Thanks Bill for this historical overview. I know your definition of information is based on ruling out possibilities, so I think to help the lay person (probably familiar with other ideas of ‘information’) the terms information, knowledge and learning should remain separate. Maybe it is just semantics that I am using, but I do struggle with the idea (my interpretation at least) that, say, to synthesize/analyse ‘information’ does not necessarily provide new information. Wouldn’t new insights from say, synthesizing previous decisions (where possibilities were eliminated), provide further ‘information’, i.e. to possibly rule out/in other/previous possibilities that were not apparent before, or is this just me using hindsight? Whatever the case, I think these types of possible interpretations need to be ‘tightened-up’ moving forward.
Thanks Bill for this historical overview. I know your definition of information is based on ruling out possibilities, so I think to help the lay person (probably familiar with other ideas of ‘information’) the terms information, knowledge and learning should remain separate. Maybe it is just semantics that I am using, but I do struggle with the idea (my interpretation at least) that, say, to synthesize/analyse ‘information’ does not necessarily provide new information. Wouldn’t new insights from say, synthesizing previous decisions (where possibilities were eliminated), provide further ‘information’, i.e. to possibly rule out/in other/previous possibilities that were not apparent before, or is this just me using hindsight? Whatever the case, I think these types of possible interpretations need to be ‘tightened-up’ moving forward.