Your restatement placed ethical values
on a proposition that is pre-ethical because its
data, in this proposition, is not assembled far enough to be a true or false description of anything, but only an investigation of possible
guidelines in information science.
Information consists of assembled data.
There ar some problems with having no rules about
information which can be identified even before
arriving at a particular case. Among these are
ironies about truth and falsehood.
If by "true" we mean "accurately corresponding to patterns established by rigorous logic or to patterns accurately observed/measured in the physical universe"

Then we are still faced with the question
of "in what degree is the correspondence or observation accurate and true?"
IN our real world conversations,
information can be considered, in some degree, false even if internally consistent and assembled from accurately reported data if it is incomplete. Information can be also be considered, in some degree, true even if some of its constituent parts are inaccurate. In neither case are we testifying that inaccuracy or falsehood are therefore needed. We don't have to take a position on truth and falsehood to discuss what Dr. Dick was saying about patterns of information.
Truth and falsehood are not useful terms in information science, math or management unless restrictions are defined...for example unless the margin of error is defined and the level of required precision is defined. And by the way, my reference to Dr. Dick, in a recent post, getting his extra diplomas from the Wizard of Oz was neither true nor false. It was metaphorical fun for illustration purposes only. I had not taken any potshots at him as he has toward me, and I knew he'd have to wonder if I ever would.

In advance:
Harvard guy, that is not pertinent.

• caught me again - sagefr0g - May 20, 2003 - 00:03 UTC
  • Apologies: applying value judgements before decoding is fallacy - something - May 20, 2003 - 04:38 UTC