Information processes in wildlife are much more common than it might seem at first glance. Falling leaves in autumn, germination of flowers in spring and other familiar phenomena are associated with them. The ability to store, transmit and receive information is one of the features of living matter. Without it, normal metabolism, adaptation to environmental conditions, learning, and so on are impossible. Information processes in inanimate nature also exist, but they differ in several features and, first of all, act as a measure of the system's orderliness.
Omnipresent information
What is information? To date, there are several options for defining this term. Each science that deals with information (all sections of knowledge belong to this category) uses its own understanding. It is rather difficult to derive a general definition. Intuitively, each person understands information as some information and knowledge about the surrounding world. In the mathematical sciences, data obtained by inference and after solving certain problems are added to them. In physics, information is a measure of the orderliness of a system, it is the opposite of entropy and is inherent in any material objects. In philosophyit is defined as an intangible form of movement.
Properties
In most formulations, information reduces uncertainty by providing information about the world around it and helping to bring the system into one of many states. This is easy to understand by analyzing the decision-making process. A person often cannot make a choice between several behaviors until he receives additional information about the situation. In order for the information to lead to the correct decision, it must have a set of characteristics, such as:
- clarity;
- utility;
- fullness;
- objectivity;
- credibility;
- relevance.
The concept of information process
All the diverse actions that can be performed with information are called information processes. These include receiving and searching, transmitting and copying, organizing and filtering, protecting and archiving.
Information processes in wildlife are found literally at every step. Any organism, unicellular or multicellular, constantly receives information about the environment, which leads to various changes in behavior or internal environment. Without the collection, processing and storage of information, it is difficult to imagine the life of any creature. The simplest example is human thinking. At its core, it is nothing more than a process of constant processing of information about the environment, the state of the body, andalso information stored in memory, and so on.
Information system
All examples of information processes in nature occur within a certain system. It includes three components:
- transmitter (source);
- receiver (recipient);
- communication channel.
The transmitter can be any organism or environment. For example, the contraction or expansion of the pupil occurs under the influence of light. The source of information in this process is the space around a person or animal. The recipient in this case will be the retina.
A communication channel is a medium that ensures the delivery of information. In this capacity, a sound or visual wave can act, as well as oscillatory movements of a medium of a different nature.
Basic Information Processes
The whole set of actions that can be performed with information is combined into several categories:
- transmission;
- storage;
- gathering;
- processing.
Computer is a great example of the flow of information processes. He receives data and, processing them, gives the necessary information or changes the operation of the system, searches for the necessary facts according to specified criteria, serves as a source, then a receiver of information. The prototype of the computer is the human brain. It also constantly interacts with the information flow, however, the processes taking place in its depths are many times more complex than those inherent in the machine.
Some nuances of information transmission
As mentioned above, information processes in nature proceed in a system consisting of a source, a channel and a receiver. In the process of transmission, data in the form of a set of signals through the channel gets to the recipient. At the same time, the physical meaning of the signals is often not identical to the meaning of the message. An agreed set of rules and conventions is used to correctly interpret the information. They are necessary for the same understanding of the content of the message at all stages of working with it. Such rules include decoding Morse code and other similar systems, rules for reading road signs, alphabets, and so on.
On the example of any language, it is easy to see that the meaning of information depends not only on the characteristics of the signals, but also on their location. In this case, the meaning of the same transmitted message each time may be slightly modified depending on the characteristics of the recipient. If information is transmitted to a person, their interpretation is determined by various factors, from his life experience to the physiological state. In addition, the same message can be transmitted in different ways, using different alphabets, language systems or communication channels. So, you can focus on something with the help of the inscription "Attention!", Using red or a few exclamation marks.
Noise
The study of information processes includes the study of such a thing as noise. It is believed that if the message does not carryuseful information, it carries noise. In this way, not only information that is absolutely useless from a practical point of view can be determined, but also messages consisting of signals that the recipient is not able to interpret. Noise can also be called data that has lost its relevance. That is, any information over time or due to various circumstances can turn into noise. The reverse process is no less probable. For example, a text in Icelandic will be useless to a person who is not familiar with it and becomes meaningful if a translator or dictionary appears.
Man and Society
Information processes in society are not fundamentally different from those at other levels of the organization. The storage, transmission and processing of information in society is carried out through special social institutions and mechanisms. One of the functions of society is the transmission of knowledge. It is provided by the transmission of information from generation to generation. In a sense, this process is similar to copying hereditary material.
Information processes in society ensure its cohesion. The lack of transfer of accumulated knowledge, including about norms and laws, leads to the division of a single formation into individuals acting only on the basis of biologically embedded prerequisites.
Storage and processing
In a society, as in a separate organism, it is difficult to imagine the transfer of information without its storage. Databases, libraries, archives and museums contain a huge amount of information. Often beforetransfer them to students, teachers are engaged in information processing. They classify, filter data, select individual facts according to the curriculum, and so on.
History knows several cardinal changes associated with the processing of information and led to an increasing accumulation of knowledge. Such information revolutions include the invention of writing, printing, computers, the discovery of electricity. The invention of the computer was a logical consequence of the accumulation of knowledge. The computer is able to contain and process huge amounts of information, save them and transmit them without loss.
Wildlife phenomena: examples of information processes
Information coming from the environment can be perceived not only by people. Animals and plants, individual cells and microorganisms pick up signals and react to them in one way or another. Leaves fall in autumn and shoots grow in spring, a dog adopts a certain pose when an opponent approaches, releases the necessary substances into the cytoplasm of an amoeba … All these phenomena of wildlife are examples of changes in the system after information has been received.
In the case of plants, the environment becomes the source of information. The transfer of information is also carried out between tissue cells. The animal world is characterized by the exchange of information from individual to individual.
One of the key moments in wildlife is the transmission of hereditary information. In this process, it is possible to isolate the source (DNA and RNA),an alphabet with a set of rules for reading it (genetic code: adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine), information processing stage (DNA transcription) and so on.
Cybernetics
The theme "Information processes" is one of the leading topics in cybernetics. This is the science of management and communication in society, wildlife and technology. Norbert Wiener is considered the founder of cybernetics. The study of information processes in this science is necessary to understand the features of managing a particular system. In cybernetics, a control and a controlled object are distinguished. They communicate through direct and feedback. From the control object (for example, a person) signals (information) are sent to the controlled object (computer), as a result of which the latter performs some actions. Then, through the feedback channel, the manager receives information about the changes that have occurred.
Cybernetic processes are associated with the vital activity of any living organism. Management principles underlie both social and computer systems. Actually, the concept of cybernetics was born in the process of searching for a common approach to the analysis of the activities of living organisms and various automata and the realization of the similarity of the behavior of society and natural communities.
Thus, information processes in living nature are one of the characteristics of organisms of any level of complexity. They are supplemented by the principles of direct and feedback and contribute to maintaining the constancy of the internal environment and timely response to changes in the surrounding world. Information processes in inanimate nature (with the exception of automata created by man) proceed in one step. An important difference between them, not noted above, is that information transmitted from the source disappears from it. In wildlife and automata, this phenomenon is not observed. In the vast majority of cases, the transmitted information is still stored in the source.
The concept of the information process is used by various sciences. It can be called interdisciplinary. Information theory is applicable today to explain a variety of processes.
