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Information

24 Examples of Information

John Spacey, updated on April 28, 2024

Information is meaning that can be transmitted, communicated, processed, recorded or understood. The following are common examples of information.

Sensory Information

Humans interpret the universe with senses such as vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This is our link with the external world. In theory, if these are simulated, inaccurate or incorrect our interpretations may be wrong.

Biological Information

Information is found in the building blocks of biology such as DNA. Likewise, biological processes such as control of the body by the central nervous system involves the rely of information.

Imagination

The human imagination can generate information such as a story that can be communicated and used in thought processes.

Concepts

Concepts are thought abstractions that differ from concrete reality. For example, a concept such as liberty that is completely intangible such that it has no direct physical manifestation.

Universal Concepts

Concepts that appear to be universal such that they aren't invented by a particular culture but are some description of realities that are described by many cultures. For example, a concept such as love is an inherent emotion people feel and wasn't invented by anyone.

Social Constructs

Concepts that are invented by a particular society. For example, the idea of communism that was constructed by academics such as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels .

Knowledge

Information as it exists in the human mind such as a carpenter with the know-how to install a floor. The term knowledge can also be used for information that is designed for human consumption such as a book.

Tacit Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is a human talent that is only generated with experience such that it can't be learned from a book. For example, learning to play ice hockey from experience in practice and games.

Data

Information that is designed for machines and systematic analysis. For example, a database of weather readings that has been collected from electronic sensors across a country and in space.

Known Unknowns

Knowing what you don't know is a type of information. This can be used to explain the Dunning–Kruger effect whereby beginners tend to overestimate their knowledge and experts tend to underestimate their knowledge -- the more you know, the more you recognize unknowns.

Unknowns

There are many things that human civilization doesn't know and may never know. For example, we don't know much about the nature of dark matter despite the fact this accounts for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe.

Information Hazards

Information that is likely to be dangerous or harmful in the wrong hands. For example, a design for a self-destruct button for the universe that can be constructed from common household materials.

Personally Identifiable Information

Information that can be directly or indirectly tied to a person. This is relevant to privacy ethics and rules. For example, an order number that could be easily matched to an address and name.

Confidential Information

Information that an entity such as an institution or organization has good reason not to disclose. For example, a trade secret that is key to the competitive advantages of a firm.

Lost Information

As with the universe itself, information tends to entropy such that it moves towards disorder until it is unrecoverable and unknowable. For example, an unrecorded conversation that occurred at the corner of Broadway & Canal Street in New York City on August 1st, 1970 that nobody remembers now.

Event Horizon

An event horizon is information that may exist that can never reach an outside observer. For example, even pure energy such as light can't escape the gravity of a black hole such that it is probably impossible to detect anything that occurs inside a black hole.

Intelligence

Intelligence is the ability to build upon various raw information to create new meaning. For example, an artist who is able to create a visual work that expresses something that draws emotion and interest from audiences.

Information Synthesis

Building information from other information by logical processes such as inference and critical thinking. For example, a reader who is able to identify the key themes in a story.

Misinformation

Misinformation is information that is incorrect. This can be due to a mistake of logic or facts. For example, it is common misconception that there are only three primary colors when in fact there are many different sets of primary colors used by different color systems.

Disinformation

Disinformation is deliberate misinformation such as propaganda designed to push an agenda.

Anti-Information

Anti-information is incorrect or useless information that gets in the way of communication and research. This includes misinformation, low quality information and noise such as data rot.

Situated Knowledge

Information that can't be separated from its context and viewpoint. For example, an opinion about a sailboat design that originates with a sailor who is in the boat as it sinks.

Dispersed Knowledge

Knowledge that exists but not in a single place. For example, 3 witnesses to an accident who together have enough information to determine its cause without any one of them knowing the cause.

Asymmetric Information

A situation where some people have better information than others. For example, trading in a stock where insiders have heard rumors that earnings were extremely good in a quarter.

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Assumptions

Confidential Information

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