Explanation
A message can arrive intact and be perfectly intelligible while being false. A repeated message may add little surprise but help confirm that the first was heard. Information therefore cannot be made one simple ladder from more data to more knowledge. Shannon’s technical question deliberately separates transmission from semantic concerns. That choice is a scope condition, not a declaration that meaning does not matter in human life. Applying a statistical measure to discourse requires saying what it measures and what it leaves unanswered. Who reports what, on which basis? News, extracts, reviews and research reports carry different commitments. A publication programme can seek exchange and further inquiry without proving every contribution correct. Editorial inclusion, circulation, assent and independent confirmation remain distinct. Traceable references enable later correction. Anonymity can protect criticism while complicating accountability; neither effect follows from a missing name alone. Historical learned periodicals are not automatically present peer-reviewed journals. Openness as an ideal establishes neither universal access nor today's review procedures.
Movement of thought
1. Specify the sense and model of information. 2. Check transmission and understanding separately. 3. Examine changed possibilities or expectations. 4. Assess truth, warrant and relevance on their own grounds.
Scientific use case
Proposed communication analysis: define separate measures for transmission success, comprehension and content accuracy. Do not substitute a count of messages or words for any of these outcomes.
Example
Invented example: a school group receives “The coach leaves at nine.” It arrives without corruption and everyone understands it, but the departure is at eight. A duplicate message may confirm reception without correcting the fact. A startling fabricated message is not more knowledgeable because it is surprising.
Counterexample
High statistical uncertainty is not high truth, wisdom or literary quality. Some philosophical uses restrict information to true content; that convention must be stated rather than treated as the only ordinary usage.
Distinction
Semantics investigates meaning. Redundancy may support reliable understanding. Information structure organises given, new and focal content; it is not a statistical knowledge meter.
Effect on thought and perception
The entry interrupts the slide from availability to understanding and from novelty to warranted belief.
Resonance
A reader can feel informed yet discover that only a signal arrived; the disappointment opens a more precise question about knowing.
Etymology
Information belongs to the Latin-derived inform family. Its connection with forming does not make every later technical or semantic theory the same historical concept.
Provenance
The source dossier pairs a historical survey with selected sections of Shannon’s 1948 paper. The original’s scope is kept distinct from later broad uses; no complete mathematical verification or current human-processing estimate is claimed.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Information“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-ADD-20261020-0064. ATLAS 261, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-ADD-20261020-0064The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-20. Include your access date for precise references.
Guiding question
What has changed: a signal, an interpretation, an expectation, or warranted knowledge?
Five coordinate questions
These descriptions explain the entry. They are not controlled register values and do not generate shared register results.
- Where can the process be observed?
Invented example: a school group receives “The coach leaves at nine.” It arrives without corruption and everyone understands it, but the departure is at eight. A duplicate message may confirm reception without correcting the fact. A startling fabricated message is not more knowledgeable because it is surprising.
- What happens to the material?
Specify the sense and model of information.
Check transmission and understanding separately.
Examine changed possibilities or expectations.
Assess truth, warrant and relevance on their own grounds.
- At what level does a change occur?
The entry interrupts the slide from availability to understanding and from novelty to warranted belief.
- What temporal structure is explicitly described?
The steps offer an order of analysis, not an asserted real-time sequence of mental events. Read the particular example sequence separately from the historical development.
- How can the description be tested?
High statistical uncertainty is not high truth, wisdom or literary quality. Some philosophical uses restrict information to true content; that convention must be stated rather than treated as the only ordinary usage.
Historical context
The source dossier pairs a historical survey with selected sections of Shannon’s 1948 paper. The original’s scope is kept distinct from later broad uses; no complete mathematical verification or current human-processing estimate is claimed.
Cross-language distinction and terminology
English information is generally used as a mass noun. Its linguistic form supplies no guarantee that all items called information satisfy one epistemic definition.
Scholarly comparisons and distinctions
These entries are editorial comparison anchors for the distinctions made in this article. They are not new canonical relation edges or shared register results.
Proposed thought pathway
- Specify the sense and model of information.
- Check transmission and understanding separately.
- Examine changed possibilities or expectations.
- Assess truth, warrant and relevance on their own grounds.
An editorial exploration, not a necessary sequence of thought or experimental evidence of an effect.
Source scope and provenance
Both specialist versions are editorially accepted. The recorded scope of the reference-work research is retained; this is not a fresh full verification of every primary source. Examples and analytical steps are Atlas applications.