To speak and think of Information as a “thing” is part of a “metaphorical family” we normally use everyday. This family of metaphors has been named “communication as conduit” by Lakoff and Johnson, after its most central theme (see Metaphors We Live By). For example, consider these ordinary expressions:

• It’s hard to get that idea across to him.
• I gave you that idea.
• Your reasons came through to us.
• It’s difficult to put my ideas into words.
• When you have a good idea, try to capture it immediately in words.
• Try to pack more thought into fewer words.
• You can’t simply stuff ideas into a sentence any old way.
• The meaning is right there in the words.
• Don’t force your meanings into the wrong words.
• His words carry little meaning.
• The introduction has a great deal of thought content.
• Your words seem hollow.

This family of metaphors is at the heart of the “Bullet Theory of Communication.” This is the theory that words are “containers” for meaning shot back and forth between people like those vacuum-pipe canisters in drive-through banks and old department stores. Although my simile is a bit of a caricature, this is the basic idea behind many theories of language and philosophy of language at large today.

Although we use the idea of Information as a thing, an object, a container, all the time, it is sometimes important to remember that this is just a figure of speech, and that there is actually no information to be found, anywhere.

How can this be?

For example, suppose you’re trying to get my help in firing a mortar over the brow of a hill to hit some target or other. Imagine we’re in the army. I’m your spotter. You fire a shot, and I peer through my binoculars and say, “Bob, you missed! Aim two degrees to the right.”

It would seem as if a piece of Information has come into the world, wouldn’t it?

Let’s say, then, that in this example you don’t do anything in response. You don’t fire, you don’t change your aim. Do I know if I have informed you of anything? I do not. Has any informing gone on? It isn’t possible to tell.

So what? Well, the point of this illustration is to show that all that’s really going on when we talk of information are processes of informing and being informed. The idea of Information is just a reification of those processes.

When we turn the processes of informing into a “thing,” we lose something important: 1) we lose the idea that the criteria for information having been conveyed has nothing to do with noises my mouth makes, or the scratches I make on a piece of paper, but the behavioral outcome resulting from the interpretation by the recipient; 2) that the meaning of a piece of information only exists relative to my purpose in sending the message (pace Roland Barthes); and 3) that I can only be said to have informed you when you provide some feedback to show me that you have understood me correctly. I.e., you turn 2 degrees to the right on your next shot.

Even if you reply, “Right you are, John,” but you don’t do anything else, I still cannot be said to have informed you. Who knows what you think I said? You might have thought I said “That sodding hissed! Maimed too many trees you blight!” (well, you get the point.) Feedback is necessary for informing to happen.

In short, it useful to remember this definition of Information:

Information is encoded news of a difference that makes a difference to the sender relative to some purpose, with signature, address, and feedback.

In this example: Encoded (English), news (about your shot), of a difference (that it missed), to the sender (me), relative to some purpose (hitting the target), with signature (from me), address (to you, Bob), and feedback (you change your aim 2 degrees to the right on the next shot.)

This definition is founded on Shannon’s Information Theory, but includes insights from Weiner, Bateson, Watzlawick, and Emberling. It is very simple, but very fundamental to all of the work we do in the fields of information and communication.

* Roland Barthes: famous for his theory of the “death of the author.” To the literary theory buffs among you, I should say that I am not trying to contradict all that is good and valid in post-structuralist literary theory, only to point out that whatever literature is, it is something rather different what I am talking about here. If I say “Pass the salt,” and you interpret that as my asking you to perform a god-like extraction of all the salt in the ocean and give it to you, we’re into something else…