2 Cognitive Information and Knowledge Processing

Neither does knowledge consist of a mysterious physical substance called information, which is arbitrarily transferred back and forth between differently structured systems, nor do these systems simply store knowledge, nor does it make sense to regard knowledge and information as raw materials or even commodities. Knowledge generates, by cognitive and communication means, the framework of meaning for the phenomena we encounter in the world.

Jürgen Riethmüller32

2.1 Dimensions of Information

The concept of information knows many fields of reference and contexts of use. Information plays a role in cognitive psychology, media and communication theory, information technology, and biology, among others. Today, it is no longer clear whether it is still “one” concept with “one” core meaning, or whether it has already become a homonym with different meanings. A common “core” meaning is at best still recognizable etymologically or metaphorically.

Information Theory

Just as information technology has become more and more influential, the idea that information is something measurable and quantifiable has also become more important. This idea traces back to the research of Shannon and Weaver, who studied the properties of signal transmission in communications already in the 1940s.33 In their well-known information theory, the possibilities and limitations of the transmission of information are explored, including conditions when channels are noisy or bit patterns are not completely transmitted. Information theory uses mathematical methods, in the sense of probability interpretation, to calculate the content level of a transmitted information. The theory is not making any statement about a single message, or a single piece of information, or the isolated state of an information system, and certainly not about its meaning. Rather, it always looks at multiple states of the system and makes statements about the transition from one state to another. The goal is to minimize the effort required to successfully transmit information while maximizing the probability of sending it without errors. The digital world of global networks that we live in would be inconceivable without information theory.

Thus, it seems obvious to apply the information-theoretical inventory of sender, receiver, and message transmission to human communication as well. Very quickly, however, such attempts lead to rather simplistic models, which are sometimes characterized as “pipeline metaphor”.34 According to the pipeline metaphor, the information to be sent is transmitted using language as the information carrier; in other words, communication connects two brains (“containers”) via the transport system of language. Successful communication thus requires the correct encoding of information into speech on the side of the sender and the correct decoding of information from speech on the receiver’s side. Other influencing factors are not significant for the process.

What the model of the pipeline metaphor suggests is that there is a substance “information” that can be extracted from cognitive structures, transmitted more or less without loss, and then reloaded into other cognitive structures.

However, in our view, it is an unacceptable simplification to regard information as a quantifiable substance and to treat information transmission merely as a transport problem. The following example will illustrate that the pipeline metaphor ignores essential factors; in particular, it disregards the importance that context has for any kind of encoding/decoding of information. A schematic drawing is to be made to describe a route from the central station to the theater in a foreign city. On a city map, this could look something like in Figure 2.1. By specifying the sequence of digits

1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0

with the meaning

1 = turn right

0 = turn left

the route from the station to the theater can be fully described. Without the specified context, though, the sequence of digits “10111100” is meaningless or at least open to interpretation, i.e., based on a different reference model, a completely different message could be transmitted with the same sequence of digits.

Fig. 2.1: Route from the central station to the theater.

Information in other Related Fields

In addition to the communications-technical or information-theoretical scope of the concept of information, there are other fields of reference, each of which has its own understanding of information.35 The most important are:

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  The historical dimension (creating, teaching, conceptualizing), which can also be understood as an etymological derivation of the word information. This dimension is made use of when the goal is to trace the supposed roots of the concept of information.

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  The colloquial dimension (information understood as: message, news) with all its manifestations in the modern media landscape. One characteristic of this understanding, for instance, is to coin a motto such as “information not entertainment”.

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  The information technology dimension with its extension to so-called information processing within computer science, up to its use in knowledge databases in the context of big data or artificial intelligence.36 This dimension has been largely responsible for the quantification of information as well as for ascribing a material value to it and viewing it as a commodity.

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  The biological dimension, which understands hereditary material (DNA) as an information carrier and responsible for the development of life37,or as the immune system with its exchange of information to fight off pathogens.

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  The communication dimension in the form of the exchange of information between communication partners (human-human, human-medium, or human-machine).

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  The cognitive dimension of human information processing, including the intake of information by the senses and its subsequent processing in the brain.

The consideration of information as a commodity and as an economic good is omitted here.38 It should nonetheless be added that the gathering and exploitation of information plays a central role in other areas as well, for example in police investigative work or in the world of intelligence services.39

When looking at the cognitive dimension of information, it is interesting to note that the term “information”, when used without any further given context, always refers to its cognitive understanding, perhaps supplemented by media- and communication-oriented aspects. The concept of information as a whole is in a field of tension between various aspects:

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  capability to objectify (data aspect);

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  possibility of media storage (substrate aspect);

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  linkage to thought processes (cognition aspect);

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  linkage to a communication-related consensus and a binding interpretation attached to it (communication aspect).

Our discussion of the dimensions of the concept of information shall be concluded with a small thought experiment, establishing a connection between information, ordered states and an information content related to them: 100 different screws are in a box and it is assumed that there is a common understanding of the information content of this state: screws, different ones, unsorted, in a container (box). If the same screws were well sorted in a screw organizer box, for example sorted by length, thickness, material and head type, this condition would be attributed a significantly higher information content—at least when searching for a specific screw.

This raises the question: Is there a dependency between the information content and the state of order in which the information is presented? This view is held by many who see information as the antithesis of entropy (a measure of the level of information content). And does even the type of objects matter? Assuming this, would the relationship between state of order and information content also apply to books, for example? Which of the following states of order would then be ascribed a higher or lower information content?

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  arrangement by the height of the spine;

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  arrangement by color of the cover;

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