Books on shelves in a library or a bookstore are full of all kinds of “cognizable information“, but for people who have not read them before, these books are nothing more than a potential “source of information“. The “cognizable information” these books “carry”, for the most part, is unknown to future readers. A book that a person has not read cannot bring him anything new, nor can it increase his knowledge. However, it remains a carrier of “cognizable information” until the paper, the carrier of this “cognizable information“, decays…
It is worth noting that the “cognizable information” didn’t appear in books by chance – it is a result of the process of creation of these books by a certain subject, which we conventionally call the Creator. A book has a number of creators. Everyone who took part in its creation can be included in this category: the writer, the proofreader, the artist, the designer, as well as all those who printed this book…
Similarly, every object in the Universe has its Creators. For example: for a “galaxy” object the role of Creator belongs to Nature; for “program code” object the role of Creator may belong not only to a human-programmer, but also to a computer system with artificial intelligence elements…
A book is a carrier of “cognizable information” that is already known to someone. And information, by itself, is not a form of knowledge. To acquire knowledge, the subject needs to comprehend previously acquired information and become aware of it. “Сognizable information” “transferred” by books can become known for their readers only after they have made efforts (spend personal energy) to read these books and think about what they have read. In the process of reading books, the reader can discover something new for himself and create (produce) on its basis information which becomes a part of his knowledge pool.
The process of interpretation enables the subject to:
- “read” the information;
- identify the meaning in the contents of the information;
- to create information if the information “bears” something new for the subject;
- “expand” one’s knowledge and consciousness.
The subject, as a rule, gives the information, which he/she creates, a particular form, i.e., formalizes it. For example: an article, an essay, a story, a myth, a byline, a tale, a fable, a parable, an anecdote, a proverb, an image, code, an algorithm, a video…, can represent different forms (formalizations) of the same information …. which can be placed on any media (paper, CD, DVD, web pages in a network, etc.). Therefore, the term ‘information’ can be interpreted as “in-formation”, i.e. the process of giving a form (in-formatio), and the term “the carrier of information” can be interpreted as a conventional name of an object which “carries” on itself the information created by a subject.
As a result, when the formalization process of all information “born” (produced) by one subject is completed, it becomes “cognizable information” (“source of information”) for all other subjects, as it represents something that is unknown to them.
Information (рус. информация, укр. інформація) is a product, created (produced, born, formed) within a subject during the process of his activity and represents “cognizable information” about the surrounding world that is comprehended and interpreted by the subject and refracted through his knowledge and life experience. That is, in its essence, information is the contents of one’s thought, which is recorded on some carrier.
Information (from latin informātiō “representation, notion of something”, informare – “to give form, shape, thought, imagination”) is “cognizable information” ( regardless of the form it’s presented in), which is perceived by the subject, comprehended and interpreted by him.
The main difference between “cognizable information” and information is as follows:
- “Cognizable information” is a set of records (a set of statements) which are already known to someone, i.e. represent the contents of someone’s thought, recorded on some carrier.
- Information is a set of statements (a set of facts) which are already known to the subject, i.e., represent the contents of a subject’s thought, recorded on some carrier.
Basic properties of information
- Information is material, because it requires a material carrier.
- Information is created (produced, formed, born) exclusively inside a subject in the process of his / her activity.
- Information that is lost and not preserved in any copy cannot be restored.
- Information is invariant with respect to a material carrier, i.e.:
- The same information can be encoded in different ways (a verbal message can be encoded by sound waves; by nerve signals in the process of speaking; by signs written on paper…).
- The same information can be recorded on different media (a book, a video, a web page on the web…).
- Different information can be recorded on the same medium (notebook).
- Information can be duplicated, modified, destroyed, etc…