The trichotomy of data, information and knowledge is a classical one. Sparked by an online conversation about knowledge management, I just realized, how these terms relate to cognitive notions of perception, representation and concept:
Data are “statements accepted at face value”, given raw facts perceived by the (cognitive) system without any inference.
Information is the result of processing, manipulating and organizing data so that it represents something to the system.
Knowledge is conceptualized information, i.e. information proportioned to other concepts within the system through association and reasoning.
When a system knows, it has an understanding of the meaning of information based on functional relationships between concepts.
2169
