information system

[My Big TOE Definition]

An information system is a set of integrated components that collectively provide for data input and output, memory and processing.

Businesses and other organizations use information systems to manage information about their products, processes, suppliers, staff, customers and other things. They also use them to provide information, knowledge and digital products to their customers and users.

Physical information systems are based on information technology (IT) infrastructure such as servers, computers and cables for the storage, processing and transmission of data.

Information, however, is more than just data – it represents the value, meaning and significance (content) of the data. That content can only be understood by a consciousness. Computers can process, store and distribute data but they cannot “understand” its meaning.

Strictly speaking, therefore, an information system must always involve consciousness, which encodes content into input data (to be communicated to others) and decodes the content of the output data others communicate to it.

In common parlance, however, even purely physical data-processing equipment is called an “IT system”. This is a useful convention because the sole purpose of IT systems is to enable human consciousness to interpret the processed data and discern its content. The involvement of consciousness is therefore implied.

Crucially, according to the definition above, an information system does not have to be physical – it can also be entirely non-physical. Consciousness, which is non-physical, can be conceived of as an information system because it has all the attributes that provide for transmitting, storing, processing and interpreting (non-physical) data. There is nothing fundamental about reality being physical or non-physical. Whether a reality frame is physical or nonphysical depends only on the observer’s perspective.

The My Big TOE model of reality is centered around the metaphor that consciousness is an evolving, self-modifying information system.

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