Keeping Found Things Found

Note to reader: this is the 3rd of 5 posts beginning with the post titled, ""No Knowledge but through Information"

...information would appear to play a pivotal role in efforts to understand both data and knowledge. In the Zins report, definitions for “data” and “information”, though distinct, frequently overlap. Likewise, definitions for “information” and “knowledge” overlap. For no participant, however, is there any evidence for an overlap between or confusion among the terms “data” and “knowledge”.

Why would we settle for data when we can have information? Or information when we can have knowledge? Discussions often reflect an implicit ordering of these terms: data < information < knowledge, i.e., information trumps data and knowledge trumps information.

While I was having dinner with friends the other evening I was again impressed by a simple observation: People love to tell stories.
The topic of conversation shifted throughout the evening – first the weather (the Seattle area had an unusual two week plus period of cold and snow before Christmas), then eating disorders, then a discussion of teachers and parents at the elementary school that our children attend. And so on.