In the Beginning was Information

express something of fundamental importance: The sender hassome purpose for the recipient. The purpose of a promotional sloganis that the manufacturing firm can have a good turnover for theyear. In the New Testament John mentions a completely differentpurpose for his information: “I write these things to you whobelieve in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know thatyou have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). We conclude that some purposeis pursued whenever information is involved.We now realise that any piece of information has a purpose, andhave come to the last and highest level of information, namelyapobetics (the teleological aspect, the question of the purpose;derived from the Greek apobeinon = result, success, conclusion).The term “apobetics” is introduced by the author in 1981 [G4] toconform to the titles of the other four levels. For every result onthe side of the recipient there is a corresponding conceptual purpose,plan, or representation in the mind of the sender. The teleologicalaspect of information is the most important, because itconcerns the premeditated purpose of the sender. Any piece ofinformation involves the question: “Why does the sender communicatethis information, and what result does he want to achievefor or in the recipient?” The following examples should elucidatethis aspect:– The male bird calls a mate by means of his song, or he establisheshis territory.– Computer programs are written with a purpose (e. g. solutionof a set of equations, inversion of matrices, or to manipulatesome system).– The manufacturer of chocolate A uses a promotional sloganto urge the recipient to buy his brand.– The Creator gave gregarious insects a pheromonal languagefor the purpose of communication, for example to identifyintruders or indicate the location of a new source of food.– Man was gifted with a natural language; this can be used forcommunicating with other people, and to formulate purposes.– God gives us a purpose in life through the Bible; this is discussedmore fully in Part 3 of this book.Examples of questions concerning apobetics, are:76