Learning to Think about Information

	Information is a discipline distinct from technology requiring its own learning, knowledge, skills, and comprehension.

Level 1	Rational Thinking How (whether) information reflects the real world.	Real Thinking
Level 2	Functional Thinking What we could/should accomplish with information.
Level 3	Procedural Thinking What we do.	Artificial Thinking
Level 4	Technical Thinking The tools used.

 

Conventional IT focuses on procedures and technology ... third and fourth level thinking.  Very little first and second level thinking takes place.   In consequence IT is mind-stuck in artificial thinking ... with the tools and procedures of our own creation.  While these are "real" in the sense they exist, there is no informational reality to them.  They are, in fact, arbitrary.  They are something we have just made up with no basis in informability (the possibilities and potential of information). This does not mean they are not useful.  It does mean, however, that of and by themselves they are not informationally reliable.

 

Conflicting Mind-Sets

IT concepts are fairly well delineated between the contrasting perspectives of "Artificial" and "Real" thinking. 

CONFLICTING MIND-SETS
"Artificial" Thinking The Technologist	"Real" Thinking The Informationalist
What we do	What we accomplish
How Technology Works	How Information Works
Data-Symbols	Information-Meaning
Process	Function
Goals	Purpose
Results	Capability
Efficiency	Efficacy

 

When we don't consciously understand the differences between artificial and real thinking ... knowing which applies when ... computer literacy makes it almost impossible to think clearly about information.

	Computer literacy, when unenlightened by information literacy, is a serious handicap to planning information management.

 

A technologist and informationalist can stand in the same room using the same words to seemingly talk about the same thing, and in fact be talking about two different things. Almost no real communication takes place.  Often each leaves the room thinking the other doesn't understand.  Both are right. This is, of course, a problem.  A much bigger problem, however, is if either thinks there has been communication.

 

Real Thinking

When we move from artificial thinking to real thinking we find there is a lot to know about information that has nothing to do with computers but which should materially influence computerized information systems.

 

In Concept (Rationality)	In Practice (Functionality)
Information Topography	Information Cartography
Information Mechanics	Information Engines

 

Computers give us the ability to do things with information we've never been able to do before.  We cannot, however, understand what those things are by talking about computers.  A car gives us the ability to travel, but talking about the car doesn't help us plan a trip.  The presumption that computer skills are important or even relevant to planning information pretty much guarantees poor planning. 

 

	If we can't plan information systems without talking about computers then we can't plan information systems.

 

 

Valid Thinking

There is also an important difference between rational and logical thinking.

Rational Thinking How (whether) information reflects the real world.  (Are basic assumptions correct?)

Logical Thinking Consistency and coherence of thought  (Are conclusions consistent with assumptions?)

 

Conventional databases, for example, ignore two of four informational dimensions and the information vectors associated with them.  The absence of these dimensions and their vectors is anti-rational ... it doesn't fit reality.  The assumption of only two dimensions is wrong.  It is invalid.  What we do based on the conventional assumption of two instead of four dimensions logically follows but sacrifices information possibilities and potential. 

 

The Data Usage Trap

We must also think through traps set simply because we use data.  Data usage profoundly affects how we think about information:

Denotational Usage - input - how we capture or receive information - inferent	Casual Usage
Presentational Usage - output - how we present or express information - implicate
Definitional Usage - "stayput" - how information most precisely reflects the real world - explicate	Precise Usage

 

The Y2K problem precipitated by a tradition of using two digits to denote the year of a date is perhaps the most obvious and familiar failure of relying on casual rather than precise data usage.  While the Y2K problem became acute when 1999 became 2000, conventional IT still suffers from chronic problems caused by casual data usages, often resulting in a need for several systems where one would do.