Just a few thoughts on the DIKW framework, which often appears in discussions on data and information architecture / management. To my mind, there is something quite deep about it, but also because it is so gnomic, it can be presented in an undergraduate ( freshman ) kind of way, as though each part is connected to the other like rooms via hallways, but I feel that these terms are connected in a different way. A way that is grounded in a deeper ontological point of view. – a thought. an analogy.

Data is to Information as the Clay is to the Statue.

The statue is made out of the clay. Can we think of Information as being made of data ? One takes data, manipulates it, transforms it, and finally produces information. This ‘formation’ is a process which adds value. It is a process that guides the material into a higher form. The clay becomes something more than just clay, but it is still nevertheless composed only of clay. The difference between the raw clay and the statue lies in what has happened to the clay – what the sculpture has done to the clay. It makes sense to me to consider the data/information relationship in the same way. The data which we collect is transformed by us into useful information. It is what we do to the data we collect that alters it.

If we consider data as the material with which the information is made, then we can imagine the same data being re formed to create other information ? Similarly, one can imagine different data used to produce the same information.  Similarly, the data is in the information in the same way as the letter is in the ink. the letter is made of ink… No ink, no letter. No data, no information. A similar relationship holds in the phenomenon of spoken language. in the the distinction between the acoustic, phonetic, and phonological.  How the voice is in the sound, and the word is in the voice. So what is the essence of data and of information ? Does this analogy help, or does it make the problem more obscure ?

There is a materiality to data, but the data is not itself matter. It is the inscription of a message into a medium, but it is not itself the medium. Data itself is something one does to matter, to the medium that hosts the message. This works against my initial idea of the statue-clay analogy, but I suspect that this is a transitional concept, and that the thing that resonates with me regarding this analogy will persist, even if the initial analogy fails in the end. Consider that when data is moved from one location to another it does not actually move. We speak of it moving but this is just a convenience of language. It is read from one place and written to another place – and possibly another medium. And we say that it is the same data in both places; That the data has been replicated; That there are two copies of the same data – even if one is encrypted and the other not. Or even if they are different formats provided they can be transformed into each other. What is the ontological status of such an entity ? s data just a property of matter –  a mode ? – the way some medium is ? If so, then how could two distinct mediums contain the same data, and yet differ in their structure ? This whole problem feels as though it will spin for ever and be as unproductive as the centuries of discussion on universals and particulars…. But at the same time, it feels as though there is a lot more concealed in functional thinking generally. Ironically, I suspect that the solution will come not from the domains of pure theory, but from the applied sciences, the post disciplinary pursuits that try to get around the constraints of the previous distinctions…. but.. Heidegger – as we proceed, the oldest of the old comes forth to meet us.

I have thought a bit about how knowledge and wisdom are implicated in such as scheme, but will address this at a later point.