Information exists in many different states at the same time. In fact, information is really kind of fluid. There is a continuum from completely unknown to well known and documented. But at any given point in time, the true state of information is unknown. But this is the world that we live in. Information can be recorded but yet information can be lost. Information has value and then it doesn’t have value
Seriously…this is how the world works.
The world really is just bits of information and human activity might be the encryption key of some advanced beings that we can’t understand. But everything at its core is really information. Physical and digital things are just packets of information. Instructions, formulations and combinations of the above.
The problem is that our ability to encode information is essentially two dimensional. This is what makes information seem so linear. But there are so many more dimensions to information that are not encoded. This limitation is over and beyond the biases that are in place when it is decided how, when and what information to record.
There is another psychological effect to information that is potentially dangerous too. The positive and negative effects feeling informed and uninformed. There is a fall sense of security of feeling informed and there are the dangers of being uninformed. So called free information ‘sessions’ are available, but are they really free if they are intended to sway you in some way.
So we have multi-dimensional problem with our relationship with information.
We are limited in what we can perceive – so our mind takes all kinds of shortcuts
We are limited by our unconscious biases that determine how we record the information
We are limited in what we can encode – so we do the best we can
We are limited in our understanding of how others seek out and act out on information.
And because of and despite all of these limitations, we still build and deploy information systems.
