Theoretically, we live in a world powered by information. In fact, some would say that the means by which we can effortless share, create, manipluate (and, of course, distort) information are transforming nearly every aspect of our lives.
But do you ever feel like I do, that sometimes the debate on this amazing phenomenon focuses more on the superficial-- the interesting but transient evidence we see around us-- rather than the 'nature of the beast' itself? After all, what exactly is 'information'? Where does it come from? Is is matter-- finite in quantity, and owning weight and mass? Is it like energy-- free of limitations of matter, capable of spanning the universe in seen and unseen ways? Can it truly be created? Destroyed?
And most importantly, what are the underlying, tectonic changes in our personal worldviews that can come about when we truly understand and grasp the nature of information and its place in the universe?
I work for a company (EMC Corporation) who's business is in helping customers store, protect and leverage information, often at massive scale. Our very mission is founded in the idea that information has value-- that it can be managed like any other asset: collected, shared, bought, sold, improved. Surrounded by that task every day, I started a while back to think about the underlying nature of information itself, and how the digital revolution we all see around us fits into the larger nature of information and into the universe as it existed before all these ones and zeros started piling up.
With this blog, I will share my ideas and my musings about information-- and invite you to do the same. Hopefully I can challenge some conventional ideas about information, and about the uniqueness and nature of our digital revolution. I hope you will challenge my ideas as well. And I hope that together we can explore one of the most important, but little-inspected, phenomonon in our world today.
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