ID2100 - Rethinking Information Systems and Technology
The Information Engine

 

The Information Engine

 

 

An information intelligent tool ... a vehicle ... that has everything we can do with information already built in allowing for the implementation, maintenance, and evolution of complex information systems with no software development ... without having to re-engineer the vehicle just because the information terrain and map change. 

The functional capabilities of conventional information technology are insufficient for managing information about information. 

Providing the functionalities to manage information about information creates a tool that, to implement a system, does with business specific information (as identified by an information map) exactly what it does with information about information to interpret the map. 

Functions for managing information about information intrinsically apply to managing information about everything else.

Refinements and improvements to an engine apply to all information.

 

The Information Engine Solves:

 

- Information Topography: Information meanings and types.
 

Contexts

Subjects - Principal, Actors, Roles
Objects - Tangibles, Locations, Constructs
Transitives - Intentions, Actions, Activities, Events

Sub-Contexts

Explicit - Context-Id, (Occurrence) Identification, Classification, X-Correlations, N-Corelations
Implicit - Summary, Comparison

Facts

Objective - Existence, Identity, Name, Class, Quantity, Chronolog, Location
I-Chronolog - Effectivity, Applicablity
Subjective - Comments
Non-Linguistic - Depiction, Replication
- Information Mechanics  - The ordering and derivation of additional information from existing information.
 

Origins/Precedence - Determinant/Primary, I-Chronology/Collateral, Derivable/Secondary

Dimensions - Occurrence, Facts, Effectivity, Applicability

Vectors - Immediate. Summary, Balance, Factor Distribution, Comparison, Effectivity, Applicability, Time Distribution, Comparison Summary

Supercession
Data Vectoring
Correlations
- Information Maps - Interpretiing the description of information unique to specific situations as defined by Information Cartography
- Symbol Management
 

Translation between and among languages

Conversion between and among measurement systems (including currency conversion, the "measurement" system that, unlike, say, inches to centimeters, dynamically changes)
Automatic origination of information (time of day, serialization, sequence, algorithm, automated "input").

Formula solution, summation, difference.

 

 

 

 

Information Topography and Information Mechanics identify information management necessities ignored by conventional operating software and conventional information management applications. Combined with the interpretation of properly developed Information Maps and Symbol Management  they specify the requirements for managing information to its full potential and, by extension, the requirements for an Information Engine.

 

 

 

Though a technology solution, the essential nature of an information

engine ... its specification ... transcends (the tyranny of) technology.

 

In the above functional specification the primary issue is what we could and should accomplish with information/meaning with a secondary level of using data/symbols. How or even whether we use computers to solve these issues is not a deciding consideration. How we use computers does not in the slightest alter the funtional requirements.

 

Just as we can still drive a huge variety of cars and trucks of every vintage across the same routes, if DOS, CPM, CP5, MPE, OS-xxx, Windows-xxx, Linux, Unix, etc. had been effective information management engines we could use any or all of them in combination to manage our information without having to choose one over the other.  Dealing with the same informational terrain, we would not be forced to  replace a still useful vehicle simply because newer models are incompatible with older. Compatability is wholly determined by how well vehicles cover informational terrain, not whether they fit each other.