In the Beginning was Information

– What meaning is contained in the information being formulated?– What information is implied in addition to the explicit information?– What means are employed for conveying the information(metaphors, idioms, or parables)?b) Concerning the recipient:– Does the recipient understand the information?– What background information is required for understandingthe transmitted information?– Is the message true or false?– Is the message meaningful?Theorem 13: Any piece of information has been transmitted bysomebody and is meant for somebody. A sender and a recipientare always involved whenever and wherever information is concerned.Comment: Many kinds of information are directed to one singlerecipient (like a letter) and others are aimed at very many recipients(e. g. a book, or newspaper). In exceptional cases the informationnever reaches the recipient (e. g. a letter lost in the mail).It is only at the semantic level that we really have meaningfulinformation, thus we may establish the following theorem:Theorem 14: Any entity, to be accepted as information, mustentail semantics; it must be meaningful.Semantics is an essential aspect of information, because the meaningis the only invariant property. The statistical and syntacticalproperties can be altered appreciably when information is representedin another language (e. g. translated into Chinese), but themeaning does not change.Meanings always represent mental concepts, therefore we have:70Theorem 15: When its progress along the chain of transmissionevents is traced backwards, every piece of information leads toa mental source, the mind of the sender.