Information and Existence

We hear the term information everywhere these days. I myself have used that term quite often in my previous blogs.? Now, let’s see why information is so important. Information technologists say “It’s all about information”. Let’s see how.

Let’s start from what we have in front of us. Look at your desktop for example. The system you are using is the hardware. What runs inside it is the software, or in other words programs. What do these programs use? That’s what’s information. Programs manipulate, generate and transfer information. It’s not just with the desktop. Look at any system in our common-life. Look at yourself; Your body is the hardware. You have a genetic code, blood group, blood pressure level, body temperature etc, these all are the information needed to run you. Information is not just the numbers, it’s not just the code, information is what there is.

Every system in the universe has three levels associated to it. Hardware, program (code) and the bottom level- information. Let’s look at another simple example to understand the concept completely. I have this book on C# here. The book is the hardware, it is written in English, so English or the words used are the code, so what is the information? What you understand when you read the book is the information. You are not paying for the hardware while you pay say $50 for a book, you are not paying for the words in it either, You are paying for the information lying between the words. What Information Technology does is to find ways to improve organizing, reproducing, generating, manipulating and transferring the information.

Is it just information technology that does all these stuff with information? No, all sciences, arts, and everything we do everyday is manipulation of the information in one way or another. What do physicists do? They use mathematics as a tool and find out the laws of nature. From a physicist’s perspective, the universe is the hardware, mathematical equations are the codes, and the assumptions he reach are the information. So normally we will start thinking, what is the use of information? Is that just to cure our curiosity? Information is valuable. We already know that. So if someone can generate or manipulate information in a better way than someone else he has the power. So the more information you have the more powerful you are.

In the world of Information, each and every information produced(revealed) has a comparative value. There, the value of truth need not always be greater than a lie. A well coded lie will have better value than a weakly coded truth. So if the information is accompanied with a code, that is better. If you can provide the hardware too, the value becomes even better.

In this social networking era , information is everywhere. We get information about everyone and everything over the internet. Unlike the early days, survival has larger dimensions now. According to the Darwinian evolution , only the fittest survives. These days, survival is not just about food and shelter, it’s about satisfaction and freedom. Only those who possess better information survive in a society. Others are just too insignificant creatures.