you didn't bother to ask for more detail
is IMO neither fair nor rational.


Boniface