The information pyramid: a proposal (second part)

Abstract

The first part of this article was published in AIB studi, 60 (2020), n. 2, and it presented a variant of the classic DIKW (data, information, knowledge, wisdom) pyramid (or hierarchy) in which wisdom is replaced by two particular types of knowledge: consciousness and self-consciousness.

In the new DIKAS pyramid (data, information, knowledges, awarenesses, self-awarenesses) data are alternations of continuity and discontinuity in reality; information is a causal process that connects data with other data (contained in informational systems complex enough to be called ‘cognitive systems’); knowledges are the data contained in cognitive systems; awarenesses are knowledges which temporarily acquire a level of accessibility sufficient to bring out the phenomenon of subjectivity; finally self-awarenesses are awarenesses that have as their objects other awarenesses.

The DIKAS pyramid can be read both from the bottom upwards and from the top downwards, and does not consider any kind of qualitative or ethical ‘progress’ (often present in traditional DIKW pyramids) in correspondence with the steps from one to another of its layers.

The DIKAS pyramid is compatible with various metaphysical theories on the relationship between body and mind, including materialistic reductionism, emergentism and neutral monism. Two ‘informational’ variants of neutral monism are presented, which can be summarized respectively with the formulas ‘it and id from bit’ and ‘it and bit/id from x’. Anyway, the DIKAS pyramid tries to provide a contribution to the philosophical problem of the relationship between objective and subjective, thanks to the key role assigned to an intrinsically two-faced concept – especially if interpreted as a dynamic process and not as a static entity – such as that of information, which acts as an intermediary between the objectivity of data and the subjectivity of consciousness.