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SPECTRUM OF KNOWLEDGE

The hierarchical transformation of data,


information, knowledge, wisdom and enlightment

What are the elements that trigger the


transformation?

1. Intrinsic: the influence within oneself that turns


these elements into other entities on several
basis like our experience, background, education,
belief, lifestyles etc.

2. Extrinsic: the external influences that turn


these entities into other form. For example the
information that we have through reading
materials might may turn something that we are
aware of to be something that we really 1
understand its concept.
IS THERE A HIERARCHY OF DATA, INFORMATION,
AND KNOWLEDGE?
• To determine whether the transformation is hierarchical we
need to understand the concept of information, knowledge,
wisdom and enlightment in details.
• be able to understand the differences between these entities.

Knowledge and Information


A close and firm link between information and knowledge has
always existed
Distinctions between information and knowledge have been
proposed chiefly on the followings:
· Information is fragmented, particular, whereas knowledge is
structured (well-thought of), coherent (logical), and often
universal.
· Information is timely, transitory, whereas knowledge is of
enduring significance.
.

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• Information is a flow of messages, whereas knowledge is a


stock, largely resulting from the flow, in the sense that the
"input" of information may affect the stock of knowledge
by adding to it, restructuring it, or changing it in any way

• Information in the sense of telling and being told is always


different from knowledge in the sense of knowing: The
former is a process, the latter a state.

• Data are the things given to the analyst, investigator, or


problem-solver; they may be numbers, words, sentences,
records, assumptions - just anything given, no matter in
what form and of what origin.

• Information...is essentially raw data. Knowledge is


interpreted data.

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Comparison And Differences Between
Information & Knowledge
• Knowledge may be considered as storage of
information by way the information makes
changes to the structure of the knowledge.

• Information is acquired by being told, whereas


knowledge can be acquired by thinking. Thus,
new knowledge can be acquired without new
information being received.

• Neither knowledge nor information needs to be


useful or valuable to merit its designation.
People speak of "useless information" and
"useless knowledge"
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• Nor is it a requirement of normal language use that
information is correct and knowledge is true.

• When a new discovery or a new theory is announced in


newspapers and news broadcasts, this will be
information to most recipients but new knowledge to
specialists.

Data and Information


There is no need to establish either a hierarchy or a
temporal sequence in discussing data and information.
For example, consider the following three outputs:

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• a printout that gives us exactly what has been fed
into the memory of the computer

• a new arrangement of the data, after sorting


(chronological or alphabetical ordering, or selecting
on the basis of detailed instructions)

• an output different from the stored data as a result


of an analysis made by the computer using a highly
sophisticated piece of software.

Should all three printouts still be called data or


should they be referred to as information?

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• For some definers, information, to be information, has to have value.

• Sometime it is proposed that information must reduce uncertainty on


the part of those getting informed.

• Information may in the ordinary sense is received by people without


any effect on their uncertainty; and some news items may even raise
uncertainty in several aspects.

FORMS OF INFORMATION
Information touches all human activity. It comes in a multitude of
different shapes -
· speech, pictures, video,
· office work, software,
· great art and kitsch,
· invoices, music, stock prices, tax returns,

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Characteristics of Information

Information has several characteristics that


make information very different than other
commodities:
1. It is reproducible. Its theft does not
deny it to the original owner.
2. The cost of reproduction is low.
3. It can be transported easily.
4. Its lifetime can be brief.
5. Its value is not additive.
6. Etc (as you have been taught in your
previous semester)

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Conveying Information

We have also created many ways of conveying


information,
• newsprint pages to postal systems to telephone
• radio and television networks.
• Computers accept, store, process and present
information; the networks move information among
the machines they interconnect. Computers can
manipulate information far faster than people ever
will.
• But unlike people, machines almost never
understand the messages they are manipulating. To
them information is only a deceptively uniform
sequence of numbers - ones and zeros.

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Value of Information
• One suggestion is that information has economic value to people
only if it can lead then to the acquisition of tangible goods.
Therefore, value of information is a matter of form, not of amount.

• Also, value of information often depends on the preexisting form of


the receiver as on the message itself.

• Similarly, information has intangible value if it can enable them to


satisfy less tangible human desires.

• An encyclopedia publisher, for instance, will find a mailing list of


prospective buyers useful because it might increase sales.

• Watching a soap opera has value for those people who want to
experience heartrending emotions.

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• Watching a soap opera has value for those people


who want to experience heartrending emotions.
• Because information leads to goods only indirectly,
it seems reasonable to value it as a fraction of the
worth of the tangible goods to which it leads.
• Therefore the economic value of all sprawling
computer-and-network complexes may be
estimated as a fraction of the tangible goods to
which they will lead.
• Value of US computer hardware and software,
including the work needed to run computer
systems within organizations, at almost a tenth of
its GNP - roughly about $500 billion.

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• Yet because some 60 percent of the work forces


have jobs that involve information, the value of
computerized information handling may well grow
to an even larger fraction of the global economy.
• In spite of its importance, information is secondary
to people's principal needs - food, shelter, health
and human relationships

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