“It depends”. That is an accurate way to the answer to the questions “What information is useful?” and “How should I communicate this information?”. Why? Because information is relative.
This post summarizes, and expands upon, a recent article by Dave Gray at his Communication Nation Blog.
DIKW Theory
First, what is Information? According to Data Information Knowledge Wisdom Hierarchy (DIKW), Information is Data that has been organized to provide meaning – usually answering questions such as “who?”, “what?”, “where?”, and “when?”. Information is useful because it contains relational connections between, otherwise insignificant, Data.
Pieces of Information are the fundamental building blocks for true meaning, understanding, and decision making, but they are not sufficient. According to DIKW, the next level of understanding and connection is Knowledge. Knowledge is essentially information that has been integrated into our minds, memory, and body. “Memorization” comes to mind and along with it, unpleasant memories of grade school. Nevertheless, Information can never be useful if it isn’t somehow committed into a person’s mind or body.
The ultimate level is Wisdom. To truly have understanding where there was no understanding before, to be able to judge right from wrong, and to derive value, one must have Wisdom. Moving from Knowledge to Wisdom is the most interesting part of this theory (for me), and as you may have guessed, the relativity of information comes into play.
Information Relativity
What does Information relativity have to do with Wisdom? Information relativity comes into play because Wisdom is highly personal. Derivation of value, judgment, and personal understanding are all unique [or relative] to individuals and situations. There are many factors that contribute to this relativity – I am going to call them “relativistic factors”, but this is something that I am making up because I have no better way to describe the concept (any help on this?).
The relativistic factors include, but certainly are not limited to, (1) values, beliefs, culture, etc., (2) context, (3) personal experiences, and (4) expectations of the future. It is clear that these factors are highly variable from person to person, yet all can fundamentally impact Wisdom. Therefore, it is entirely possible for two people to be exposed to the same collection of Information and absorb the same Knowledge, yet the Wisdom obtained by these two people may be different. The result of this could be different decisions being made in similar circumstances or a different understanding of the “truth”. Why would there be so many different opinions out there if this was not the case?
This is why the relativity of information is so important.
As an example, consider the following image which has shown up in many texts and courses over the years:
People usually see one of two women in this picture. One is an old woman and the other is a young woman. How can people see two different women in the same picture? Information is interpreted differently because people are different, and different conclusions are drawn as a result.
Implications
To be truly useful, Information must be used to create Wisdom. Here are two scenarios to illustrate the relativity involved in this process:
(1) Wisdom Communication
Wisdom communication is the scenario where you attempt to enlighten others by communicating your understanding of a particular subject. This is the scenario explained by Dave Gray in his post “Towards a Theory of Information Relativity“. Instead of paraphrasing, here is a direct quote from his essay:
So I propose the beginnings of a theory of information relativity
1. All information is relative, and it’s always relative: relative to the observer and the observer’s point of view; relative to the culture and its values; relative to the situation; relative to what has come before, and to what will come next.
2. The value of information is always relative because it is directly related to it’s usefulness, which depends on the user, the context and the situation.
3. Information design must therefore be driven by the context within which it will be experienced. Information design must serve the needs of real human beings doing real things. Information wants to be used.
At its heart, information design is about change. It’s about increasing the amount of useful information in the world. Good information design should result in changes to understanding – increases in knowledge and wisdom – which can be directly measured by observable changes in human behavior.
Said another way, communicators must seek to understand how relativistic factors will impact the transfer of Information and the transformation of that Information into Wisdom. They must adapt their Information to account for things like the current context, the beliefs of those to whom they are communicating, and their audience’s experience. Conversely, they must also consider how the same factors will impact their own understanding. Relativity works both ways.
(2) Wisdom Creation
Wisdom creation is the scenario where you have to sort through the vast universe of available Information, commit some of the more useful bits into Knowledge, and then extract and create Wisdom from it. Once again, the most useful Information – the pieces that will lead to true Wisdom – is relative to the situational context, your values/beliefs/culture, your experience, and your expectations of the future.
The relativity of Information makes Wisdom creation very difficult. Most Information does not come with footnotes explaining the context in which is was generated or the personal experiences of the person who generated the Information. Therefore, it is up to you (the person attempting to create Wisdom) to seek Information sources that have relativistic factors clarified, or you must fill in the blanks by seeking a variety of Information sources and synthesizing to the point where relativistic factors are minimized. The latter is most common.
This needs more explanation, but I will leave that to another post after I have had a chance to think more about this. I will finish with another example from the art world …
Cubism
The following cubism painting from Georges Braque communicates a lot of discrete pieces of Information – in this case you could call them “cubes”. These pieces of Information alone do not mean very much, but the entire collection does represent something. Assume that we are seeking the Wisdom of knowing what this picture represents. One, or two, or three pieces of Information may not be sufficient, but a couple of them are particularly important. The piece illustrating guitar strings adds a lot of context – there is a musical instrument. The lips also give us some important Information – this is a woman. And so on. Ultimately, we are able to figure out that this is a woman playing a guitar, but only because we are able to take context from one piece of Information and apply it to another. This is a simple example, but I believe it shows Information relativity at work.
If anyone has any ideas related to this concept, or additional sources I should read, please share!
