Information is data in various forms. The concept of information in the theory of algorithms
Term information comes from the Latin word informatio, which means “information, explanation, presentation.” Information is such a general and deep concept that it cannot be explained in one phrase. This word has different meanings in technology, science and in everyday situations. In everyday life, information refers to any data or information that interests someone, for example, a message about any events, about someone’s activities, etc. “Inform” in this sense means “to report something previously unknown.”
The same information message (newspaper article, advertisement, letter, telegram, certificate, story, drawing, radio broadcast, etc.) may contain different amount of information for different people depending on their accumulated knowledge, from level of understanding this message and interest to him. So, the message composed in Japanese, does not carry no new information for a person who does not know the language, but can be highly informative for a person who speaks Japanese. No new information does not contain a message expressed in a familiar language, if it content is unclear or already known.
Information is a characteristic not of a message, but of the relationship between the message and its consumer. Without the presence of a consumer, at least a potential one, talking about information is pointless. In cases where they talk about automated work with information using any technical devices, they are usually primarily interested not in the content of the message, but in how many characters this message contains. In relation to computer data processing under information understand some sequence of symbolic notations(letters, numbers, encoded graphic images and sounds, etc.), carrying a semantic load and presented in a form understandable to a computer. Each new character in such a sequence of characters increases the information volume of the message.
Information can exist in the form of:
· texts, drawings, drawings, photographs;
· light or sound signals;
· radio waves;
· electrical and nerve impulses;
· magnetic recordings;
· gestures and facial expressions;
· smells and taste sensations;
· chromosomes, through which the characteristics and properties of organisms are inherited, etc.
Objects, processes, phenomena of material or intangible properties, considered from the point of view of their information properties, are called information objects.
What can you do with the information?
All these processes associated with certain operations on information are called information processes.
Information properties
Information has the following properties:
· reliability
· completeness
· accuracy
· value
· timeliness
· clarity
· availability
· brevity, etc.
Information reliable, if it reflects the true state of affairs. Inaccurate information can lead to misunderstandings or poor decisions. Reliable information over time may become unreliable, since it has the property become obsolete, that is, it ceases to reflect the true state of affairs. Information full, if it is sufficient for understanding and making decisions. Both incomplete and redundant information hinder decision making or may lead to errors. Accuracy information is determined by the degree of its proximity to the real state of an object, process, phenomenon, etc. Value information depends on how important it is for solving the problem, as well as on how much later it will be used in any type of human activity. Only timely received information can bring the expected benefits. Both premature presentation of information (when it cannot yet be assimilated) and its delay are equally undesirable. If valuable and timely information is expressed in an incomprehensible way, she might become useless. Information becomes understandable if it is expressed in the language spoken by those for whom this information is intended. Information should be presented in accessible(according to the level of perception) form. Therefore, the same questions are presented differently in school textbooks and scientific publications. Information on the same issue can be presented briefly(concisely, without unimportant details) or extensively(detailed, verbose). Conciseness of information is necessary in reference books, encyclopedias, and all kinds of instructions. The concept of “information” is used in various sciences, and in each science the concept of “information” is associated with different systems of concepts. Information in biology: Biology studies living nature and the concept of “information” is associated with the appropriate behavior of living organisms. In living organisms, information is transmitted and stored using objects of different physical nature (DNA state), which are considered as signs of biological alphabets. Genetic information is inherited and stored in all cells of living organisms. Philosophical approach: Information is interaction, reflection, cognition. Cybernetic approach: Information is the characteristics of the control signal transmitted over the communication line.
The following approaches to determining information can be distinguished:
* traditional (ordinary)- used in computer science: Information is information, knowledge, messages about the state of affairs that a person perceives from the surrounding world using the senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell, touch).
* probabilistic- used in the theory of information: Information is information about objects and phenomena of the environment, their parameters, properties and state, which reduce the degree of uncertainty and incomplete knowledge about them.
For a person: Information is the knowledge that he receives from various sources using the senses.
Knowledge is divided into two groups:
1. Declarative– from the word declaration (statements, messages) begin with the words “I know that ...”;
2. Procedural– define actions to achieve a goal, begin with the words “I know how...”
Classification of information
By way of perception - Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Olfactory, Gustatory;
By presentation form–Text, Numeric, Graphic, Musical, Combined, etc.
According to social significance: Mass- everyday, socio-political, aesthetic
Special- scientific, technical, managerial, production
Personal– our knowledge, skills, intuition
Basic properties of information:
Objectivity- does not depend on any opinion
Credibility– reflects the true state of affairs
Completeness– sufficient for understanding and decision-making
Relevance– important and essential for the present time
Value (usefulness, significance)- provides a solution to the task, necessary in order to make the right decisions
Understandability (clarity)– expressed in a language understandable to the recipient
In addition, the information has the following properties:
1) Attributive properties(attribute is an integral part of something). The most important among them are: - discreteness (information consists of separate parts, signs) and continuity (the ability to accumulate information)
2) Dynamic properties associated with changes in information over time:
Copying – reproduction of information
Transfer from source to consumer
Translation from one language to another
Transfer to another medium
Aging (physical - carrier, moral - value)
3) Practical properties- information volume and density
Information is stored, transmitted and processed in symbolic (sign) form. The same information can be presented in different forms: 1) Symbolic written, consisting of various signs, among which symbolic ones are distinguished in the form of text, numbers, specials. characters; graphic; tabular, etc.; 2) In the form of gestures or signals; 3) In oral verbal form (conversation). Information is presented using languages as sign systems, which are built on the basis of a specific alphabet and have rules for performing operations on signs.
Language is a specific sign system for presenting information. Exist:
Natural languages are spoken languages in spoken and written form. In some cases, spoken language can be replaced by the language of facial expressions and gestures, the language of special signs (for example, road signs);
Formal languages are special languages for various areas of human activity, which are characterized by a strictly fixed alphabet and more strict rules of grammar and syntax. This is the language of music (notes), the language of mathematics (numbers, mathematical symbols), number systems, programming languages, etc.
The basis of any language is alphabet– a set of symbols/signs. The total number of characters in the alphabet is usually called power of the alphabet .
I am often asked about how to improve memory, read faster and perceive more information.
But in fact, too much information is extremely harmful to your intelligence and makes you dumber.
Modern life has an important feature: a person is bombarded with a lot of information. Websites, social networks, newsletters, instant messengers, video channels convey tons of information to people. YouTube alone is viewed more than four billion times a day.
As a result, modern man finds himself in a paradoxical situation:
- on the one hand, any information is very easy to find,
- on the other hand, a person is overwhelmed with completely meaningless information.
Let's see what happens to your intelligence when you continuously read, listen and watch too much information.
Perception of the world
- Never try to understand something
what you can't understand.
- Didn't understand…
- Don't try!
In order to survive in a changing world, your intelligence has two features:
- intelligence reacts faster to changing information,
- the intellect quickly forgets unnecessary information.
Under natural conditions, these two features of intelligence work excellently. Somewhere a branch creaked, we instantly forget what we were thinking about now, and listen: what if there’s a bear?
But if nothing else happens, then attention will return to what we are doing now. And the creaking branch will quickly be forgotten.
The process of forgetting in a person occurs during sleep. When the conscious mind sleeps, the subconscious clears unnecessary memories from the memory.
Let's see how these features of intelligence operate in our everyday life.
Every person has many problems that need to be solved. And at the moment your thinking is occupied with some problem.
Thinking is a process reminiscent of assembling a puzzle. You take turns collecting facts and figuring out the big picture. At some point you add the last element, and that’s it – the picture is complete.
Let's imagine that while solving a problem, you received a new message. This is equivalent to adding elements from another painting to your puzzle. And now when assembling you need to separate one picture from another. The task has become more difficult.
The main thing is that you cannot help but read the incoming message. The brain keeps telling you: “Suddenly something important! Suddenly there’s a bear!” Nowadays people even have a neurosis of unread messages; a person cannot think about anything else when he sees the symbol of an unread message.
Now imagine a situation where information comes from all directions. Every news, article, or video you read adds a scoop of new elements to your puzzle. And now your entire table is covered with elements from dozens of paintings.
And your thinking is not so much solving the problem as trying to somehow understand what is happening. Thinking slows down and you become dumber and dumber.
The next morning you have forgotten most of what you saw, heard and read yesterday. It was of no use to you. Moreover, since you did not solve problems, but simply collected information, your problems only increased.
Protection from unnecessary information
The most unreal thing about Harry Potter is...
that all children use knowledge,
received at school.
To protect yourself from unnecessary information, you need to remember why information is needed in the first place.
We need any information to fulfill our . We are interested in the cinema schedule only at the moment when we are going to watch a film.
You need to look at any information in the same way. Why do you need it? What desire is it connected with? Specifically now.
If it’s not connected to anything at all, then don’t watch, don’t listen, turn it off, delete it.
You become stupid when you mindlessly absorb information
And you become smarter when you solve your problems.
While working, it is advisable to completely disconnect yourself from unnecessary messages. Work only with the information you need right now.
And even try to use this information to a minimum. Your main task is thinking. If you think well, then you don't need a lot of information. You need some key data on which to make decisions.
Let's say you are currently looking for information on a current issue. How do you know when to stop and stop searching?
The puzzle example will help us again. When do you stop putting the puzzle together? When the picture is clear. The same with information, when everything becomes clear to you and you can act, act immediately.
Remember - you become smarter the moment you solve your life problem. The faster you solve them, the smarter you are. When you choke from an excess of information, you can no longer think or act.
Want to think faster?
Clear your mind
from excess garbage.
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From the course you will learn:The term “information” has become a general scientific concept, including the exchange of information between people, a person and an automaton, an automaton and an automaton; exchange of signals in the animal and plant world; transfer of characteristics from cell to cell, from organism to organism (for example, genetic information); one of the basic concepts of cybernetics.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ Ordered Information is the basis of the Universe
✪ Lecture 1 | Introduction to Information Theory | Andrey Romashchenko | Lectorium
✪ COFFEE. Know this about Coffee. Attention EVERYONE! Vital information! Harm of Coffee. Frolov Yu A
✪ What is information theory?
✪ Information, amount of information
Subtitles
In the first half of the 17th century, Nikolai Kaepernick suggested that the Earth has the shape of a ball that rotates not only around its axis, but also around the Sun. Developing his ideas, the English astronomer Thomas Digges suggested that space is infinite and filled with stars. The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was the first to identify stars with distant suns. In 1775, in his treatise, Immanuel Kant suggested that the Galaxy could be a rotating body in the form of a twisted spiral, consisting of a huge number of stars held together by gravitational forces. Observing the Galaxy from a point located inside it, in particular from our Solar System, the resulting disk will be visible in the night sky as a bright stripe. Modern cosmology continues to be replenished with unique information. Scientists have put forward the Big Bang theory, are studying the so-called cosmic microwave background radiation, are observing the expansion of the universe, and versions of the existence of dark matter and dark energy are emerging. Relatively recently, information about black holes has appeared, and a version of their origin has been formed. Scientists are making more and more discoveries and receiving more and more information. But in reality, does dark matter exist? What are Black Holes and is there a limit to the Universe? And in general, how did the entire universe actually form? What if the entire Universe is nothing more than an illusion... And its essence is Information? Who am I really? Why am I here? What is my goal? Where can I find the answers? What if?.. We thought about these and other interesting questions about the universe after reading the book “AllatRa”. And like many people, we had many questions. Let's look for answers together! What if, in addition to the material world in which we live, there is an immaterial world, a primary world? After all, science has long known that the human eye is far from perfect; it perceives electromagnetic waves in the range from 400 to 700 nanometers. Of course, thanks to modern technology, science can see more than the human eye. But despite the many already known waves of the most varied nature, even they occupy the smallest range of radiation in the spectrum. Today people often try to explain the invisible using examples of the visible. But you won’t get far in real science on the creaky cart of a purely materialistic worldview. Therefore, modern scientists still do not have a clear idea of, for example, what electric current actually is, or what gravity and a black hole are. In order to understand and delve into the nature of these phenomena, you need to have a worldview different from the material one. But what if these phenomena only appear in the world of matter, but originate in the spiritual world? “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Gospel of John) There is a common essence in various spiritual teachings and religious stories of the peoples of the world. From the world of God, which is called differently in legends, for example, the world’s waters, the world’s ocean, the world of the Primordial, the world of the Creator, the primary sound appeared. The same sound that is called differently: the mythical Bird, Sound, First Logos, Word of God. In the modern scientific world, they have agreed to use only one theory. This is the “Big Bang” theory. It is known that our Universe at some point in time, but to be more specific, 15 billion years ago it was born... let's say, it had very small dimensions (10 minus 33 degrees of centimeter). Imagine: Now humanity can The size of an atom is somewhere on the order of 10 minus 8 centimeters, the size of the nucleus is 10 minus 13 centimeters. Further, with the help of all kinds of experiments we can penetrate deeper and consider scales on the order of 10 minus 16 degrees (-17, - 18), but we are talking about scales of 10 minus 33 degrees. That is, zero, and then 33 zeros after the decimal point, centimeters. The universe began with such a very small region of space-time. This area expanded very rapidly. There was a so-called inflationary stage. The expansion of the universe happened very quickly, that is, the universe from a size of 10 to the minus 33 centimeters increased to a size of, well, about 10 to the 20th power of a centimeter. Elementary particles were born, they began to interact with each other. And then the processes of education began. First, nuclei were formed, then atoms were formed from the nuclei. Well, the formation of planets, galaxies, and so on and so forth began. What if there was no Big Bang at all? What if this is just a theory, which, thanks to modern technology, will be revised in the near future? Remember? This is like the story with molecules and atoms, when they were considered whole and indivisible, and their internal structure and their origin were poorly understood. The further scientists delve into matter, the more emptiness they find in it. What if all matter is empty? What if this is an illusion created by God, by the thought of God? That is, the spiritual world. But for what purposes? Scientists were able to delve into the microworld. We found out that the body consists of cells, cells from molecules, molecules from simple chemical elements. What exactly is a chemical element? A chemical element is a certain type of atom, which is characterized by the number of protons, neutrons and electrons. There are large, enormous distances between the nucleus of an atom and the electrons, which are located on different arbetals. Relatively speaking – empty. Because the nucleus of an atom is formed from protons and neutrons, neutrons are neutrally charged, protons are positively charged, and electrons are negatively charged, located in different stationary orbits. There are ones closer to the core, there are ones more distant from the core and (they) form different clouds. The so-called electron densities. But it is important to note that living matter, for example, consists of organs, tissues and cells. And cells, if we study them in more detail at the micro level, are narrower and consist of molecules. But between individual molecules there are huge empty spaces, so to speak. And molecules, in turn, consist of atoms, which are also separated by huge empty spaces. So, one small particle is divided into other smaller particles. What if this division ends in absolute emptiness. It exists everywhere, both in the microcosm and in the macrocosm. What if this is pure energy? The so-called Po energy, which constitutes a unified field of varieties of all energies and matter arising from them. And then the expression becomes clear: “God is omnipresent.” Pulses of Poe energy generate waves that change space and time. That is, at its core, matter exists according to the laws of wave nature. The fact that matter is a product of the great emptiness, “Tao,” was known four thousand years ago to Indian philosophers and about two and a half thousand years ago to Chinese sages. They visualized absolute emptiness as the smooth surface of a lake in the absence of wind. The emerging particle of matter from the void was compared with the appearance of ripples on the surface of the lake under the influence of the wind. “Wind” in this vein is the divine essence with which He creates and destroys everything. In 1897, the English physicist Thomson discovered the electron. The electron began to be considered the first elementary particle. That is, the first brick of matter. However, is this all-important particle truly structureless? Today, scientists have deduced a hypothetical particle "graviton", which has not been experimentally proven, but it is theoretically calculated that gravity consists of it. The graviton is most suitable for designating a Po particle and therefore, purely hypothetically, it can be argued that of all the “fundamental” particles, only the graviton is truly such. But what if the well-known indivisible electron consists of as many as 13 Po particles, a neutrino of five Po particles, the rest consist of 3, 5, 7, 12, 33, 70 and so on Po particles. Moreover, many so-called fundamental particles, consisting of the same Po number, but having different shapes and charge signs, accordingly play different roles in this theater of matter. It turns out that the entire universe is woven from Po particles. And this means that in the entire vast Universe there is not a single place where one could stick the thinnest needle, so that its tip would not rest against something or come into contact with something. What exactly is a Po particle? And how was the Universe created? What if everything in this material world, including what is known to people today, from subatomic particles to the atom, from specks of dust on shoes to clusters of galaxies in distant space, everything exists thanks to ordered information. It is ordered information that creates matter, gives it properties, volume, shape, mass and other characteristics. Now we are not talking about the concept of “information” that is familiar to the human brain; we are talking about a slightly different manifestation of it. Although even in the usual human understanding, the word “information” has several meanings, including “to think, teach, explain”, “give form, shape, shape, create”. For ease of understanding, we will conditionally call this ordered information “information building blocks.” What are information bricks? Let's look at the following example. Imagine that one girl decided to conduct a kind of experiment. For this she needed: a glass aquarium, water and small bricks for folding the shape. In an empty glass aquarium, a girl assembles a castle from transparent foam plastic bricks, similar to a children's construction set. When one transparent brick is connected to another, a certain color appears, visible to the human eye. That is, she has a plan in her head on how to make a castle, she has the will to create it, and she has the strength, applying which, she builds from this unusual material. The girl assembled the castle, which with this connection became visible, she admires its beauty, volume, and complexity of architecture. Then the girl, continuing the experiment, fills the aquarium with water. Water fills the aquarium with such force that it destroys the built castle. At the same time, foam bricks, which were once elements of this castle, will float to the surface of the water, some separately, some in groups, which still remain visible to the eye. In the end, the entire structure breaks down into separate bricks under the pressure of water, and not a trace remains of the castle. If she removes all the water from the aquarium, the clear foam bricks will sink to the bottom. By themselves, without her plan, will and application of force, they will not form into an orderly built castle. It will just be a chaotic pile of foam bricks. You can shake the aquarium as much as you like, even for an eternity, mixing them, they will never become a castle until she builds it again. So, it is these conditional invisible bricks that are a figurative comparison with the information that creates matter, giving it certain parameters, shapes, volume, mass, and so on. And the visible castle from our example is already one of the material products of ordered information, from which elementary subparticles are formed that make up atoms, molecules, chemical compounds, that is, all the matter of the Universe. And, finally, the will, the construction plan and the power of application are the main components of the spiritual world, which manifest themselves in this world. What if information really lies at the heart of all matter? And so what don’t you touch in the whole Universe. But it will be enough to remove the information, and what we call matter will disappear, like the hole in a donut after you eat it. After all, as long as the bagel is there, there is also a hole, as soon as the bagel is eaten, the hole also disappears. This is how matter disappears, there is no information - there is no manifestation of matter. The amount of matter in the Universe is constantly changing, sometimes its amount increases significantly, sometimes it decreases. At the same time, the information is always stable, due to which the total mass of the Universe from the day of its Creation to this day has not changed by a single billionth of a gram. But if even one information brick disappeared, then the entire Universe would disappear. If a part disappears, the whole will disappear. The Universe, which does not stop moving, will reach a certain expansion and disappear. Everything is ingenious, simple as always. These informational building blocks of the universe never disappear anywhere, that is, they do not leave the boundaries of the Universe, as in our example with the aquarium, and exist in it in a strictly ordered form. What if everything in this world is strictly ordered, exists according to a certain plan, the will and power of the Builder? What if man, as the main creation, plays the most important role in this regard? Prepares himself for further existence. What if this is all true? The film used materials from the book “AllatRa” by Anastasia Novykh. The film was created by members of the international public movement “ALLATRA”. Many thanks to the director of the Museum of History of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Georgy Ulyanovich Kovalchuk, for his assistance in filming. Special thanks for explaining the physical processes of space with modern science to the head of the department of quantum field theory of the Kyiv National University. T.G. Shevchenko Doctor of Physics and Sciences Professor Vilchinsky Stanislav Yosifovich.
The essence and boundaries of the phenomenon
According to modern concepts, information is considered intangible, and what is contained in the structure of objects is usually called data ( representation form- ISO/IEC/IEEE 24765:2010).
History of the concept
The word “information” comes from the Latin informatio, which means information, clarification, introduction.) The concept of information was considered by ancient philosophers.
Historically, two complex branches of science are involved in the study of information itself - cybernetics and computer science.
Computer science, formed as a science in the middle of the 20th century, separated from cybernetics and is engaged in research in the field of methods for obtaining, storing, transmitting and processing semantic information.
Research into the semantic content of information is based on a set of scientific theories under the general name semiotics [ ] .
Classification of information
Information can be divided into types according to various criteria:
- By way of perception:
- Visual - perceived by the organs of vision.
- Sound - perceived by the hearing organs.
- Tactile - perceived by tactile receptors.
- Olfactory - perceived by olfactory receptors.
- Gustatory - perceived by taste buds.
- By presentation form:
- Text - transmitted in the form of symbols intended to denote lexemes of the language.
- Numerical - in the form of numbers and signs indicating mathematical operations.
- Graphic - in the form of images, objects, graphs.
- Sound - oral or in the form of recording and transmission of language lexemes by auditory means.
- Video information - transmitted in the form of video recording.
- By purpose:
- Mass - contains trivial information and operates with a set of concepts understandable to most of society.
- Special - contains a specific set of concepts; when used, information is transmitted that may not be understandable to the bulk of society, but is necessary and understandable within the narrow social group where this information is used.
- Secret - transmitted to a narrow circle of people and through closed (protected) channels.
- Personal (private) - a set of information about a person that determines the social status and types of social interactions within the population.
Information in various fields of knowledge
In mathematics
In mathematics, information is the general name for fundamental concepts in computer science, information theory, cybernetics, as well as in mathematical statistics, in which a generalized intuitive idea of information regarding any quantities or phenomena is concretized and formalized.
In computer science
The subject of the study of computer science is data: methods of their creation, storage, processing and transmission. Data is information in a formalized form (in digital form), which makes it possible to automate its collection, storage and further processing in a computer. From this point of view, information is an abstract concept, considered without regard to its semantic aspect, and the quantity of information is usually understood as the corresponding volume of data. However, the same data can be encoded in different ways and have different volumes, so sometimes the concept of “information value” is also considered, which is associated with the concept of information entropy and is the subject of the study of information theory.
In information theory
Associated with information theory are radio engineering (signal processing theory) and computer science, which relate to measuring the amount of transmitted information, its properties and establishing limiting relationships for systems. The main sections of information theory are source coding (compression coding) and channel (noise-resistant) coding. Information is not part of the study of mathematics. However, the word “information” is used in mathematical terms - self information and mutual information, referring to the abstract (mathematical) part of information theory. However, in mathematical theory the concept of “information” is associated with exclusively abstract objects - random variables, while in modern information theory this concept is considered much more broadly - as a property of material objects [ ] .
The connection between these two identical terms is undeniable. It was the mathematical apparatus of random numbers that was used by the author of information theory, Claude Shannon. He himself means by the term “information” something fundamental (irreducible). Shannon's theory intuitively assumes that information has content. Information reduces overall uncertainty and information entropy. The amount of information is measurable. However, he warns researchers against mechanically transferring concepts from his theory to other areas of science [ ] .
In control theory (cybernetics)
The founder of cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, gave the following definition of information: “Information is the designation of content received by us from the external world in the process of adapting us and our senses to it.”
A material system in cybernetics is considered as a set of objects that themselves can be in different states, but the state of each of them is determined by the states of other objects of the system. In nature, many states of a system represent information; the states themselves represent the primary code or source code. Thus, every material system is a source of information.
Cybernetics defines subjective (semantic) information as the meaning or content of a message. Information is a characteristic of an object.
In the theory of algorithms
In semiotics
In physics
Quantum theory of information considers the general patterns of transmission, storage and transformation of information in systems that change according to the laws of quantum mechanics
Life in the post-industrial era leaves its imprints on human consciousness. The concept of “information” in our time has become as key as water and air. To understand the importance of this phenomenon, you need to understand the interpretation of the term.
What is information?
The versatility of the term has given rise to many interpretations. So, depending on the scope of use, information is:
According to the Federal Law of the Russian Federation “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” (2006), this concept is interpreted as “information (messages) regardless of the form of its presentation.”
Thus, information is data presented in various forms. This term is considered key in the work of a journalist.
What is current information?
Another distinctive feature of this concept is its properties. The attributes of information include its quality, quantity, novelty, value, reliability, complexity and ability to be compressed. Each of these indicators can be measured. Another important property of the concept “information” is its relevance.
Not all data will correspond to this indicator. The origins of the word “relevance” can be traced to the Latin language, where it was interpreted as “modern”, “important at the present moment”, “topical”. The peculiarity of this quality is that it can be lost when more recent data becomes available. This process occurs immediately and completely or gradually and in parts.
Current information is data that is in a state that corresponds to reality. Being outdated, they lose their value.
Search for information
Modernity is a boundless ocean of data, in which we daily need to find something that will satisfy our needs. In order to structure the process of searching for information, a separate science was even created. Her father is considered to be the American scientist Calvin Mowers. Information search, according to the researcher’s definition, is the process of identifying in an indefinite number of documents those that can satisfy our information needs, that is, contain the necessary data.
The algorithm of actions includes operations for collecting, processing and providing the requested information. To effectively search for information, you need to follow the following plan:
- formulate a request (the information we want to find);
- find likely sources of the required data;
- select the necessary materials;
- get acquainted with the acquired body of knowledge and evaluate the work done.
This algorithm can facilitate the educational process and preparation for writing scientific articles. It was created by the author's realization that information is the limitless space around us. And extracting the necessary data is only possible if you systematize your efforts.
Collection and storage of information
Depending on the goals set, data and information can be subjected to various operations. Collection and storage are one of them.
Working with information is possible only after a thorough search. This process is called data collection, that is, accumulation in order to provide a sufficient amount for further processing. This stage of working with information is considered one of the most important, because the quality and relevance of the data that will have to be dealt with in the future depend on it.
Data collection phases:
- primary perception;
- development of classification of the obtained data;
- object coding;
- registration of results.
The next step in working with information is to ensure its safety for subsequent use.
Data storage is a way of organizing their circulation in space and time. This process depends on the medium - disk, painting, photograph, book, etc. The storage period also varies: a school diary must be kept throughout the school year, but a metro ticket must be kept only during the trip.
Information is something that exists only on a specific medium. Therefore, the processes of collection and storage can be considered key in working with it.
Methods of transmitting information
Data circulation is an irreversible process that we encounter everywhere. The ability to transmit information from person to person is the key to the evolution of the entire civilization. This phenomenon is the movement of signs and information in space in order to organize access to them for other subjects.
Media are its carriers, that is, everything that can be used to store data.
The information transmission scheme consists of the following links: source, communication channel and recipient (recipient). The use of technical means for this purpose involves preliminary encoding of the message into a form convenient for the transmitter and its subsequent decryption. Among them are the telegraph, telephone, television, radio, and the Internet.
Media has always been considered the most powerful means of transmitting data. They operate over vast territories and play a key role in shaping public opinion.
Data protection
Although information about the world around us is open to review, some of it has a special status and is closed to outsiders. These include state, commercial and ship secrets, data on new inventions before the publication of an official report about them, as well as personal information about the events of the subject’s life, allowing his personality to be identified.
- identification of data considered confidential;
- restricting access to them by establishing a special procedure for handling and monitoring compliance with this procedure;
- accounting of those who have access to confidential information;
- affixing the “Trade Secret” stamp to material media.
All these are necessary safety measures. Adhering to them means preventing a huge number of crimes, frauds and saving the lives of many people.
As we can see, the study of the essence of the term “information” is a process that includes work in many areas and consists of assessing the qualities and methods of processing information that reflect the facts of the surrounding world.
Information
Information (from Latin informatio - explanation, presentation), originally - intelligence, transmitted by some people to other people orally, in writing or in some other way (for example, using conventional signals, using technical means, etc.), as well as the very process of transmitting or receiving this information.
Such a varied use of the concept of information has prompted some scientists to give it a general scientific meaning. The founders of this general approach to the concept of information were the English neurophysiologist W. R. Ashby and the French physicist L. Brillouin. They investigated the generality of the concept of entropy in the theory of energy and thermodynamics, treating energy as negative entropy (negentropy). Brillouin and his followers began to study information processes from the point of view second law of thermodynamics, considering the transfer of energy to a certain system as an improvement of this system, leading to a decrease in its entropy. Some philosophical works put forward the thesis that energy is one of the main universal properties of matter.
Here, information is considered not only the information itself, but also the process of transmitting and receiving information. It is clear that information itself does not make anyone informed without being transmitted and perceived. But this, of course, is not enough :) And explaining information using thermodynamics, reducing it to cause-and-effect relationships and their statistics is a direct path to mystical uncertainty. So you can call the movement of atoms behavior based on their will, and in general imagine anything you like. This approach to extending the concept to a wider range of phenomena, the actual destruction of the meaning of the concept, is emphasized specifically to avoid this in any case.
Words are created by people in order to convey the meaning put into them as definitely as possible, and not in order to spread this meaning throughout the entire universe and then deceive themselves, taking it for the essence that is actually inherent in the universe, and not assigned to it by nature. own whim.
The purpose of this article is to reveal the essence of what "informedness" gives - as what is most naturally associated with the word "information".
In mathematics and physics, in fact, information refers to information (data). First, let's show as simply as possible what the difference between information and information is.
If you open a book in front of a cat, it will not understand what is written there. There are bits of information, but the cat is not informed in any way.
Another example, the so-called “book knowledge”: suppose you read a lot about Bali, went there with the feeling of an expert, but suddenly it turned out that you perceived what you read in a completely original way and in fact, completely different impressions arise.
These two examples are two levels of functionality of information, which represents information associated with a personal understanding of their meaning or personal significance of what is perceived in the context of current conditions and one’s style of perception.
That. information is only subjective, and information is present on its objective medium, conditionally encoded on it. And to become informed you must be involved in this convention. It is clear that neither mathematics nor physics operates with information, although this word is used at the suggestion of pioneers who were completely unaware of what meaning and significance are. Well, everything developed only within these frameworks.
One may consider it quite correct to use such a generally accepted term in these subject areas, but it has the meaning of information, and not information, when viewed more generally. Failure to understand the difference puts a very serious barrier in understanding the mechanisms of personal adaptability because information here is the key concept. At the heart of everything is the so-called “system of significance”.
First, we will describe this system briefly, at its core.
The system of significance represents several levels of information functionality, when perceived information (signals, data) first acquires a certain significance in a given context, and then is interpreted into an arbitrarily assigned meaning. Thus, the system of significance covers the range from pre-conscious and conscious models.
In the most succinct description of representation, it looks like this.
In addition to the recognizers of the organs of perception (vision, hearing, taste, smell, tactile, vestibular), the brain has recognizers of deviations of homeostasis parameters from the norm and recognizers of the restoration of these parameters (see fornit.ru/324), which we will call recognizers of significance primitives. These are the most important indicators that something is good or bad. There are zones, the stimulation of which causes a feeling of heaven and hell. Like all other types of sensory, they are combined in tertiary (associative) zones into a common image of perception-significance-axis-action so that each image becomes a recognizer of what exactly a given perception profile means in the current context for an individual.
With awareness, this immediate image is comprehended and the significance takes on the function of meaning what the object of perception highlighted by attention means in given conditions, which has predictive properties: either it threatens to get into a dangerous situation and this should be avoided, or, conversely, this should be strived for . Meaning differs from primary significance in its arbitrariness: it becomes consciously possible to change it to one that seems more appropriate. Thus, we can snatch a baked potato from the hot coals, despite the discomfort. This happens because the consciousness is able to voluntarily track the forecast of not only what is happening directly, but also what may happen after some time and select the most desirable of them: to pull out the potatoes, despite some pain. And then the significance of the image of potatoes in the ashes will not be the danger of burns, but the opportunity to eat them. And this significance is fixed in another place of the brain, forming a zone of arbitrary giving of meaning. This is a personal interpretation or arbitrary assessment of the meaning of what is happening, which generally forms a mental model of the phenomenon.
The most common reasoning in clarifying awareness assumes that there is an object encoding information, giving it the form of what it wants to convey to other objects so that it can be decoded by the object receiving the information. In this case, a state of “awareness” should occur. It is in this state that the process under consideration will differ from just any other cause-and-effect relationship.
If we specifically stipulated that the information transmitter encodes a very specific value of information transmitted in a certain medium, and this medium can carry a variety of information at the request of the encoder, then this already characterizes the process not as a cause-and-effect relationship, which always strictly presupposes its specificity, in contrast from the same specificity of the data carrier.
Therefore, let us determine what the state of awareness is, directly related to knowledge.
First of all, awareness presupposes the ability to perceive information, decoding information, and understand it in such a way as to closely match the meaning formalized by the transmitter.
Secondly, awareness presupposes some use. But not just a mechanical use of the information received, but information - the meaning, the meaning of this information. Otherwise, we again return to a simple cause-and-effect relationship. This already delimits what algorithmic devices do with the transmitted information (data).
In addition, there is one very important point that is poorly understood by many. At the very first stage of formalization of the information carrier, the transmitter performs the operation of symbolic correspondence between its information and information, which is designed to evoke acceptably adequate information in the recipient during perception. This assumes that the system of this symbolic representation of information with the help of certain formal elements - information is already known to the receiver and transmitter to a sufficient extent, i.e. they agreed in advance and practiced this understanding of the information. A simple agreement is not enough because only an experimental test of the transmission and reception of information shows how satisfactorily this is happening. Verification may be implicit, and include previously accumulated practical experience of communication, but it ALWAYS precedes a reliably adequate result of information communication.
The same information can be understood in completely different ways. For example, a set of hieroglyph pictures is transmitted as information. The pictures themselves will cause some kind of association in someone who does not know what they are actually meant to mean. And only those who know will understand the meaning of the information transmitted. The same is true in the case of words, sounds, codes and any other method of transmitting information. A set of words, even if the receiver knows the meanings of individual words and the phrase has caused him some kind of association, will understand it differently than someone with whom it has already been agreed what exactly this phrase should mean under these conditions.
In any case, we come to the conclusion that awareness presupposes the emergence of personal knowledge about the meaning of this information. And the knowledge and meaning of what is perceived are always personal, individually unique, and only in a relatively small part represent the purpose of obtaining this knowledge determined between the transmitter and the receiver.
Here we will not substantiate this statement in detail because there are extensive materials on the mechanisms of mental phenomena showing this (see,, ). In order not to believe, but to understand the proposed statement, you need to go a long way through the proposed materials, although many can intuitively assess the correctness of this approach based on the text already given.
The important thing is that knowledge is a purely personal, individual assessment of perceived information, and does not exist outside of the individual.
So, awareness leads to the emergence of knowledge of what the perceived information means for a given person. It is this knowledge that is information. This is no other knowledge or, especially, information that can be understood differently by different individuals.
Information is knowledge of what the perceived information means for a given person. The same information for one subject can carry happy content and motivate the achievement of some goals related to the opportunities opened by this knowledge, for another - it will turn out to be unhappy and force them to either avoid something or simply resign themselves. Information may turn out to be strikingly different, despite the same content of information. This information was not transmitted, but arose in the psyche of the individual when assessing the information with his system of significance, but this is already from the materials on the proposed links.