Bulldozer00's Blog

When raw data acquires meaning to someone or some group, it becomes actionable information. Otherwise, it’s just noise.

While reading Melanie Mitchell’s “Complexity: A Guided Tour”, one of the tantalizing questions raised by the author is: “how does raw data acquire meaning?“. I think that’s a cool question and I think the author’s answer is cool too: “data acquires meaning when, after processing, it is perceived by the observer to be connected with the observer’s survival or well being“. Ergo, because all perception is subjective, one man’s meaningless data is another man’s meaningful information. More interestingly, one man’s meaningful information is another man’s different meaningful information.