Information

Information is an abstract concept that refers to something which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the interpretation (perhaps formally) of that which may be sensed, or their abstractions. Any natural process that is not completely random and any observable pattern in any medium can be said to convey some amount of information. Whereas digital signals and other data use discrete signs to convey information, other phenomena and artifacts such as analogue signals, poems, pictures, music or other sounds, and currents convey information in a more continuous form.[1] Information is not knowledge itself, but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation.[2]

The concept of information is relevant to and connected with various concepts,[3] including constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, proposition, representation, and entropy.

Information is often processed iteratively: Data available at one step are processed into information to be interpreted and processed at the next step. For example, in written text each symbol or letter conveys information relevant to the word it is part of, each word conveys information relevant to the phrase it is part of, each phrase conveys information relevant to the sentence it is part of, and so on until at the final step information is interpreted and becomes knowledge in a given domain. In a digital signal, bits may be interpreted into the symbols, letters, numbers, or structures that convey the information available at the next level up. The key characteristic of information is that it is subject to interpretation and processing.

The derivation of information from a signal or message may be thought of as the resolution of ambiguity or uncertainty that arises during the interpretation of patterns within the signal or message.[4]

Information may be structured as data. Redundant data can be compressed up to an optimal size, which is the theoretical limit of compression.

Information can be transmitted in time, via data storage, and space, via communication and telecommunication.[5] Information is expressed either as the content of a message or through direct or indirect observation. That which is perceived can be construed as a message in its own right, and in that sense, all information is always conveyed as the content of a message.

Information can be encoded into various forms for transmission and interpretation (for example, information may be encoded into a sequence of signs, or transmitted via a signal). It can also be encrypted for safe storage and communication.

The uncertainty of an event is measured by its probability of occurrence. Uncertainty is proportional to the negative logarithm of the probability of occurrence. Information theory takes advantage of this by concluding that more uncertain events require more information to resolve their uncertainty. The bit is the standard unit of information. It is 'that which reduces uncertainty by half'.[6] Other units such as the nat may be used. For example, the information encoded in one "fair" coin flip is log2(2/1) = 1 bit, and in two fair coin flips is log2(4/1) = 2 bits. A 2011 Science article estimates that 97% of technologically stored information was already in digital bits in 2007 and that the year 2002 was the beginning of the digital age for information storage (with digital storage capacity bypassing analogue for the first time).[7]

## Contents

* 1 Etymology and history of the concept
* 2 Information theory
* 3 As sensory input
* 4 As an influence that leads to transformation
* 5 Technologically mediated information
* 5.1 As of 2007
* 5.2 As of 2020
* 6 As records
* 7 Semiotics
* 8 Physics and determinacy
* 9 The application of information study
* 10 See also
* 11 References
* 12 Further reading
* 13 External links

## Etymology and history of the concept

This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)

This article contains too many or overly lengthy quotations for an encyclopedic entry. Please help improve the article by presenting facts as a neutrally-worded summary with appropriate citations. Consider transferring direct quotations to Wikiquote. (August 2025)

|

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in русский.  (August 2025) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

* View a machine-translated version of the русский article.
* Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
* Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
* You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is `Content in this edit is translated from the existing русский Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Информация#История понятия]]; see its history for attribution.`
* You may also add the template `{{Translated|ru|Информация#История понятия}}` to the talk page.
* For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

|

(Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The English word "information" comes from Middle French enformacion/informacion/information 'a criminal investigation' and its etymon, Latin informatiō(n) 'conception, teaching, creation'.[8]

In English, "information" is an uncountable mass noun.

References on "formation or molding of the mind or character, training, instruction, teaching" date from the 14th century in both English (according to Oxford English Dictionary) and other European languages. In the transition from Middle Ages to Modernity the use of the concept of information reflected a fundamental turn in epistemological basis – from "giving a (substantial) form to matter" to "communicating something to someone". Peters (1988, pp. 12–13) concludes:

Information was readily deployed in empiricist psychology (though it played a less important role than other words such as impression or idea) because it seemed to describe the mechanics of sensation: objects in the world inform the senses. But sensation is entirely different from "form" – the one is sensual, the other intellectual; the one is subjective, the other objective. My sensation of things is fleeting, elusive, and idiosyncratic. For Hume, especially, sensory experience is a swirl of impressions cut off from any sure link to the real world... In any case, the empiricist problematic was how the mind is informed by sensations of the world. At first informed meant shaped by; later it came to mean received reports from. As its site of action drifted from cosmos to consciousness, the term's sense shifted from unities (Aristotle's forms) to units (of sensation). Information came less and less to refer to internal ordering or formation, since empiricism allowed for no preexisting intellectual forms outside of sensation itself. Instead, information came to refer to the fragmentary, fluctuating, haphazard stuff of sense. Information, like the early modern worldview in general, shifted from a divinely ordered cosmos to a system governed by the motion of corpuscles. Under the tutelage of empiricism, information gradually moved from structure to stuff, from form to substance, from intellectual order to sensory impulses.[9]

In the modern era, the most important influence on the concept of information is derived from the Information theory developed by Claude Shannon and others. This theory, however, reflects a fundamental contradiction. Northrup (1993)[10] wrote:

Thus, actually two conflicting metaphors are being used: The well-known metaphor of information as a quantity, like water in the water-pipe, is at work, but so is a second metaphor, that of information as a choice, a choice made by :an information provider, and a forced choice made by an :information receiver. Actually, the second metaphor implies that the information sent isn't necessarily equal to the information received, because any choice implies a comparison with a list of possibilities, i.e., a list of possible meanings. Here, meaning is involved, thus spoiling the idea of information as a pure "Ding an sich." Thus, much of the confusion regarding the concept of information seems to be related to the basic confusion of metaphors in Shannon's theory: is information an autonomous quantity, or is information always per SE information to an observer? Actually, I don't think that Shannon himself chose one of the two definitions. Logically speaking, his theory implied information as a subjective phenomenon. But this had so wide-ranging epistemological impacts that Shannon didn't seem to fully realize this logical fact. Consequently, he continued to use metaphors about information as if it were an objective substance. This is the basic, inherent contradiction in Shannon's information theory." (Northrup, 1993, p. 5)

In their seminal book The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages,[11] Almach and Mansfield (1983) collected key views on the interdisciplinary controversy in computer science, artificial intelligence, library and information science, linguistics, psychology, and physics, as well as in the social sciences. Almach (1983,[12] p. 660) himself disagrees with the use of the concept of information in the context of signal transmission, the basic senses of information in his view all referring "to telling something or to the something that is being told. Information is addressed to human minds and is received by human minds." All other senses, including its use with regard to nonhuman organisms as well to society as a whole, are, according to Machlup, metaphoric and, as in the case of cybernetics, anthropomorphic.

Hjørland (2007) [13] describes the fundamental difference between objective and subjective views of information and argues that the subjective view has been supported by, among others, Bateson,[14] Yovits,[15][16] Span-Hansen,[17] Brier,[18] Buckland,[19] Goguen,[20] and Hjørland.[21] Hjørland provided the following example:

A stone on a field could contain different information for different people (or from one situation to another). It is not possible for information systems to map all the stone's possible information for every individual. Nor is any one mapping the one "true" mapping. But people have different educational backgrounds and play different roles in the division of labor in society. A stone in a field represents typical one kind of information for the geologist, another for the archaeologist. The information from the stone can be mapped into different collective knowledge structures produced by e.g. geology and archaeology. Information can be identified, described, represented in information systems for different domains of knowledge. Of course, there are much uncertainty and many and difficult problems in determining whether a thing is informative or not for a domain. Some domains have high degree of consensus and rather explicit criteria of relevance. Other domains have different, conflicting paradigms, each containing its own more or less implicate view of the informativeness of different kinds of information sources. (Hjørland, 1997, p. 111, emphasis in original).

## Information theory

Main article: Information theory

Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification, storage, and communication of information. The field itself was fundamentally established by the work of Claude Shannon in the 1940s, with earlier contributions by Harry Nyquist and Ralph Hartley in the 1920s.[22][23] The field is at the intersection of probability theory, statistics, computer science, statistical mechanics, information engineering, and electrical engineering.

Applications of fundamental topics of information theory include source coding/data compression (e.g. for ZIP files), and channel coding/error detection and correction (e.g. for DSL). Its impact has been crucial to the success of the Voyager missions to deep space, the invention of the compact disc, the feasibility of mobile phones and the development of the Internet. The theory has also found applications in other areas, including statistical inference,[24] cryptography, neurobiology,[25] perception,[26] linguistics, the evolution[27] and function[28] of molecular codes (bioinformatics), thermal physics,[29] quantum computing, black holes, information retrieval, intelligence gathering, plagiarism detection,[30] pattern recognition, anomaly detection[31] and even art creation.

## As sensory input

Often information can be viewed as a type of input to an organism or system. Inputs are of two kinds. Some inputs are important to the function of the organism (for example, food) or system (energy) by themselves. In his book Sensory Ecology[32] biophysicist David B. Dusenbery called these causal inputs. Other inputs (information) are important only because they are associated with causal inputs and can be used to predict the occurrence of a causal input at a later time (and perhaps another place). Some information is important because of association with other information but eventually there must be a connection to a causal input.

In practice, information is usually carried by weak stimuli that must be detected by specialized sensory systems and amplified by energy inputs before they can be functional to the organism or system. For example, light is mainly (but not only, e.g. plants can grow in the direction of the light source) a causal input to plants but for animals it only provides information. The colored light reflected from a flower is too weak for photosynthesis but the visual system of the bee detects it and the bee's nervous system uses the information to guide the bee to the flower, where the bee often finds nectar or pollen, which are causal inputs, a nutritional function.

## As an influence that leads to transformation

Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns.[33][34] In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern. Consider, for example, DNA. The sequence of nucleotides is a pattern that influences the formation and development of an organism without any need for a conscious mind. One might argue though that for a human to consciously define a pattern, for example a nucleotide, naturally involves conscious information processing. However, the existence of unicellular and multicellular organisms, with the complex biochemistry that leads, among other events, to the existence of enzymes and polynucleotides that interact maintaining the biological order and participating in the development of multicellular organisms, precedes by millions of years the emergence of human consciousness and the creation of the scientific culture that produced the chemical nomenclature.

Systems theory at times seems to refer to information in this sense, assuming information does not necessarily involve any conscious mind, and patterns circulating (due to feedback) in the system can be called information. In other words, it can be said that information in this sense is something potentially perceived as representation, though not created or presented for that purpose. For example, Gregory Bateson defines "information" as a "difference that makes a difference".[35]

If, however, the premise of "influence" implies that information has been perceived by a conscious mind and also interpreted by it, the specific context associated with this interpretation may cause the transformation of the information into knowledge. Complex definitions of both "information" and "knowledge" make such semantic and logical analysis difficult, but the condition of "transformation" is an important point in the study of information as it relates to knowledge, especially in the business discipline of knowledge management. In this practice, tools and processes are used to assist a knowledge worker in performing research and making decisions, including steps such as:

* Review information to effectively derive value and meaning
* Reference metadata if available
* Establish relevant context, often from many possible contexts
* Derive new knowledge from the information
* Make decisions or recommendations from the resulting knowledge

Stewart (2001) argues that transformation of information into knowledge is critical, lying at the core of value creation and competitive advantage for the modern enterprise.

In a biological framework, Mizraji [36] has described information as an entity emerging from the interaction of patterns with receptor systems (e.g.: in molecular or neural receptors capable of interacting with specific patterns, information emerges from those interactions). In addition, he has incorporated the idea of "information catalysts", structures where emerging information promotes the transition from pattern recognition to goal-directed action (for example, the specific transformation of a substrate into a product by an enzyme, or auditory reception of words and the production of an oral response)

The Danish Dictionary of Information Terms[37] argues that information only provides an answer to a posed question. Whether the answer provides knowledge depends on the informed person. So a generalized definition of the concept should be: "Information" = An answer to a specific question".

When Marshall McLuhan speaks of media and their effects on human cultures, he refers to the structure of artifacts that in turn shape our behaviors and mindsets. Also, pheromones are often said to be "information" in this sense.

## Technologically mediated information

These sections are using measurements of data rather than information, as information cannot be directly measured.

### As of 2007

It is estimated that the world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1986 – which is the informational equivalent to less than one 730-MB CD-ROM per person (539 MB per person) – to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007.[7] This is the informational equivalent of almost 61 CD-ROM per person in 2007.[5]

The world's combined technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was the informational equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day in 2007.[7]

The world's combined effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was the informational equivalent of 6 newspapers per person per day in 2007.[5]

As of 2007, an estimated 90% of all new information is digital, mostly stored on hard drives.[38]

### As of 2020

The total amount of data created, captured, copied, and consumed globally is forecast to increase rapidly, reaching 64.2 zettabytes in 2020. Over the next five years up to 2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes.[39]

## As records

Template:LibraryandInformation-TopicSidebar

The international standard on records management, ISO 15489, defines records as "information created, received, and maintained as evidence and information by an organization or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business".[40] The International Committee on Archives (ICA) Committee on electronic records defined a record as, "recorded information produced or received in the initiation, conduct or completion of an institutional or individual activity and that comprises content, context and structure sufficient to provide evidence of the activity".[41]

Records may be maintained to retain corporate memory of the organization or to meet legal, fiscal or accountability requirements imposed on the organization. Willis expressed the view that sound management of business records and information delivered "...six key requirements for good corporate governance...transparency; accountability; due process; compliance; meeting statutory and common law requirements; and security of personal and corporate information."[42]

## Semiotics

Michael Buckland has classified "information" in terms of its uses: "information as process", "information as knowledge", and "information as thing".[43]

Beynon-Davies[44][45] explains the multi-faceted concept of information in terms of signs and signal-sign systems. Signs themselves can be considered in terms of four inter-dependent levels, layers or branches of semiotics: pragmatics, semantics, syntax, and empirics. These four layers serve to connect the social world on the one hand with the physical or technical world on the other.

Pragmatics is concerned with the purpose of communication. Pragmatics links the issue of signs with the context within which signs are used. The focus of pragmatics is on the intentions of living agents underlying communicative behaviour. In other words, pragmatics link language to action.

Semantics is concerned with the meaning of a message conveyed in a communicative act. Semantics considers the content of communication. Semantics is the study of the meaning of signs – the association between signs and behaviour. Semantics can be considered as the study of the link between symbols and their referents or concepts – particularly the way that signs relate to human behavior.

Syntax is concerned with the formalism used to represent a message. Syntax as an area studies the form of communication in terms of the logic and grammar of sign systems. Syntax is devoted to the study of the form rather than the content of signs and sign systems.

Nielsen (2008) discusses the relationship between semiotics and information in relation to dictionaries. He introduces the concept of lexicographic information costs and refers to the effort a user of a dictionary must make to first find, and then understand data so that they can generate information.[46]

Communication normally exists within the context of some social situation. The social situation sets the context for the intentions conveyed (pragmatics) and the form of communication. In a communicative situation intentions are expressed through messages that comprise collections of inter-related signs taken from a language mutually understood by the agents involved in the communication. Mutual understanding implies that agents involved understand the chosen language in terms of its agreed syntax and semantics. The sender codes the message in the language and sends the message as signals along some communication channel (empirics). The chosen communication channel has inherent properties that determine outcomes such as the speed at which communication can take place, and over what distance.

## Physics and determinacy

The existence of information about a closed system is a major concept in both classical physics and quantum mechanics, encompassing the ability, real or theoretical, of an agent to predict the future state of a system based on knowledge gathered during its past and present. Determinism is a philosophical theory holding that causal determination can predict all future events,[47] positing a fully predictable universe described by classical physicist Pierre-Simon Laplace as "the effect of its past and the cause of its future".[48]

Quantum physics instead encodes information as a wave function, a mathematical description of a system from which the probabilities of measurement outcomes can be computed. A fundamental feature of quantum theory is that the predictions it makes are probabilistic. Prior to the publication of Bell's theorem, determinists reconciled with this behavior using hidden variable theories, which argued that the information necessary to predict the future of a function must exist, even if it is not accessible for humans, a view expressed by Albert Einstein with the assertion that "God does not play dice".[49]

Modern astronomy cites the mechanical sense of information in the black hole information paradox, positing that, because the complete evaporation of a black hole into Hawking radiation leaves nothing except an expanding cloud of homogeneous particles, this results in the irrecoverability of any information about the matter to have originally crossed the event horizon, violating both classical and quantum assertions against the ability to destroy information.[50][51]

## The application of information study

The information cycle (addressed as a whole or in its distinct components) is of great concern to information technology, information systems, as well as information science. These fields deal with those processes and techniques pertaining to information capture (through sensors) and generation (through computation, formulation or composition), processing (including encoding, encryption, compression, packaging), transmission (including all telecommunication methods), presentation (including visualization / display methods), storage (such as magnetic or optical, including holographic methods), etc.

Information visualization (shortened as InfoVis) depends on the computation and digital representation of data, and assists users in pattern recognition and anomaly detection.

* Partial map of the Internet, with nodes representing IP addresses

* Galactic (including dark) matter distribution in a cubic section of the Universe

* Visual representation of a strange attractor, with converted data of its fractal structure

Information security (shortened as InfoSec) is the ongoing process of exercising due diligence to protect information, and information systems, from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, destruction, modification, disruption or distribution, through algorithms and procedures focused on monitoring and detection, as well as incident response and repair.

Information analysis is the process of inspecting, transforming, and modeling information, by converting raw data into actionable knowledge, in support of the decision-making process.

Information quality (shortened as InfoQ) is the potential of a dataset to achieve a specific (scientific or practical) goal using a given empirical analysis method.

Information communication represents the convergence of informatics, telecommunication and audio-visual media & content.

## See also

* Accuracy and precision
* Complex adaptive system
* Complex system
* Data storage
* Engram
* Free Information Infrastructure
* Freedom of information
* Informatics
* Information and communication technologies
* Information architecture
* Information broker
* Information continuum
* Information ecology
* Information engineering
* Information geometry
* Information inequity
* Information infrastructure
* Information management
* Information metabolism
* Information overload
* Information quality (InfoQ)
* Information science
* Information sensitivity
* Information technology
* Information theory
* Information warfare
* Infosphere
* Lexicographic information cost
* Library science
* Meme
* Philosophy of information
* Quantum information
* Receiver operating characteristic
* Satisficing

## References

1. ↑ John B. Anderson; Rolf Johnnesson (1996). Understanding Information Transmission. Ieee Press. ISBN 978-0-471-71120-9.
2. ↑ Hubert P. Yockey (2005). Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life. Cambridge University Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-0-511-54643-3.
3. ↑ Luciano Floridi (2010). Information – A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-160954-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=Ak__GBAcHU0C.
4. ↑ Webler, Forrest (25 February 2022). "Measurement in the Age of Information". Information 13 (3): 111. doi:10.3390/info13030111.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "World_info_capacity_animation". YouTube. 11 June 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIKPjOuwqHo.
6. ↑ "DT&SC 4-5: Information Theory Primer, Online Course". University of California. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qanHTredVE&list=PLtjBSCvWCU3rNm46D3R85efM0hrzjuAIg&index=42.
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Hilbert, Martin; López, Priscila (2011). "The World's Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information". Science 332 (6025): 60–65. doi:10.1126/science.1200970. PMID 21310967. Bibcode: 2011Sci...332...60H. Free access to the article at martinhilbert.net/WorldInfoCapacity.html
8. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition, 2009, full text
9. ↑ Peters, J. D. (1988). Information: Notes Toward a Critical History. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 12, 10-24.
10. ↑ Qvortrup, L. (1993). The controversy over the concept of information. An overview and a selected and annotated bibliography. Cybernetics & Human Knowing 1(4), 3-24.
11. ↑ Machlup, Fritz & Una Mansfield (eds.). 1983. The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages. New York: Wiley.
12. ↑ Machlup, Fritz. 1983. "Semantic Quirks in Studies of Information," pp. 641-71 in Fritz Machlup & Una Mansfield, The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages. New York: Wiley.
13. ↑ Hjørland, B. (2007). Information: Objective or Subjective/Situational?. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58(10), 1448-1456.
14. ↑ Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine.
15. ↑ Yovits, M.C. (1969). Information science: Toward the development of a true scientific discipline. American Documentation (Vol. 20, pp. 369–376).
16. ↑ Yovits, M. C. (1975). A theoretical framework for the development of information science. In International Federation for Documentation. Study Committee Research on the Theoretical Basis of Information. Meeting (1974: Moscow) Information science, its scope, objects of research and problems: Collection of papers [presented at the meeting of the FID Study Committee "Research on the Theoretical Basis of Information"] 24–26 April 1974, Moscow (pp. 90–114). FID 530. Moscow: VINITI
17. ↑ Spang-Hanssen, H. (2001). How to teach about information as related to documentation. Human IT, (1), 125–143. Retrieved May 14, 2007, from http://www.hb.se/bhs/ith/1-01/hsh.htm
18. ↑ Brier, S. (1996). Cybersemiotics: A new interdisciplinary development applied to the problems of knowledge organisation and document retrieval in information science. Journal of Documentation, 52(3), 296–344.
19. ↑ Buckland, M. (1991). Information and information systems. New York: Greenwood Press.
20. ↑ Goguen, J. A. (1997). Towards a social, ethical theory of information. In G. Bowker, L. Gasser, L. Star, & W. Turner, Erlbaum (Eds.), Social science research, technical systems and cooperative work: Beyond the great divide (pp. 27–56). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved May 14, 2007, from http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~goguen/ps/sti.pdf
21. ↑ Hjørland, B. (1997). Information seeking and subject representation. An activity-theoretical approach to information science. Westport: Greenwood Press.
22. ↑ Pérez-Montoro Gutiérrez, Mario; Edelstein, Dick (2007) (in en). The Phenomenon of Information: A Conceptual Approach to Information Flow. Lanham (Md.): Scarecrow Press. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-8108-5942-5.
23. ↑ Wesołowski, Krzysztof (2009) (in en). Introduction to Digital Communication Systems (1. publ ed.). Chichester: Wiley. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-470-98629-5. http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/54386/1/33pdf.pdf.
24. ↑ Burnham, K. P. and Anderson D. R. (2002) Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical Information-Theoretic Approach, Second Edition (Springer Science, New York) ISBN 978-0-387-95364-9.
25. ↑ F. Rieke; D. Warland; R Ruyter van Steveninck; W Bialek (1997). Spikes: Exploring the Neural Code. The MIT press. ISBN 978-0-262-68108-7.
26. ↑ Delgado-Bonal, Alfonso; Martín-Torres, Javier (2016-11-03). "Human vision is determined based on information theory" (in En). Scientific Reports 6 (1). doi:10.1038/srep36038. ISSN 2045-2322. PMID 27808236. Bibcode: 2016NatSR...636038D.
27. ↑ cf; Huelsenbeck, J. P.; Ronquist, F.; Nielsen, R.; Bollback, J. P. (2001). "Bayesian inference of phylogeny and its impact on evolutionary biology". Science 294 (5550): 2310–2314. doi:10.1126/science.1065889. PMID 11743192. Bibcode: 2001Sci...294.2310H.
28. ↑ Allikmets, Rando; Wasserman, Wyeth W.; Hutchinson, Amy; Smallwood, Philip; Nathans, Jeremy; Rogan, Peter K. (1998). "Thomas D. Schneider, Michael Dean (1998) Organization of the ABCR gene: analysis of promoter and splice junction sequences"]. Gene 215 (1): 111–122. doi:10.1016/s0378-1119(98)00269-8. PMID 9666097. http://alum.mit.edu/www/toms/.
29. ↑ Jaynes, E. T. (1957). "Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics". Phys. Rev. 106 (4): 620. doi:10.1103/physrev.106.620. Bibcode: 1957PhRv..106..620J. http://bayes.wustl.edu/.
30. ↑ Bennett, Charles H.; Li, Ming; Ma, Bin (2003). "Chain Letters and Evolutionary Histories". Scientific American 288 (6): 76–81. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0603-76. PMID 12764940. Bibcode: 2003SciAm.288f..76B. http://sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=08B64096-0772-4904-9D48227D5C9FAC75. Retrieved 2008-03-11.
31. ↑ David R. Anderson (November 1, 2003). "Some background on why people in the empirical sciences may want to better understand the information-theoretic methods". http://aicanderson2.home.comcast.net/~aicanderson2/home.pdf.
32. ↑ Dusenbery, David B. (1992). Sensory Ecology. New York: W.H. Freeman. ISBN 978-0-7167-2333-2. https://archive.org/details/sensoryecologyho0000duse.
33. ↑ Shannon, Claude E. (1949). The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Bibcode: 1949mtc..book.....S.
34. ↑ Casagrande, David (1999). "Information as verb: Re-conceptualizing information for cognitive and ecological models". Journal of Ecological Anthropology 3 (1): 4–13. doi:10.5038/2162-4593.3.1.1. http://www.lehigh.edu/~dac511/literature/casagrande1999.pdf.
35. ↑ Bateson, Gregory (1972). Form, Substance, and Difference, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago Press. pp. 448–466.
36. ↑ Mizraji, E. (2021). "The biological Maxwell's demons: exploring ideas about the information processing in biological systems". Theory in Biosciences. 140 (3): 307–318. doi:10.1007/s12064-021-00354-6. PMID 34449033.
37. ↑ Simonsen, Bo Krantz. "Informationsordbogen – vis begreb". http://www.informationsordbogen.dk/concept.php?cid=902.
38. ↑ Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. Eduardo Pinheiro, Wolf-Dietrich Weber and Luiz Andre Barroso
39. ↑ "Total data volume worldwide 2010–2025" (in en). https://www.statista.com/statistics/871513/worldwide-data-created/.
40. ↑ ISO 15489
41. ↑ "Guide For Managing Electronic Records From An Archival Perspective". International Committee on Archives. February 1997. p. 22. https://www.ica.org/sites/default/files/ICA Study 8 guide_eng.pdf.
42. ↑ Willis, Anthony (1 August 2005). "Corporate governance and management of information and records". Records Management Journal 15 (2): 86–97. doi:10.1108/09565690510614238.
43. ↑ Buckland, Michael K. (June 1991). "Information as thing". Journal of the American Society for Information Science 42 (5): 351–360. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199106)42:5<351::AID-ASI5>3.0.CO;2-3.
44. ↑ Beynon-Davies, P. (2002). Information Systems: an introduction to informatics in Organisations. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-333-96390-6.
45. ↑ Beynon-Davies, P. (2009). Business Information Systems. Basingstoke: Palgrave. ISBN 978-0-230-20368-6.
46. ↑ Nielsen, Sandro (2008). "The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use". Lexikos (Stellenbosch: Bureau of the WAT) 18: 170–189. doi:10.5788/18-0-483. https://lexikos.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/483.
47. ↑ Ernest Nagel (1999). "§V: Alternative descriptions of physical state". The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (2nd ed.). Hackett. pp. 285–292. ISBN 978-0-915144-71-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=u6EycHgRfkQC&pg=PA285. "A theory is deterministic if, and only if, given its state variables for some initial period, the theory logically determines a unique set of values for those variables for any other period."
48. ↑ Laplace, Pierre Simon, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, translated into English from the original French 6th ed. by Truscott, F.W. and Emory, F.L., Dover Publications (New York, 1951) p.4.
49. ↑ The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, Volume 15: The Berlin Years: Writings & Correspondence, June 1925-May 1927 (English Translation Supplement), p. 403
50. ↑ Hawking, Stephen (2006). The Hawking Paradox. Discovery Channel. Archived from the original on 2 August 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2013.
51. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (12 August 2013). "A Black Hole Mystery Wrapped in a Firewall Paradox". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/science/space/a-black-hole-mystery-wrapped-in-a-firewall-paradox.html.

## Further reading

* Liu, Alan (2004). The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226486987.
* Bekenstein, Jacob D. (August 2003). "Information in the holographic universe". Scientific American 289 (2): 58–65. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0803-58. PMID 12884539. Bibcode: 2003SciAm.289b..58B.
* Gleick, James (2011). The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. New York, NY: Pantheon. ISBN 9780375423727.
* Lin, Shu-Kun (2008). "Gibbs Paradox and the Concepts of Information, Symmetry, Similarity and Their Relationship". Entropy 10 (1): 1–5. doi:10.3390/entropy-e10010001. Bibcode: 2008Entrp..10....1L.
* Floridi, Luciano (2005). "Is Information Meaningful Data?". Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (2): 351–370. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2005.tb00531.x. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00002536/01/iimd.pdf.
* Floridi, Luciano (2005). "Semantic Conceptions of Information". in Zalta, Edward N.. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2005 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic/.
* Floridi, Luciano (2010). Information: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199551378.
* Logan, Robert K.. What is Information? – Propagating Organization in the Biosphere, the Symbolosphere, the Technosphere and the Econosphere. Toronto: DEMO Publishing.
* Machlup, Fritz; Mansfield, Una (1983). The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages. New York: Wiley. pp. xxii, 743. ISBN 978-0471887171.
* Nielsen, Sandro (2008). "The Effect of Lexicographical Information Costs on Dictionary Making and Use". Lexikos 18: 170–189.
* Stewart, Thomas (2001). Wealth of Knowledge. New York, NY: Doubleday.
* Young, Paul (1987). The Nature of Information. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-92698-4.
* Kenett, Ron S.; Shmueli, Galit (2016). Information Quality: The Potential of Data and Analytics to Generate Knowledge. Chichester, United Kingdom: John Wiley and Sons. doi:10.1002/9781118890622. ISBN 978-1-118-87444-8.

## External links

| Wikimedia Commons has media related to Information.

|

* Semantic Conceptions of Information Review by Luciano Floridi for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
* How Much Information? 2003 an attempt to estimate how much new information is created each year (study was produced by faculty and students at the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley)

Links to related articles

* v
* t
* e

Communication studies

* History
* Outline

Topics and
terminology

* Biocommunication
* Broadcasting
* Communication
* Computer-mediated communication
* Conversation
* History of communication
* Information
* Intercultural / Interpersonal / Intrapersonal communication
* Journalism
* Mass media
* Meaning
* Media ecology
* Meta-communication
* Models of communication
* New media
* Nonverbal communication
* Propaganda
* Reading
* Speech
* Symbol
* Telecommunication
* Text and conversation theory
* Writing

Subfields|

* Communication design
* Communication theory
* Communicology
* Crisis communication
* Cross-cultural communication
* Development communication
* Discourse analysis
* Environmental communication
* Global communication
* Health communication
* International communication
* Mass communication
* Media studies
* Mediated cross-border communication
* Organizational communication
* Political communication
* Risk communication
* Science communication
* Technical communication
* Visual communication
* Closed-loop communication

Scholars|

* Adorno
* Barthes
* Bateson
* Benjamin
* Burke
* Castells
* Chomsky
* Craig
* Fisher
* Flusser
* Gasset
* Gerbner
* Goffman
* Habermas
* Horkheimer
* Huxley
* Innis
* Jakobson
* Janis
* Johnson
* Kincaid
* Lippman
* Luhmann
* Marcuse
* McLuhan
* Mead
* Morgan
* Ong
* Packard
* Peirce
* Postman
* Quebral
* Richards
* Rogers
* Schramm
* Tankard
* Tannen
* Wertheimer

* Category

* v
* t
* e

World view

Related terms

* Basic beliefs/Beliefs
* Collective consciousness/Collective unconscious
* Conceptual system
* Context
* Conventions
* Cultural movement
* Epic poetry/National epics/Pan-national epics
* Facts and factoids
* Framing
* Ideology
* Life stance
* Lifestyle
* Memes/Memeplex
* Mental model
* Metanarrative
* Mindset
* Norms
* Paradigm
* Philosophical theory
* Point of view
* Presuppositions
* Reality tunnel
* Received view
* Schemata
* School of thought
* Set
* Social reality
* Theory of everything
* Umwelt
* Value system

Aspects

| Biases|

* Academic
* Attentional
* Attitude polarization
* Belief
* Cognitive (list)
* Collective narcissism
* Confirmation
* Congruence
* Cryptomnesia
* Cultural
* Ethnocentrism
* Filter bubble
* Homophily
* In-group favoritism
* Magical thinking
* Media
* Observer-expectancy
* Observational error
* Selective exposure
* Selective perception
* Self-deception
* Self-fulfilling prophecy (Clever Hans effect, placebo effect, wishful thinking)
* Status quo
* Stereotyping

|

Change and
maintenance|

* Activism
* Argument
* Argumentum ad populum
* Attitude change
* Censorship
* Charisma
* Circular reporting
* Cognitive dissonance
* Critical thinking
* Crowd manipulation
* Cultural dissonance
* Deprogramming
* Echo chamber
* Education (religious, values)
* Euphemism
* Excommunication
* Fearmongering
* Historical revisionism
* Ideological repression
* Indoctrination
* Media manipulation
* Media regulation
* Mind control
* Missionaries
* Moral entrepreneurship
* Persuasion
* Polite fiction
* Political engineering
* Propaganda
* Propaganda model
* Proselytism
* Psychological manipulation
* Psychological warfare
* Religious conversion (forced)
* Religious persecution
* Religious uniformity
* Revolutions
* Rhetoric
* Self-censorship
* Social change
* Social control
* Social engineering
* Social influence
* Social progress
* Suppression of dissent
* Systemic bias
* Woozle effect

Culture|

* Anthropology (cultural, social)
* Calendars
* Ceremonies
* Coronations
* Cross-cultural psychology
* Cultural psychology
* Doctrine
* Employment/Serfdom/Slavery
* Families
* Funerals/Burial
* Games
* Holidays
* Hygiene (ritual)
* Identity (cultural)
* Institutions
* Liminality
* Liturgy
* Marriage
* Myth and ritual
* Oaths
* Pilgrimages
* Play
* Rites of passage (secular)
* Rituals
* Social class/Social status/Caste
* Symbols
* Symbolic boundaries
* Worship

Groupthink|

* Abilene paradox
* Bandwagon effect
* Collectives
* Collective behavior (animal)
* Collective effervescence
* Collective intelligence
* Conformity
* Consensus theory
* Crowd psychology
* Cults
* Culture-bound syndromes
* Deindividuation
* Democracy
* Emergence
* Emotional contagion
* Entitativity
* False-consensus effect
* Folie à deux
* Group action
* Group dynamics
* Group emotion
* Group polarization
* Groupshift
* Herd behavior
* Holism
* Hysterical contagion
* Information cascade
* Invisible hand
* Lynching
* Majoritarianism/Ochlocracy
* Mass action
* Mass hysteria
* Mass psychogenic illness
* Milieu control
* Mobbing
* Moral panic
* Organizations
* Peer pressure
* Pluralistic ignorance
* Political correctness
* Pseudoconsensus
* Scapegoating
* Self-organization
* Social action
* Social behavior
* Social emotions
* Social exclusion
* Social facilitation (animal)
* Social group
* Social proof
* Social psychology
* Sociology
* Spontaneous order
* Status quo
* Stigmergy
* Swarm behaviour
* System justification
* Viral phenomena

Knowledge|

* Axioms (tacit assumptions)
* Conceptual framework
* Epistemology (outline)
* Evidence (anecdotal, scientific)
* Explanations
* Faith (fideism)
* Gnosis
* Intuition
* Meaning-making
* Memory
* Metaknowledge
* Methodology
* Observation
* Observational learning
* Perception
* Reasoning (fallacious, logic)
* Revelation
* Testimony
* [[Social:TraditTradition (Folklore|folklore]])
* Truth (consensus theory, criteria)

Metaphysics|

* Ætiology
* Afterlife
* Anima mundi
* Being
* Causality
* Concepts
* Consciousness (mind–body problem)
* Cosmogony
* Cosmology (religious)
* Creation myth
* Deities (existence)
* Destiny
* Eschatology
* Everything/Nothing
* Evolution
* Existence
* Fiction/Non-fiction
* Free will
* Future
* History
* Ideas
* Idios kosmos
* Illusions
* Incarnation
* Information
* Intelligence
* Magic
* Matter
* Miracles
* Mythology (comparative)
* National mythoi
* Nature (philosophical)
* Ontology
* Origin myths (political myths)
* Otherworlds (axes mundi)
* Problem of evil
* Physics (natural philosophy)
* Reality
* Souls
* Spirit
* Supernature
* Teleology
* Theology
* Time
* Unobservables

Value|

* Æsthetics
* Almsgiving/Charity
* Altruism
* Autonomy
* Beauty
* Codes of conduct
* Comedy
* Common good
* Conscience
* Consent
* Creativity
* Disgust
* Duty
* Economics
* Ecstasy (emotional, religious)
* Elegance
* [[Philosophy:EEmotions (Aesthetic emotions|æsthetic]])
* Entertainment
* Eroticism
* Ethics
* Étiquette
* Family values
* Food and drink prohibitions (unclean animals)
* Golden Rule
* Guilt/Culpability
* Happiness
* Harmony
* Honour
* Human rights
* Judgement
* Justice
* Laws (jurisprudence, religious)
* Liberty (political freedom)
* Love
* Magnificence
* Maxims
* Meaning of life
* Morality (public)
* Obligations
* Peace
* Piety
* Praxeology
* Principles
* Punishment
* Qualities
* Repentance
* Reverence
* Rights
* Sexuality (ethics)
* Sin
* Social stigma
* Stewardship
* Styles
* Sublime, The
* Suffering
* Sympathy
* Taboo
* Taste
* Theodicy
* Trust
* Unspoken rules
* Virtues and Vices
* Works of art
* Wrongdoing

Examples

| Attitudes|

* Nihilism
* Optimism
* Pessimism
* Reclusion
* Weltschmerz

|

Economic and
political ideologies|

* Authoritarianism
* Anarchism
* Capitalism
* Christian democracy
* Collectivism
* Colonialism
* Communalism
* Communism
* Communitarianism
* Conservatism
* Constitutionalism
* Distributism
* Environmentalism
* Extremism
* Fanaticism
* Fascism
* Feminism
* Fundamentalism
* Globalism
* Green politics
* Imperialism
* Individualism
* Industrialism
* Intellectualism
* Islamism
* Liberalism
* Libertarianism
* Masculism
* Militarism
* Monarchism
* Nationalism
* Pacifism
* Progressivism
* Radicalism
* Reformism
* Republicanism
* Sentientism
* Social democracy
* Socialism
* Utilitarianism
* Veganism

Religions|

* African traditional religions
* Bahá'í
* Buddhism
* Cao Dai
* Cheondoism
* Chinese traditional religions
* Christianity
* Ethnic religions
* Hòa Hảo
* Hinduism
* Islam
* Jainism
* Judaism
* Korean shamanism
* Neo-Paganism
* Rastafarianism
* Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist
* Shinto
* Sikhism
* Spiritism
* Taoism
* Tenrikyo
* Tenriism
* Unitarian Universalism
* Zoroastrianism

Schools of
philosophy|

* Agriculturalism
* Aristotelianism
* Atomism
* Averroism
* Cartesianism
* Cārvāka
* Collectivism
* Confucianism/New Confucianism
* Critical theory
* Cynicism
* Cyrenaics
* Determinism
* Dualism
* Eleatics
* Empiricism
* Eretrian school
* Epicureanism
* Existentialism
* Foundationalism
* Hedonism
* Hegelianism
* Hermeneutics
* Historicism/New Historicism
* Holism
* Humanism/Renaissance humanism]]
* Illuminationism
* ʿIlm al-Kalām
* Idealism
* Individualism
* Ionian
* Kantianism/Neo-Kantianism
* Kokugaku
* Legalism
* Logicians
* Materialism
* Mohism
* Megarian school
* Modernism/Postmodernism
* Monism
* Natural Law
* Naturalism (Chinese)
* Naturalism (western)
* Nihilism
* Peripatetic
* Phenomenology
* Platonism/Neoplatonism
* Pluralism
* Positivism
* Pragmatism
* Presocratic
* Pyrrhonism
* Pythagoreanism/Neopythagoreanism
* Rationalism
* Reductionism
* Scholasticism/Neo-Scholasticism
* Sentientism
* Social constructionism
* Sophism
* Spinozism
* Stoicism
* Structuralism/Post-structuralism
* Thomism
* Transcendentalism
* Utilitarianism
* Yangism

* v
* t
* e

Metaphysics

Metaphysicians|

* Parmenides
* Plato
* Aristotle
* Plotinus
* Duns Scotus
* Thomas Aquinas
* Francisco Suárez
* Nicolas Malebranche
* René Descartes
* John Locke
* David Hume
* Thomas Reid
* Immanuel Kant
* Isaac Newton
* Arthur Schopenhauer
* Baruch Spinoza
* Georg W. F. Hegel
* George Berkeley
* Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
* Henri Bergson
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* Charles Sanders Peirce
* Joseph Maréchal
* Ludwig Wittgenstein
* Martin Heidegger
* Alfred N. Whitehead
* Bertrand Russell
* Dorothy Emmet
* G. E. Moore
* Jean-Paul Sartre
* Gilbert Ryle
* Hilary Putnam
* P. F. Strawson
* R. G. Collingwood
* Adolph Stöhr
* Rudolf Carnap
* Saul Kripke
* Willard V. O. Quine
* G. E. M. Anscombe
* Donald Davidson
* Michael Dummett
* David Malet Armstrong
* David Lewis
* Alvin Plantinga
* Peter van Inwagen
* Derek Parfit
* more ...

Theories|

* Abstract object theory
* Action theory
* Anti-realism
* Determinism
* Dualism
* Enactivism
* Essentialism
* Existentialism
* Free will
* Idealism
* Libertarianism
* Liberty
* Materialism
* Meaning of life
* Monism
* Naturalism
* Nihilism
* Phenomenalism
* Realism
* Physicalism
* Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality
* Platonic idealism
* Relativism
* Scientific realism
* Solipsism
* Subjectivism
* Substance theory
* Truthmaker theory
* Type theory

Concepts|

* Abstract object
* Anima mundi
* Being
* Category of being
* Causality
* Causal closure
* Choice
* Cogito, ergo sum
* Concept
* Embodied cognition
* Essence
* Existence
* Experience
* Hypostatic abstraction
* Idea
* Identity
* Information
* Insight
* Intelligence
* Intention
* Linguistic modality
* Matter
* Meaning
* Memetics
* Mental representation
* Mind
* Motion
* Nature
* Necessity
* Notion
* Object
* Pattern
* Perception
* Physical object
* Principle
* Property
* Qualia
* Quality
* Reality
* Soul
* Subject
* Substantial form
* Thought
* Time
* Truth
* Type–token distinction
* Universal
* Unobservable
* Value
* more ...

Related topics|

* Axiology
* Cosmology
* Epistemology
* Feminist metaphysics
* Interpretations of quantum mechanics
* Mereology
* Meta-
* Ontology
* Philosophy of mind
* Philosophy of psychology
* Philosophy of self
* Philosophy of space and time
* Teleology
* Theoretical physics

* Category

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Information&oldid=4356991"
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template