We as BIM students, constantly hear about information. Information strategy, information technology, information asymmetry, etc, etc.
But what is information exactly? And what is the difference between data and information?
These questions have been asked by mathematicians and philosophers. And there is a vast body of literature answering these questions in great detail.
Because you probably don’t want to get in this area of literature yourself, I summarized the most important points for you.
First of all, it is important to know that it is hard to exactly pinpoint what information is. Luciano Floridi, a well-known information-ethicist, warns us that “information is notorious for coming in many forms and having many meanings” (Floridi, 2010, pp 1).
In fact, information can be seen both as a technical concept and a semantic concept. Both concepts have elaborated theories underlying the definition. The distinction between data and information is a subtle one.
Information in the technical sense is understood as “the probability of a signal being transmitted from device A to device B, which can be mathematically quantified” (Shannon). This technical description of information, excludes meaning. This technical description of information is defined as data. Data are nothing more than quantifiable signals, without meaning. In its most rudimentary for, data are thus bits.
To speak of information, we need something more than just data. Only when data have meaning, we speak of information. Information can thus be understood as data plus meaning.
Data should be understood as a “two-term relation” (a signal from device A to device B).
Information should be understood as a “three-term relation” (a signal from device A to device B, meaning something to C).
This distinction between data and information was recognized by the men who developed the “mother of all models”, the mathematical theory of communication, also known as the Shannon-Weaver model.
Maybe you have already seen it:
In this model you can see that the word “information” is below informer and informee. This is because in the space between the informer and the informee (econding and decoding), there are only data that do not have meaning. Data only have meaning when they can be understood as saying or meaning something. This is the case when the data reach a person that can understand the data to say something. Only then, we speak of information.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Weaver_model
Floridi, L. (2010). Information: A very short introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
