Cybernetics & Human Knowing - Thesaurus pilot project
Edited by M&T Thellefsen

Data

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Principia Cybernetica
International Encyclopedia of Systems & Cybernetics

 

Principia Cybernetica (web)
Plural of see DATUM

(Krippendorff)

A formally structured set of representations of INFORMATION appropriate for COMMUNICATION, interpretation, and processing. (Hornung)

Datum

(1) A material unit representing INFORMATION about a portion of the real world that can be processed by explicit procedures and maintains its characteristics during repeated use. (2) A FACT or figure transcribed in a readable LANGUAGE and on a durable medium (see CHANNEL). E.g., a completed questionnaire, a taped interview, the recorded results of an experiment.
Events that leave no physical marks cannot be traced through data and physical marks that can no longer be interpreted, e.g., because the CODE linking them to particular observations is unavailable, loose the status of data.
A datum rarely stands alone, hence the common use of its plural DATA. Science typically processes large collections of data. In statistics each datum or a collection must contain the same kind of information. (Krippendorff)

 

Encyclopedia Autopoietica
no def.

International Encyclopedia of Systems & Cybernetics
Any element of information.

G. BATESON observes: "…"data" are not events or objects but always records or descriptions or memories of events or objects. Always there is a transformation or recording of the raw event which intervenes between the scientist and his object" (1973, p.24) This is true not only for the scientist, but also for any human being. Moreover, the transformation is at least physical and, as stated again by BATESON: "…always and inevitably, there is a selection of data because the total universe, past and present, is not subject to observation from any given ob-server’s position…(and) no data are truly raw, and every record has been somehow subjected to editing and transformation either by man or by his instrument". (Ibid.) It could be added that data make sense only in contexts, acquiring different shades of meaning in different reference frames. From another angle, the meaning of the word has been subtly changed since the advent of computers. In computers, data are not only collected, but also organized in order to be retrievable according to need for information treatment.

As observed by W.W. REEVES: "Data is the specially designated electronic machine version of information. It has some structure, it may be true or not. It is not a process, but it does have the potential to render a meaning in the human observer. It lacks the human to human connection, but what is stored as data can only exist from human intervention either as input or algorith" (1992, p. 1100)