Information Research Weblog

John Holgate has drawn the attention of IR-Discuss members to the:

Plumb Visual Thesaurus developed since 1996 in the Princeton University Concept Labs. IMO it's the biggest breakthrough in semantics since Carnap invented 'intension'.

It is interesting that the VT's 'view' of the concept information comes directly from the Princetonian definition:

'a message sent and received that reduces the receiver's uncertainty' (ho hum)

but it also separates out facts/documents/data from 'selective information' (a la Shannon communication theory) and the entropy/ectropy strand beloved of the physicists.

The strange little entity labelled 'info', which is appearing more and more in biology circles is, perhaps fittingly, without a definition.

I suggest you try playing with 'knowledge' and 'experience' for good measure and see how meanings appear to have their own momentum and relationships - like in the world beyond thesauri and dictionaries.

Thanks for that, John.