Interpreting the world across a boundary

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between information and boundaries. Life depends on boundaries; but in order to survive an organism needs to make decisions based on an interpretation of the environment beyond its boundaries: it therefore needs information. Design/methodology/approach -The paper explores the evolution of physical, social and cultural boundaries and considers how they have shaped ways in which information is gathered and used. Findings -Several evolutionary developments are reviewed. The paper argues that each one has generated an additional boundary and that each new boundary has affected the information needs within it. The paper argues that all living things use information to help address three fundamental concerns: "Where can the energy needed to stay alive be found?", "How can it be stored?", and "How can use of energy be reduced?" Because these questions are fundamental at a biological level they are also fundamental at a societal level. One way to increase energy efficiency was for organisms to grow larger. This brought risks which were alleviated by the evolution of better information gathering and processing tools. Amongst these tools were the means to communicate, which afforded the evolution of social boundaries. Originality/value -This is a new perspective on a topic of growing interest in information science and demonstrates further the significance of information as a factor in the shaping of life.

On thresholds: signs, symbols and significance

“…Every semiotic threshold discussed here is always already embedded into human beings, even though they are often as invisible as the DNA that form us, the bacteria and viruses that inhabit us, the plants that sustain us, the insects and animals that surround us, the symbols that affect us and the other polysemiotic processes that influence us. Madden's (2004Madden's ( , 2014 work on information boundaries in evolution does not consider these relationships, so this paper provides a complementary perspective that may be more in keeping with contemporary concerns about what should be considered "significant" and whether this might be changing.…”

“…This protosemiotic threshold zone, which defines the most primitive of sign interpretation activities, including eukaryotic organisms like bacteria, generally considered to lie within the ancestral lineage of human beings, so their movement toward and away from chemical attractants may exemplify not only the first sign of any active search for energy as described by Madden (2014, p. 678) but also the visible origins of sign interpretation, the precursor to all human knowledge activities. This could offer an interesting alternative to the current focus on cognitive science in LIS, in that the human microbiome is estimated to contain between 500 and 1,000 different species of bacteria, influencing both health and behavior in its human hosts, presumably including information behavior.…”

“…Much more broadly, Madden (2004Madden ( , 2014 has highlighted the importance of boundaries as a prerequisite to life, describing the evolution of information interpretation within all living systems from the cellular to the social, and arguing that with the development of each boundary, the accompanying requirements for additional energy have been the primary impetus for new information needs. While energy is clearly essential to all functions within living systems, such a bounded view of information neglects the role of thresholds in interpretation.…”

Untitled

“…However, the different nature of individual market decisions also makes the need for information different. Sometimes information is objective and quantitative, associated mainly with data, while at other times the term is understood as subjective and qualitative (Madden, 2014).…”

A review of basic research tools without the confusing philosophy

“…It is an approach I adopted in an article exploring the link between information and biology. The article does not attempt to say what information is; instead, it begins with a description of what information does (Madden, 2014). As is often the case, it is possible to study the impact of something without having a clear understanding of its nature.…”