Post 9 - Imperfection Necessities

In Information by Joseph Stiglitz, many important points are raised. One interesting notion is the idea of perfect versus imperfect information. "efficiency, full employment of resources, and uniform prices" are all things he lists under assumptions made about the concept of perfect information. Interestingly, he also makes several points about how certain things would simply not run without the information, such as arbitrage and equity. Without differences in price, profits could not be made, and without imaginary money within credit, a good deal of our transactions would simply not BE today.

Much of the world, I feel, operates on the basis of imperfect principles encapsulated within an idea of perfect principles. Copyright laws are made and are accepted based on the the idealized concept of intellectual property, like many laws. However, there are arguably many flaws in the definitions, and there is no perfection in making a definition that consolidates every individual's preconceived notions.

What really is an individual's work, what constitutes "rights" or protected information is all up in the air, and there is no perfect way to define it. In The Economy of Ideas by Perry Barlow he makes the point that "no clear cultural agreements define what a crime might be." One might argue that it's important for offenders to be punished for crimes, but that statement has been the debate of centuries of court trials.  "In a more perfect world, we'd be wise to declare a moratorium on litigation, legislation, and international treaties in this area until we had a clearer sense of the terms and conditions of enterprise in cyberspace. Ideally, laws ratify already developed social consensus" (Barlow). However, we do not live in a perfect world, and thus have to operate towards the perfection within confines of imperfect systems.


"Information is an activity.
Information is a life form.
Information is a relationship" (Barlow).

Information is defined based on how we attribute meaning to data, and that perception of attribution differs from person to person. General concepts have to be made on an abstract perfection to achieve communication, much like the functional economy discussed by Stiglitz, but everything about those concepts and how they operate is based in imperfection, fluctuation, and differences.

Imperfection is necessary based on our human nature, and also due to the previously discussed concepts of information in communication. "Perfection is God's business." Without meaning, data is not information, it is gibberish and communicates nothing, or very little. Consensus operates on agreed upon meanings, and conglomerates information into communicable formats. Much the way our computer protocols encapsulate data and run it in a way to create meaning on the internet, so too does the imperfection of information.