Information Technology

Information is knowledge as capital. That is, information is knowledge that can be assigned a monetary value. It can be used to accomplish some task or to gain an advantage. It can be sold, purchased, traded, exchanged, gifted, guarded, stolen, borrowed, banked on, deposited, mortgaged, or even wasted. Information is, in short, a form of wealth.

There are other forms of knowledge, but more of this another time. . .

Technology is mostly information. It consists of patents, copywrites, procedures, algorithms. It is as important to know how to make something, how to get something done as it is to actually make it. Technology comes from two Greek words "Techne" and "Logos." Techne is a term that encompasses all that is made, that is not self originating as are things in nature (phusis). Logos in its oldest sense means to arrange or order. As such it came to mean language--the ordering of letters, syllables, words--and science--the ordering of thoughts. So, technology is the logic or the ordering (the procedures, processes, recipes) of things made.

(Information by the way, consists of two Latin words and an English suffix. "In" is a Latin prefix, "forma" means shape, together they mean to give shape to. The "tion" is an English suffix that turns a verb into a noun so that Information is that which has been given shape.)

Together information technology is about knowing the ways to give shape to, the ways to create, manipulate, use, and secure knowledge that has monetary value.

It would take a book to justify these quick definitions.

Anyway today I work again on Chapter nine adding text to explain all those screen shots.