Information is free!
Created | Updated Jun 8, 2003
Information is free!
Information a frase never been more popular then today. But what is information itself?
Information is probably the most relative concept in existance.
We concider something information depending on what we know already, if we know the related background information and if we are interested in the message at all. Any system able to process information is bound by these rules.
Information:
A relation that was not revealed before.
A property that was unknown of.
Potential _flow_ of knowledge.
Definition of information: Knowledge that (once) was not (known as) a part of a certain "knowledge collection", it hoovers on the edges of knowledge.
Information comes in layers.
Example #1 of layers:
Imagine you are selling newspapers from a local stand somewher on a sidewalk. You are selling information. The information of your most concern are depending on whether the papers are sold. You have weather condition, neighbour paper stands, the mice who eat your papers. You dont really care for what is on the sports page, except for winning the olympics perhaps. Another layer is your daily customers, aunty Fril is late today. Or lunchtime.
These layers may have relations, but they do not rely on each other.
Example #2 of layers:
Since we all are using information processing systems as your read this, you read this. In the background your local system modulates the illumination of your screen to enable you to read the content. Altough some bytes of this entry contain the information you read, there are lots of others involved, adding properties to enable readability, font, color, page etc. Other bytes in the same entry relate to creation time, other bytes to the author of the entry. The whole of the entry is presented to your system as an XML page a formulation enabeling your browser to show and link it. This XML page is received in small packets by a process inside your system that collects these packets from the DNA servers according to addresses and sequentions mentioned inside these packets.
Here information is devided in layers supporting upper layers.
Information is more or less virtual
"Schrodingers cat" show the cat is there in two states at the same time. Information would be the state the cat is in. We have the information there is a cat inside the box and we have the information of its unknown state. (Why did he not give the example with a candle?) This is an example of information we do not have. Any information we do not possess, but we know the information exists is in a virtual state. This is not the case for tomorrows wheather, it simply did not happen yet so there is no defined information. Altough we can know the prediction for tomorrows wheather in that case we have information regarding a prediction.
Redundant Information
"This page is intentionally left blank" should be frased as "This page does not contain additional information" where the potential information it contains (page numbers, chapter name, etcetera) would be redundant. By writing here that you can read we give you redundant information, unless someone else read it for you. By writing here that you can understand a language we give you redundant information anyway. By using redundant information we can raffine information to a more presice level. By deduction of the redundant information we can get lots of additional information.
<CENSORED> Information
<CENSORED> Information is used when the receiver of the information is not up to it. The everlasting question for this case is who decides to <CENSOR> what information. Happily we do not know when and what has been <CENSORED> information. This being the case and in the assumption we know all about it, we just do as if we do not know of any <CENSORED> information. Perhaps it is best for us all as information where we are not up to does not fit anyway into our knowledge and would be considered as nonsense. By the time we have gathered enough information about the <CENSORED> information, we know what it is about and just add it to our knowledge.
Information comes in a cumulative way
As long as the "knowledge collection" is not containing the relevant references information is about, the information can not be processed and therefore will not be concidered as information at all. This enables us to encode information in such a way just a select group of receivers of the information to receive all of it. Take the "Schodingers cat" example again as long as you have no idea of the reason behind the mind experiment you just feel sorry for the cat. Only for adepted in the quantum theory there wil be a second layer of information about the superposition of the states and still a little wining for the cat. The information regarding this superposition has to be taken previous before there is any information about it in the cat story.
Information has a size
Information can be none, if no unknown information has been added, even though that can be information too on an other level. The smallest bit of information is the bit, either 0 or 1, either yes or no. Even in this digital computer age these bits of information are rare as there will aways be more information on other levels. "Did you sell a newspaper?", "Yes/No". The answer "Yes" means you sold a paper and you got money for it, your stock has been lowered by one, the buyer did own money, and probably has (one or more) eyes, can probably read, probably wanted to be informed, etcetera. The answer "No" tells us less, you probably did not get money, you probably have the same stock, either no one wanted to have a paper or no one was able to buy one. There is no known maximum sise of information.
Information is free!
If you would live long enough to get all posible information no hiding, <CENSORING> or blocking of information would be posible. The information would be deduced anyway eventually.
This discloses information so let it be free!
Information a frase never been more popular then today. But what is information itself?
Information is probably the most relative concept in existance.
We concider something information depending on what we know already, if we know the related background information and if we are interested in the message at all. Any system able to process information is bound by these rules.
Information:
A relation that was not revealed before.
A property that was unknown of.
Potential _flow_ of knowledge.
Definition of information: Knowledge that (once) was not (known as) a part of a certain "knowledge collection", it hoovers on the edges of knowledge.
Information comes in layers.
Example #1 of layers:
Imagine you are selling newspapers from a local stand somewher on a sidewalk. You are selling information. The information of your most concern are depending on whether the papers are sold. You have weather condition, neighbour paper stands, the mice who eat your papers. You dont really care for what is on the sports page, except for winning the olympics perhaps. Another layer is your daily customers, aunty Fril is late today. Or lunchtime.
These layers may have relations, but they do not rely on each other.
Example #2 of layers:
Since we all are using information processing systems as your read this, you read this. In the background your local system modulates the illumination of your screen to enable you to read the content. Altough some bytes of this entry contain the information you read, there are lots of others involved, adding properties to enable readability, font, color, page etc. Other bytes in the same entry relate to creation time, other bytes to the author of the entry. The whole of the entry is presented to your system as an XML page a formulation enabeling your browser to show and link it. This XML page is received in small packets by a process inside your system that collects these packets from the DNA servers according to addresses and sequentions mentioned inside these packets.
Here information is devided in layers supporting upper layers.
Information is more or less virtual
"Schrodingers cat" show the cat is there in two states at the same time. Information would be the state the cat is in. We have the information there is a cat inside the box and we have the information of its unknown state. (Why did he not give the example with a candle?) This is an example of information we do not have. Any information we do not possess, but we know the information exists is in a virtual state. This is not the case for tomorrows wheather, it simply did not happen yet so there is no defined information. Altough we can know the prediction for tomorrows wheather in that case we have information regarding a prediction.
Redundant Information
"This page is intentionally left blank" should be frased as "This page does not contain additional information" where the potential information it contains (page numbers, chapter name, etcetera) would be redundant. By writing here that you can read we give you redundant information, unless someone else read it for you. By writing here that you can understand a language we give you redundant information anyway. By using redundant information we can raffine information to a more presice level. By deduction of the redundant information we can get lots of additional information.
<CENSORED> Information
<CENSORED> Information is used when the receiver of the information is not up to it. The everlasting question for this case is who decides to <CENSOR> what information. Happily we do not know when and what has been <CENSORED> information. This being the case and in the assumption we know all about it, we just do as if we do not know of any <CENSORED> information. Perhaps it is best for us all as information where we are not up to does not fit anyway into our knowledge and would be considered as nonsense. By the time we have gathered enough information about the <CENSORED> information, we know what it is about and just add it to our knowledge.
Information comes in a cumulative way
As long as the "knowledge collection" is not containing the relevant references information is about, the information can not be processed and therefore will not be concidered as information at all. This enables us to encode information in such a way just a select group of receivers of the information to receive all of it. Take the "Schodingers cat" example again as long as you have no idea of the reason behind the mind experiment you just feel sorry for the cat. Only for adepted in the quantum theory there wil be a second layer of information about the superposition of the states and still a little wining for the cat. The information regarding this superposition has to be taken previous before there is any information about it in the cat story.
Information has a size
Information can be none, if no unknown information has been added, even though that can be information too on an other level. The smallest bit of information is the bit, either 0 or 1, either yes or no. Even in this digital computer age these bits of information are rare as there will aways be more information on other levels. "Did you sell a newspaper?", "Yes/No". The answer "Yes" means you sold a paper and you got money for it, your stock has been lowered by one, the buyer did own money, and probably has (one or more) eyes, can probably read, probably wanted to be informed, etcetera. The answer "No" tells us less, you probably did not get money, you probably have the same stock, either no one wanted to have a paper or no one was able to buy one. There is no known maximum sise of information.
Information is free!
If you would live long enough to get all posible information no hiding, <CENSORING> or blocking of information would be posible. The information would be deduced anyway eventually.
This discloses information so let it be free!
