Understanding Information: History, Definition, and Properties

1. Prof. Ray Larson & Prof. Marc Davis UC Berkeley SIMS Tuesday and Thursday 10:30 am - 12:00 am Fall 2004 http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is202/f04/ Lecture 02: Information IS 202: Information Organization and Retrieval

2. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Discussion Questions • Action Items for Next Time

3. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Discussion Questions • Action Items for Next Time

4. What is Information? • There is no “correct” definition • Can involve philosophy, psychology, signal processing, physics • Cookie Monster’s definition: • “news or facts about something”

5. What is Information? • Oxford English Dictionary • Information • Informing, telling; thing told, knowledge, items of knowledge, news • Knowledge • Knowing familiarity gained by experience; person’s range of information; a theoretical or practical understanding of; the sum of what is known

6. Assignment 1 - Discussion • What is information, according to your background or area of expertise?

7. What Is Information?

8. Relating data to a context (“situational interpretation”) Anything that is important to anyone (“significance”) World data information knowledge Requires community of interpretation All information is dependent on context Capable of being recorded and stored and transmitted (also in physical form – e.g., fossils) Information must be recorded Information is a record of something that can be reused Information is a commodity Negentropy Potential energy to become knowledge Potential for it to be built upon Does information have to be related to “true” data? Can information be downgraded to data if it is forgotten? Some Answers from Fall 2003

9. Types of Information • Differentiation by form • Differentiation by content • Differentiation by quality • Differentiation by associated information

10. Information Properties • Information can be communicated electronically • Broadcasting • Networking • Information can be easily duplicated and shared • Problems of ownership • Problems of control Adapted from ‘Silicon Dreams’ by Robert W. Lucky

11. Intuitive Notion (Losee 97) • Information must • Be something, although the exact nature (substance, energy, or abstract concept) is not clear • Be “new”: repetition of previously received messages is not informative • Be “true”: false or counterfactual information is “mis-information” • Be “about” something • This human-centered approach emphasizes meaning and use of message

12. Information from the Human Perspective • Levels in cognitive processing • Perception • Observation/attention • Reasoning, assimilating, forming inferences • Knowledge • “Justified true belief” • Belief • An idea held based on some support; an internally accepted statement, result of inductive processes combining observed facts with a reasoning process

13. Information from the Human Perspective • Does information require a human mind? • Communication and information transfer among ants • A tree falls in the forest … is there information there? • Existence of quarks

14. Meaning vs. Form • Form of information as the information itself • Meaning of a signal vs. the signal itself • What aspects of a document are information? • Representation (Norman 93) • Why do we write things down? • Socrates thought writing would obliterate serious thought • Sounds and gestures fade away • Artifacts help us to reason • Anything not present in the representation can be ignored • Things left out of the representation are often what we don’t know how to represent

15. Information • Consider Borges’ infinite Library of Babel… • It has all possible data combinations of letters • Does it therefore contain all possible information? • What about all possible knowledge? • What about wisdom? • Is the Internet a prototype Library of Babel?

16. Claude Shannon, 1940’s, studying communication Ways to measure information Communication: producing the same message at its destination as that seen at its source Problem: a “noisy channel” can distort the message Between transmitter and receiver, the message must be encoded Semantic aspects are irrelevant Information Theory Noise Message Source Trans- mitter Receiver Desti- nation Channel

17. Information Theory Message Message Source Encoding Decoding Destination Channel Noise Message Message Source Encoding (Writing/ Indexing) Storage Decoding (Retrieval/ Reading) Destination • Better called “Technical Communication Theory” • Communication may be over time and space

18. Human Communication Theory? Message Message Source Encoding Decoding Destination Channel Noise

19. Communication Theory • Encompasses a vast array of disciplines • Mass communications, literary and media theory, rhetoric, sociology, psychology, linguistics, law, cognitive science, information science, engineering, etc. • Questions • What and how we communicate • Why we communicate • What happens when communication “works” and when it doesn’t • How to improve communication

20. Why Study Communication Theory? • Our understanding of what, how, and why we communicate informs our • Theory of media and practice of media production • Analysis, design, and evaluation of multimedia information system and applications • How we work together in teams • How we read texts and talk with one another in this course • Law and public policy

21. Etymology of “Communication” • Communication - c.1384, from O.Fr. communicacion, from L. communicationem (nom. communicatio), from communicare "to impart, share," lit. "to make common," from communis (see common). • Common - 13c., from O.Fr. comun, from L. communis "shared by all or many," from L. com- "together" + munia "public duties," those related to munia "office." Alternate etymology is that Fr. got it from P.Gmc. *gamainiz (cf. O.E. gemæne), from PIE *kom-moini "shared by all," from base *moi-, *mei- "change, exchange." • Remuneration - c.1400, from L. remunerationem, from remunerari "to reward," from re- "back" + munerari "to give," from munus (gen. muneris) "gift, office, duty." Remunerative is from 1677.

22. What and How Do We Communicate? • What “gifts” do we give each other? • What do we do with these gifts? • How does this gift exchange bring us together (or not)?

23. Metaphor of/in Communication • It's hard to getthat idea across tohim. • I gave you that idea. • It's difficult to putmy ideas intowords. • The meaning is right there in the words. • His words carrylittle meaning. • That's not what I got out of what he said.

24. The Conduit Metaphor • Language functions like a conduit, transferring thoughts bodily from one person to another • In writing and speaking, people insert their thoughts or feelings in the words • Words accomplish the transfer by containing the thoughts or feelings and conveying them to others • In listening or reading, people extract the thoughts and feelings once again from the words

25. Conduit Metaphor: Minor Frameworks • Thoughts and feelings are ejected by speaking or writing into an external “idea space” • Thoughts and feelings are reified in this external space, so they exist independent of any need for living beings to think or feel them • These reified thoughts and feelings may, or may not, find their way back into the heads of living humans

26. Toolmakers’ Paradigm

27. Conduit Metaphor Repertoire Members (i.e., perceptions, thoughts, or feelings) can migrate from one mind to another Communication is a largely effort free act of unpacking the meaning in words (i.e., the sender’s RMs in the Signals) Communication does not involve the RMs of the receiver of the message Toolmakers Paradigm Only Signals can pass between human beings, not RMs Communication requires active engagement of both parties and often breaks down and needs repair The meanings of signals are not contained within them, but made out of the constructive interaction between the signals and the RMs of the receiver Comparing Models

28. Semantic Pathology • Semantic Pathology • “Whenever two or more incompatible senses capable of figuring meaningfully in the same context develop around the same name” • Example • “This text is confusing.” • Text(1) = The layout/font of the text is confusing. • Text(2) = The argument of the text is confusing. • Question: Where is Text(2)?

29. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Discussion Questions • Action Items for Next Time

30. Origins: Physical Representations • Very early history of content representation • Mesopotamian tokens and “envelopes” • Alexandria - pinakes • Indices

31. Origins: Mental Representations • Rhetorical mnemonic theory and practice (“memoria”) • Memory palaces • An organization and retrieval technology for concepts that combines physical and virtual places (“loci”) • Examples • Simonides of Ceos • Cicero’s “testes”

32. Origins: Bibliographic Representations • Biblical indexes and concordances • Hugo de St. Caro – 1247 A.D. : 500 monks – KWOC • Book indexes Nuremberg Chronicle,1493 • Library catalogs • Journal indexes • “Information explosion” following WWII • Bush and Memex • Cranfield studies of indexing languages and information retrieval • Development of bibliographic databases • Index Medicus – production and Medlars searching

33. How Much Information Today? • See report by Hal Varian and Peter Lyman http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info/ • Total annual information production including print, film, magnetic media, etc. • Upper Bound 2,120,539 Terabytes (1012 bytes) • Lower Bound 635,480 Terabytes • I.e., between 1 and 2 Exabytes per year (1018 bytes) • How do we organize THIS?

34. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Discussion Questions • Action Items for Next Time

35. Discussion Questions (Borges) • Colleen Whitney on Borges • Borges wrote “The Library of Babel” in 1941, long before the emergence of the Internet. How might the metaphor be recast in Web space? How would the structure of the “universe” be expressed? Would the problems and metaphysical questions touched on by the narrator differ significantly, and in what ways?

36. Discussion Questions (Borges) • Colleen Whitney on Borges • The narrator discusses the controversy over the purging of useless works. “They invaded the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves: their hygienic, ascetic furor caused the senseless perdition of millions of books.” However, the narrator concludes that “…the consequences of the Purifiers’ depradations have been exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced.” Again, if recast in digital context, how might this vignette be expressed?

37. Discussion Questions (Dennett) • Jennifer Hastings on Dennett: • Why does Dennett consider Darwin’s “idea” dangerous? • What is the role of “intelligent design” in the context of the Library of Babel and the Library of Mendel?

38. Discussion Questions (Reddy) • Christina Nigro on Reddy • Do you agree with the author’s contention that as increased systems of communication prevail, more information is actually lost as a result of the conduit metaphor in the English language? • How much information are we losing as a result of our increased dependence on information storage systems? How can we remedy this while still encouraging technological advances?

39. Discussion Questions (Reddy) • Bruce Rinehart on Reddy • What does linguistics have to do with information? • What becomes entangled in the conduit metaphor in the realm of SIMS studies?

40. Discussion Questions (Reddy) • Bruce Rinehart on Reddy • Why do Reddy's example stories, which have particular constraints regarding the questions he's asking, seem suspect in validly portraying anything but the point he is making? It seems that he could be fabricating games to support his point. I don't really believe this, however, upon first glance, the stories seem overly constructed.

41. Discussion Questions (Reddy) • Prof. Davis on Reddy • How can an implicit theory of communication affect our analysis and design of information systems? • What are some examples of information systems that embody the Conduit Metaphor or the Toolmakers’ Paradigm of communication? How might they be redesigned to facilitate better communication?

42. Lecture Outline • What Is Information? • History of Information Search and Organization • Discussion Questions • Action Items for Next Time

43. Next Time • Introduction to Information Retrieval (IR) and the Search Process

44. Homework (!) • Readings • MIR Ch. 1 • Footprints in the Snow (Munro, Hook and Benyon) • Berry-Picking (Bates) • Where did you Put It? (Berlin et. Al.) • Create your SIMS home page

45. Marc Davis Office Hours • Wednesday, September 8 • 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm • Tuesday, September 14 • 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm • 314 South Hall