![]() The concept of information is relevant in various contexts, including those of constraint, communication, control, data, form, education, knowledge, meaning, understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, proposition, representation, and entropy. The key characteristic of information is that it is subject to interpretation and processing. In a digital signal, bits may be interpreted into the symbols, letters, numbers, or structures that convey the information available at the next level up. For example, in written text each symbol or letter conveys information relevant to the word it is part of, each word conveys information relevant to the phrase it is part of, each phrase conveys information relevant to the sentence it is part of, and so on until at the final step information is interpreted and becomes knowledge in a given domain. ![]() ![]() ![]() Information is often processed iteratively: Data available at one step are processed into information to be interpreted and processed at the next step. Information is not knowledge itself, but the meaning that may be derived from a representation through interpretation. Whereas digital signals and other data use discrete signs to convey information, other phenomena and artefacts such as analogue signals, poems, pictures, music or other sounds, and currents convey information in a more continuous form. Any natural process that is not completely random and any observable pattern in any medium can be said to convey some amount of information. At the most fundamental level, information pertains to the interpretation (perhaps formally) of that which may be sensed, or their abstractions. Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform.
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