Concept of social information
From the perspective of the information approach, social information should include information models that determine the desire, fear, intentions, information and real actions of individuals in relation to the human (social) environment; integration of these models in social systems of varying size and complexity; reflection of the integrated complexity of the social model in individual consciousness. This is followed by the correction of social models, both at the lower and at the upper levels of information - people change their behavior depending on the change of ideas, laws, rules, and the change of ideas, laws, rules occurs taking into account the changed behavior of people.
Low-level social information represents models of desire, fear, intention, informational and real action of one person in relation to another person. What one person wants to convey to another person, how to convey it and the fulfillment of intentions through informational and real action is only one side of the exchange processes occurring between two people. The other side of the exchange processes will be information about what this person expects from another person as his desire, his fear, his intention, his informational and real action. Such an exchange of social information is the control of a person by a person (in explicit or implicit forms).
Since people are united in groups, there is group social information - social information of the family, nation and universal social information. Accordingly, there is a desire, fear, informational intention and real action of the family, nation, humanity as a whole.
Actually, desire, fear, intention, informational and real action are social information in the description using certain information means. In their real existence, these phenomena receive a different and different status as an information act of the form: “model - reality - answer (YES or NO).”
Thus, desire is a psychological phenomenon, as a certain property of an individual, as a feeling of some kind of “need” by an individual. Fear is a feeling of possible danger from the external environment that threatens the life and freedom of the individual, family, nation, and all humanity.
Intention is also a psychological phenomenon, but more formalized in the form of a “need”, when both the goal and a possible set of means for realizing the goal for an individual are clear.
An information action is an announcement of intent. But real action is the implementation of intentions, the implementation of models for transforming the social environment to achieve a goal by the same individual in the form of an information act. At this level of the individual (I), psychological information is studied by psychologists and described in the specific language of psychology. The extent to which psychology does this adequately to the actual motives of human activity will be reflected at the level of consideration of social information.
At the level of social information, psychological information is transformed into the interaction of many, at least two individuals, and receives different designations for the quantities of social action, a different dimension and a different language of description, although “at the junction” of these different sciences the interpenetration of terms is possible. Most people are guided in social interactions by “common sense,” in which scientific social information occupies a very modest place. Actually, “common sense” should be understood as genuine social information, since the entire course of people’s lives is determined by it, and not by the degree of familiarity with scientific knowledge, even where scientific knowledge constitutes a significant component of “common sense.”
Within each group, social information has a different potential for “tension” of information processes - family members have different status and subordination with different degrees of responsibility; the nation is divided into social strata with their own specific information; universal information turns out to be integrated, composed of national information blocks; and this whole structure is permeated with individual human information with the individual potential of wanting, fearing, intending and acting.
Social information, thus, turns out to be a very complex construct, the complexity of which is explained not only by the complexity of the relationship between, in Hegel’s words, the particular and the universal, when the particular and the universal have different dimensions, depending on the levels of this universal, but also on the very nature of social information - will it be of an extremely entropic nature, such as, for example, an unformed social idea (or lack thereof), when the need for an idea is expressed as “yearning laziness”, as an unclear desire; or will be of an extremely negentropic nature in the form of a theoretical concept, an intention to implement this concept, an instruction, a requirement, a technological map and the technological process itself in action.
Social information located in information centers of different levels of the universal is a “cast” of integrated information, including all lower levels of social information, and at the same time subject to the influence of the universal level of social information. This cast can have very different degrees of “clarity”.
An individual person has his own social experience, that is, an individual array of information, and information about the social experience of the group to which he belongs, the nation to which he belongs, information about the social experience of all humanity. Individual social experience can be assessed as entropy, as a cultural phenomenon, and measured, that is, assessed as an amount of information greater or less in comparison with the social experience of another person in a group, a nation, in all of humanity. The assessment of the cultural (information entropy) potential of an individual occurs without detail, intuitively, - the result is expressed in the form of a polar assessment: “friend or foe.”
The basis for measuring the amount of information (civilization potential) is the presence of formalized and conscious models of a person’s intentions and actions in relation to a particular information center (person, group or social institution). Such models are accepted in society by agreement as necessary, and in their completed form they constitute the concept of law. All models of social behavior - both cultural and civilizational - are polarized in relation to the universal goal of “LIVING” on the basis of “GOOD-EVIL”.
Cultural (entropy) models are not structured (continuous), and represent so-called “general” concepts, such as “beauty-ugliness”, “high-low”, “justice-injustice”, etc. Due to their universality, these models are conservative (eternal), and can never be fully filled with specific content, in relation to which they turn out to be an “information field” that polarizes the specific behavior of a social unit on the basis of GOOD-EVIL in a specific historical space-time (here-now ), but extended into the past and future and into another space. Due to their universality, these models are both perceived from the outside and transmitted to society intuitively (sensually), since the restoration of a logical structure connecting a given event with another time and another space is most often impossible.
Civilization (negentropy) models represent directive information about proper and improper behavior in a specific historical space-time and in a specific space-time of a given social unit, presented in the form of repeating (constant) demands, actions (in a family, in an informal group) or in the form of documents in social institutions (rules, instructions, laws)1.
The “information approach” presupposes the presence of duality in every single entity. Therefore, social information can be (and sometimes should be) presented as a unity of social entropy and social negentropy. The theoretical foundations for the application of the information approach to social phenomena were developed within the framework of the Brussels School, led by the Belgian scientist of Russian origin I. Prigogine.
Social entropy
Social general entropy represents a set of (n) social models and actual things that have ever existed in the past, that exist randomly (not totally) now and that exist in the description of the future throughout the entire space of human habitation. Local social entropy can be identified, which, nevertheless, has an explicit or implicit connection with general entropy.
If we are quite strict in defining the concept of “culture,” then social entropy can be identified with this concept, since culture refers to everything that is created by humanity in its social activities. Now it is difficult to imagine any natural space not affected by human (social) activity, at least in fantasies. Therefore, any interaction with natural factors turns out to be social, that is, through human mediation, as through the property of some society. From here the dimension of universal social entropy becomes clear - the infinity of time and space (limited, however, by the flight of human imagination).
Social entropy, as already mentioned, in its general concepts is polarized in relation to the universal human goal of “LIVING” on the basis of good and evil. Such polarization is generally possible only in the presence of facts of social behavior that may be in agreement with the pan-human goal or contradict it. Social experience suggests that social entropy in a certain rather large volume of space-time is filled with “good” events and “evil” events in equal measure. (Recall from information theory that entropy is maximum when the probability of opposite outcomes of an event is equal to 0.5). Human experience suggests that things created by man are destroyed over time, and the number of people born is on average equal to the number of people who died in a fairly large volume of space-time society. Thus, it should be recognized that both culture and, consequently, social entropy contain an equal number of events of GOOD and events of EVIL. (Note that, in accordance with this position of the “information approach”, the identification of culture with a benevolent principle as with unconditional good is illogical). The polarization of social entropy occurs under the influence of a sense of denial of the “natural” course of things (the action of the multiplier logpi in the information entropy formula). As soon as a person cried out: “Nooo!”, he then began to look for the opportunity to change the natural course of things with the help of such models that can prolong, either in time or in space, the existence of what he wants. This feeling of denial of the fragile past, combined with the perceived probability of achieving a goal better than before and better than others, is what is commonly called “will” - p i log p i.
Social negentropy
Social negentropy as a mathematical formula is almost identical to social entropy, but is opposite in sign and in the characteristics of “events”. Therefore, social negentropy (civilization) should include a certain number of social models, limited in the space-time of society, adopted in a given society under the influence of will by agreement, which are isolated from local social entropy (maybe even from general social entropy) as directives. Such models, when implemented, represent, in general, a “technology” of social life, filled with technical means of providing for the vital needs of people and models of their management (including scientific ones); filled with models of social connections that ensure the effective use of technical means and the employment of people in the process of producing social negentropy. Social negentropy is “embedded” in social entropy, and in their unity they represent the existence of society. The unity (consistency of two entities) of the existence of society is ensured by the presence of the universal goal “LIVE” and its consistency with the “mini-goals” of each lower-order system - family, group, firm, corporation, state, community of states. Each of the “mini-cells” is a “cast” of a universal goal and has the information potential of significance or will ( p i log p i). Therefore, in the existence of a social negentropic formation, it is possible to achieve significant information potential; so significant that the action of the universal potential turns out to be imperceptible. (For such an occasion, N. Berdyaev uttered words about the “death of culture”). But the weakening of the action of the universal potential, which is intended only to provide foresight, does not cancel the action of the second law of thermodynamics. Therefore, the achievement of “power” by a certain social system necessarily gives rise to a difference in information potentials in relation to social systems that are lagging behind in development. This difference in social information potentials is the cause of a social movement of such strength that is proportional to the difference in potentials. The forces of the social movement are directed in all directions, but the determining vector operates where the greatest difference in information potentials exists. (As a measure to counteract the exponential growth of, for example, corporations, some societies with a fairly powerful foresight potential have adopted a progressive taxation scale and antimonopoly legislation, which, together with the right of employees to demand improvements in living conditions, harmonizes the process of social development).
For an individual, being in society means a plurality (n) of opportunities to realize life’s needs. In this sense, being in society is represented by entropy, consisting of a set of events, the probability of implementation (p i) of which depends on personal will and personal skill in an environment that carries the possibility of choice - “universal freedom” - in Hegel’s words. Therefore, the value of social entropy will be greater, the more possible events it promises - more goods on the market, more jobs, more transport and information connections, etc.; ultimately, more freedom of choice. (In this sense, giving the expression “growth of social entropy” a negative assessment is illogical, since this part of social entropy is polarized by the field of GOOD).
The negentropic part of a person’s existence in society is the actual satisfaction of his vital needs by choosing from the social entropy of possibilities. A certain stable part of a person’s life needs in society is satisfied in one way or another. This means that the social model is realized with a probability close to one in the expected size of space-time. With an increase in social entropy in the external environment (for example, with an increase in the variety and quantity of goods on the market), a difference in information potentials arises between a stable individual model and the entropy of supply on the market. As a result, the individual consumer model is replaced by a model with a greater information capacity, the implementation of which may or may not occur in the actual space-time of individual existence. Such a change in the probability of implementing the modified model gives rise to a feeling of dissatisfaction. In this case, we can talk about the growth of negative social negentropy. We can also talk about the growth of negative social negentropy in the case when the probability of the implementation of the social model of a social institution (for example, a court) is “overturned” (the court makes an unjust decision).
According to the mathematical law of sign reversal, negative social negentropy is translated into space-time entropy of society, polarized by the Evil field.
Social Information Language
Social information is transmitted using various information media, which are commonly called language. It turns out that the entropic part of social information corresponds to entropic means, and the negentropic part corresponds to negentropic means. For example, a person’s entropic psychological state, referred to as “mood,” is transmitted to society through facial expressions, posture, and breathing rhythms. Songs correspond to individual moods, and fundamental pieces of music correspond to social moods. Gestures can be vague, related to “mood,” or they can indicate a direct action of protection or violence. A word in human language carries within itself a double possibility of communication. - it can denote social entropy (for example, “social justice”) and can carry extremely negentropic directive information (for example, “give”). In any case, language serves to control human beings or human masses. Two components of control can be distinguished - entropy and negentropy.
The entropy component of control refers to that property of control called “foresight” (a property of information); the negentropic component relates to direct directive control (energy, and in the limit to power).
In the family, as in an elementary social unit, the methods (and therefore the languages) of managing children are continuous - they are equally possible in the early stages of the family’s existence, then forceful methods of control, energy and information, begin to dominate.
In society, the equal possibility of control languages is also observed in the early stages of development. Then, as development progresses, which can be clearly traced by the example of the development of the West, “power” methods of control begin to dominate, then energy and, finally, information.
Forceful methods of control within society reach their apogee with the use of force machines in the production of social negentropy (means of ensuring life). In external relations, forceful methods of control most often mean seizing some space where negentropy is produced or protecting one’s own space where negentropy is produced. At this time, a new language emerges - the language of science, containing the entropy of general concepts and the negentropy of the mathematical description of physical phenomena with the dominance of the concept of force in physics.
Energy control methods begin to dominate during the period when the paradigm of force was replaced by the paradigm of energy in physics. This is a period of rapid development of capitalism in Europe and the USA. In managing the production of social negentropy, the language of money began to be used completely. The language of money turns out to be unusually convenient, since it is extremely continuous, that is, it is capable of expressing and reflecting elementary labor actions that lead to the creation of unusually large things, the comparison of the production of which with small things would be (in the absence of money) simply impossible in the process of exchange. The language of money has a double function - the function of information and the function of energy as defined as possible. The informational function of money lies in the fact that money contains information about the entropy of life, that is, information about what is required, in the words of K. Marx, for the “reproduction of labor power,” and from this requirement the average wage arises. The negentropy nature of money information about the process of production of a product is determined on the market through a huge multiplicity of information acts of purchase and sale. Thus, the information contained in money is the most complete, since it contains both the entropy of life and the negentropy of the production process. The information contained in money is potential energy until the moment the money is presented in exchange for something. As soon as money is presented for exchange for something - for goods, for labor, for information - the energy function of money begins to operate, launching (or supporting) power, energy, information processes. Since the negentropic component of money carries information about the “energy” of the production process (about labor productivity), this amount of information determines the amount of entropy of life, understood as the “free time of the worker,” which, of course, is by no means free - “reproduction of labor power” turns out to be the process of spending money, if there is enough of it for this “reproduction”, or the labor of running a household and raising children in an amateur way, if there is not enough money.
The example of the development of the West and the United States clarifies the essence of the development of society, understood from the point of view of the “information approach” as a consistent change in the phases of the dominance of power, energy and information methods of controlling a person with a change in the dominance of “languages of control”. In developing countries with undeveloped production and exchange, when the information capacity of one’s own money does not reflect the processes of production of vital goods, there cannot be conditions for the emergence of energy-based methods of managing society, since the monetary “language” of management turns out to be false and dependent on the information capacity of donor countries . As soon as the infusion of other people's money stops, the rampant inflation of one's own money "explodes" the energy management process. Attempts to contain inflation with the simultaneous “forceful” use of monetary language lead to a paradoxical delay in the launch of the economy of an undeveloped society.
In general, despite the fact that the dominance of certain languages of management in various periods of the existence of society takes the functions of other languages into the shadows, they, once they arise, continue to exist and be used irreplaceably. This especially applies to human language itself, which, although divided into many specific languages, nevertheless retains a common communicative function. Therefore, it seems certain that the information phase of the development of human society will be characterized by the dominance of human language, which will be changed in such a way as to lower the barriers between specific knowledge (religion, philosophy, science) to allow the interpenetration of knowledge from different aspects of human life. The fact is that the universal human goal “LIVE,” even if it is described mathematically, will require “deciphering” so that it can become the goal of every person.
The information period of the development of society, therefore, will represent a period of dominance of knowledge, expressed in a language understandable to everyone (with the preservation of the national composition) since, as one of the English philosophers noted back in the 18th century, “it is easy to govern an enlightened people.” General knowledge, access to which is facilitated by social conditions, undoubtedly lowers (or eliminates) social boundaries, the presence and strength of which are the source of social explosions (extreme behavior).
Concept and types of information.
Under the information (from lat. informatio- information, explanation, presentation) originally understood any information about objective reality transmitted by people orally, in writing or in another way using conventional signals, technical means, etc. From the middle of the twentieth century. information is a general scientific concept that includes: exchange of information between people, man and machine, machine and machine; exchange of signals in the animal and plant world; transfer of characteristics from cell to cell, from organism to organism, etc.
Thus, information is a capacious and essential concept of modern science, next to which another one constantly appears - data.
Data– facts, concepts, various information about people, companies, businesses, presented in a formalized form convenient for transmission, interpretation and processing by a person or computer.
The following aspects can be distinguished in the concept of information:
1) one of the three fundamental substances (matter, energy, information) that make up the essence of the universe and cover any product of mental activity, primarily knowledge, images;
2) the meaning a person attaches to data based on known conventions related to the presentation of data;
3) information not known before its receipt, which is the object of storage, transmission and processing;
4) information, data, values of economic indicators that are objects of storage, processing and transmission and used in the process of analysis and development of economic decisions in management;
5) one of the types of resources used in economic processes, the acquisition of which requires the expenditure of time and other types of resources, and therefore these costs should be included in the costs of production and circulation.
These aspects are discussed in more detail in the appendix. 1.
Information can be classified (divided into types) according to different criteria, for example:
by perception, by area of origin, by public purpose, by area of use, etc.
Classification of information by perception:
– visual – information transmitted by visible images and symbols;
– auditory – information transmitted by sounds;
– tactile – information transmitted by sensations;
– organoleptic – information transmitted by taste and smell;
– machine – information perceived and produced by computer technology.
Classification of information by area of origin:
– elementary – information reflecting processes, phenomena of inanimate nature;
– biological – information reflecting the processes of the animal and plant world;
– social – information reflecting the processes of human society.
Classification of information for public purposes:
– personal;
– mass – socio-political and popular science;
– special – scientific, technical, economic, managerial, social.
Classification of information by area of use:
– medical;
– technical;
– economic, etc.
In each of the above classifications, any species can be divided into subspecies, etc. For example, in the classification by area of use, the type of “economic information” can be distributed according to the following criteria:
– control functions;
– place of origin (control level).
Classification by control functions:
Security – a property that excludes access to it by an unauthorized user.
The following basic processes are closely related to the characteristics of information:
– Perception of information –
the process of transforming information recorded by a person or technical means from an object for the purpose of its further use.– Collection of information – the process of obtaining information from an object and bringing it to a standard form for a given information system.
– Transfer of information – delivery of data to a given address using communication and data transmission systems.
– Data processing – serial-parallel solution of computational problems in time.
– Data storage – its transfer to durable storage media (machine and non-machine).
Annex 1
MAIN ASPECTS OF THE CONCEPT OF “INFORMATION”
1. From the standpoint of philosophy, information is a reflection of the real world; it is information that one real object contains about another real object. Information itself can be categorized as abstract concepts such as mathematical ones, but a number of its features bring it closer to material objects. Thus, information can be received, recorded, erased, transmitted; information cannot come from nothing. However, when information is disseminated, a property of it appears that is not inherent in material objects: when transmitting information from one system to another, the amount of information in the transmitting system does not decrease, although it usually increases in the receiving system. If information were deprived of this property, then a teacher, giving a lecture to students, would lose information and become ignorant.
So, information is not material, but she is a property of matter and cannot exist without its material carrier- means of transferring it in space and time. The information carrier can be either a directly observable physical object or an energy substrate. In the latter case, information is presented in the form of signals: light, sound, electrical, etc. When When displayed on the media, the information is encoded, i.e. it is matched with the shape, color, structure and other parameters of the media elements.
The efficiency of the control system largely depends on the choice of medium and method of encoding information when performing specific information procedures. In this regard, when transformed during the management process, information, as a rule, repeatedly changes not only its code, but also the type of media.
2. A very common way of encoding information is to represent it as a sequence of symbols of a certain “abstract alphabet”, which is a component of some “abstract language”. When reading a book written in our native language, we perceive the information written on its pages in the form of code combinations (words) consisting of a sequence of symbols (letters, numbers) of the accepted alphabet. The same can be said regarding information communicated during oral speech.
The results of measuring any scalar quantities are ultimately presented in numerical form, and since, with a given measurement accuracy, these numbers can be represented as finite sets of numbers (with or without a comma), the discrete form of information representation is often identified with digital information.
Digital information is a special case of the so-called alphabetical method presentation of discrete information. Its basis is an arbitrary fixed finite set of symbols of any nature, called abstract alphabet, or simply alphabet.
Alphabet
–
this is a fixed set of basic characters for a given language, i.e. “letters of the alphabet” that any text in that language must consist of – no other characters are allowed in the text.A set of decimal digits together with a comma to separate the fractional part of a number can be considered as a special case of an abstract alphabet with 11 characters - letters this alphabet. Another example is the alphabet of a natural human language, for example, Russian. The language of mathematical and other scientific texts can include, along with ordinary letters of a given language, letters of other languages (for example, Greek), as well as various special characters (for example, symbols of arithmetic operations +, -, etc.).
Any finite sequence of letters in an (abstract) alphabet X called word (text) in this alphabet. Note that this does not require any meaningfulness of the word, even if we are talking about words in the alphabets of natural human languages. Moreover, if, say, the alphabet X consists of letters of the Russian alphabet, as well as punctuation marks and a space symbol, then any phrase and even an entire book can be considered a word (or text) in such an alphabet.
In order to select words that are correct in some sense from the entire set of words obtained in this way, above the original alphabet X the so-called formal language. Besides the alphabet X, a formal language is defined by its special (formal) grammar (syntax). It is nothing more than a finite set of formal rules with the help of which all the words of a given language (i.e., correct words) and only such words are generated.
Syntax
is a system of rules that determine acceptable constructions from letters of the alphabet. Thus, for each chain (sequence) of characters, the syntax allows us to answer the question of whether it is text in a given language.To preserve the meaning of information, it is necessary semantics– a system of rules for the interpretation of individual language constructions.
When processing information, there is often a need to represent letters of other alphabets using the means of one alphabet. This representation has a special name in computer science coding. The problem can be easily solved if you need to encode the letters of the alphabet X s fewer letters than the coding alphabet. If, for example, X- alphabet of decimal digits, and U– the usual Russian alphabet, then for coding X V U it is enough to put 0 = a, 1 = b, 2 = c, 3 = d, ..., 9 = k. Of course, other coding methods are possible, including those in which the letters of the alphabet X encoded with several letters of the alphabet U.
One of the most natural ways of such coding is to replace decimal digits with their Russian names: zero, one, two, three, etc.
If it is necessary to encode one alphabet using another with fewer letters, then using sequences of letters to encode it is compulsory a condition for the ability to distinguish between codes of different letters and this is an indispensable condition for correct coding. Thus, letters of the Russian alphabet can be encoded in pairs of decimal digits, for example, a == 01, b = 02, ..., k = 10, l = 11, ...
3. Any message is a collection of information about a certain system. For example, a message about a normal or increased percentage of defects, the chemical composition of raw materials or the temperature in the furnace can be transmitted to the input of an automated control system for a production workshop. Any of these messages describes the state of the system.
Obviously, if the state of the system was known in advance, then there would be no point in transmitting the message. The message acquires meaning only when the state is unknown in advance, by chance.
Therefore, as the object under study, we will consider a certain system that is randomly in one state or another, i.e. a system that is known to have some degree of uncertainty. Obviously, the information obtained about the system will, generally speaking, be more valuable and meaningful, the greater the uncertainty of the system before receiving this information (“a priori”). A natural question arises: what does a “larger” or “smaller” degree of uncertainty mean and how can it be measured. However, this will be discussed further.
4. In organizational management systems, as already noted, managing people comes above managing things. Information related to people management is economic, and information related to the management of things - technical.
In this regard, it seems possible to give a narrower definition: economic information is information that arises during the preparation and in the process of production and economic activities and is used to manage these activities.
Economic information is characterized by large volumes, repeated repetition of cycles of its receipt and transformation within established time limits, a significant proportion of logical operations of its processing and relatively simple mathematical calculations for obtaining many types of resultant information.
Economic information is discrete in nature, i.e. it can be structured and presented as a set of individual structural units of information . The most important types of structural units of information are:
props – the simplest structural unit of information, indivisible at the semantic level, reflecting the quantitative or qualitative characteristics of entities (object, process, phenomenon, etc.) of the subject area;
composite unit of information (SEI) – a logically interconnected set of details;
index – minimal (basic) SEI that retains information content;
document – SIE, which is presented on paper and has independent meaning.
The indicator is a controlled parameter of the control object and consists of a name and value. Index P
can be represented by the following formula:
P ==<N
P, Z
n>,Where N
n - name of the indicator; Z P - indicator value.The indicator is formed from a set of details that has complete semantic content and use value. A props is a logically indivisible element of an indicator that is correlated with a specific property of the object or process displayed by the information. Props cannot be divided into smaller information units (letters, numbers) without destroying the meaning. Each economic indicator consists of one basis element and one or more attribute elements. Props-base characterizes the quantitative aspect of an object or process (time standard value, net weight of a part, etc.) and determines the value of the indicator; attributes-signs characterize the qualitative side and determine the name of the indicator (identify the indicator).
An economic indicator is a SIE, which is sufficient to form an independent document.
Semantic (notional) analysis allows us to identify functional dependence of details and perform structuring of economic information on this basis, which in turn allows you to build an information-logical model of the subject area and design the database structure.
5. Information in general and economic information in particular plays a vital role in the process of accelerating scientific and technological progress and in regulating a market economy.
An important circumstance that determines the need for accelerated development of information systems is the limited availability of raw materials, energy, economic and human resources. Information, including socio-political, scientific, technical and general cultural knowledge, is the only type of resource that, in the course of the progressive development of humanity, not only does not deplete, but increases, improves qualitatively and at the same time contributes to the most rational, efficient use of all other resources, saving them, and in some cases expanding and creating new ones.
In other words, information in production
systems acts, within certain limits, as an interchangeable resource in relation to such resources as labor, raw materials, energy, fixed assets. Depending on the content and quality of information used for management, achieving a given goal in the system is possible in different ways and, accordingly, at different costs of material, energy and labor resources. Of particular importance is the problem of minimizing the costs of living and material labor, the value of which is the main point in pricing. Minimizing costs significantly reduces the amplitude of fluctuations in commercial risk. Increasing organization and orderliness by attracting additional or better information often becomes a more important factor in the development of production than involving additional volumes of labor, raw materials, and energy in production. This is all the more important because in the first case the system will develop intensively, and in the second (i.e., when additional material resources are attracted) – extensively.Appendix 2
QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF INFORMATION
In the light of the ideas of the science of sign systems - semiotics - the adequacy of information, i.e. correspondence between the content of the image and the displayed object can be expressed in three forms: syntactic, semantic and pragmatic.
Syntactic adequacy associated with the reproduction of formal-structural characteristics of reflection, abstracted from the semantic and consumer (utility) parameters of the object. At the syntactic level, the type of medium and method of presenting information, the speed of its transmission and processing, the size of codes for presenting information, the reliability and accuracy of converting these codes, etc. are taken into account. Information considered only from a syntactic position is usually called data.
Semantic adequacy expresses the aspect of correspondence between image, sign and object, i.e. the relationship between information and its source. Semantic information appears when there is unity of information (object) and user. The semantic aspect refers to taking into account the semantic content of information; at this level, the information that the information reflects is analyzed, and the semantic connections between codes for presenting information are considered.
Pragmatic adequacy reflects the relationship between information and its consumer, the correspondence of information to the management goal, which is implemented on its basis. The pragmatic properties of information appear only if there is unity of information (object), user and management goal. The pragmatic aspect of consideration is associated with the value and usefulness of using information to develop the right management decision. From this point of view, the consumer properties of information are analyzed.
Information is measured in accordance with the three forms of adequacy. Terminologically, it is customary to talk about the amount of information and the volume of data.
Syntactic measures of information. The volume of data in a message is measured by the number of characters (bits) of the received alphabet in this message. Often information is encoded using numerical codes in one or another number system. Naturally, the same number of digits in different number systems can convey a different number of states of the displayed object. Indeed, N =mn, where N - the number of possible displayed states; T- base of the number system (variety of symbols used in the alphabet); P - number of bits (characters) in the message.
Therefore, in different number systems, one digit has a different weight, and the unit of data measurement changes accordingly. Thus, in the binary number system the unit of measurement is “bit” (binary digit - binary digit), in the decimal number system - “dit” (decimal place). For example: a) a message in the binary system 10111011 has a data volume V d =8 bits; b) the message in the decimal system 275903 has a data volume of V d = 6 dit.
In modern computers, along with the minimum data unit “bit”, the enlarged unit of measurement “byte”, equal to 8 bits, is widely used.
Determining the amount of information at the syntactic level is impossible without considering the concept of uncertainty of the state of the system (entropy of the system). Indeed, obtaining information about a system is always associated with a change in the degree of ignorance of the recipient about the state of this system.
Before receiving the information, the recipient could have some preliminary (a priori) information about the system a ; measure of lack of awareness of the system H( a ) and is for him a measure of the uncertainty of the state of the system. After receiving some message b the recipient acquires additional information I b(a ), reducing his a priori ignorance so that the a posteriori (after receiving the message b ) the uncertainty of the system state becomes H b
(a ). Then the amount of information I b(a)
about the system a , received in the message b , will be defined as I b(a) = H(a) – H b
(a ), i.e. the amount of information is measured by a change (reduction) in the uncertainty of the system state.If the finite uncertainty H b(a )
goes to zero, then the initial incomplete knowledge will be replaced by complete knowledge and the amount of information I b(a) = H(a ). In other words, the entropy of the system H ( a ) can be considered as a measure of missing information.Entropy of the system H ( a ), having N possible states, according to Shannon’s formula is equal to
H(a ) = — (P 1 *log P 1 + P 2 * logP2 + … + P N *log P N
),
Where P i - the probability that the system is in i-th condition.
The most commonly used are binary and decimal logarithms. The units of measurement in these cases will be “bit” and “dit”. The degree of information content of a message is determined by the ratio of the amount of information to the amount of data, i.e.
Y = I
/ V D
, and 0£ Y £ 1
(Y- characterizes the conciseness of the message). As Y increases, the amount of work to transform information (data) in the system decreases. Therefore, they strive to increase the information content, for which special methods for optimal coding of information are being developed.
Semantic measure of information. Syntactic measures of the amount of information in the general case cannot be directly used to measure semantic content, because they deal with impersonal information that does not express a semantic relationship to the object.
To measure the semantic content of information, i.e. its quantity at the semantic level, the thesaurus measure of information proposed by Yu. I. Shneider received the greatest recognition. It connects the semantic properties of information primarily with the user’s ability to accept the incoming message. The concept of “user thesaurus” is used. A thesaurus can be interpreted as a collection of information available to a given system or user.
Depending on the relationship between the semantic content of information Š and the user's thesaurus S P the amount of semantic information changes I With, perceived by the user and subsequently included by him in his thesaurus. At S P a very small user does not perceive or understand the incoming information; at S P
very big
the user knows everything, and he does not need the incoming information: in both cases
I With practically equal to zero. Maximum value I With acquired upon agreement Š with thesaurus S P , when the incoming information is understandable to the user and provides him with previously unknown (not in his thesaurus) information.Consequently, the amount of semantic information in a message, the amount of new knowledge received by the user, is a relative value: the same message can have semantic content
for a competent user and be meaningless (semantic noise) for an incompetent user; at the same time, information that is understandable but known to a competent user is also semantic noise for him.Pragmatic the measure of information is its usefulness, its value for management. This measure is also a relative value, determined by the peculiarities of using this information in a particular system. “The study of the usefulness of economic information, the rationality of information flow in conditions of its systematic increase is a complex matter: the interrelations of economic phenomena and processes are constantly being clarified; sometimes traditional ideas about the relationships between economic indicators change; their critical reassessment is carried out. Under these conditions, it is not always possible to use a pre-existing system of indicators to identify trends and patterns in the formation of information flow for the coming time, for the purposes of information forecasting, especially since in this case we are talking about information characterizing upcoming events that are probabilistic in nature. In addition, we constantly have to keep in mind the criterion of information usefulness.” [Bakanov M.I., Sheremet A.D. Theory of economic analysis. M., 1997. P. 63]. It is advisable to measure the value of information in the same units (or close to them, for example, in rubles) in which the target function of system management is measured.
The value of information– a comprehensive indicator of its quality, its measure at the pragmatic level.
Quality of information can be defined as a set of properties that determine the possibility of its use to satisfy certain needs in accordance with its purpose.
The possibility and effectiveness of using information for management is determined by such consumer quality indicators as representativeness, content, completeness, accessibility, relevance, timeliness, stability, accuracy, reliability and value.
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7. Gorchakov A.A., Orlova I.V. Computer economic and mathematical models. M., 1995. Concept of information CONCEPT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND PROCESSING PROCEDURES OF ECONOMIC INFORMATION Scheme of information reception and transmission
Planned (directive) information
– directive values of planned and controlled business planning indicators for a certain period in the future (five-year plan, year, quarter, month, day). For example, product output in physical and value terms, planned demand for products and profit from their sales, etc.
Accounting information
– actual values of planned indicators for a certain period of time. Based on this information, planning information can be adjusted, an analysis of the organization’s activities can be carried out, and decisions can be made on more efficient management of the company. Information from natural (operational) accounting, accounting, and financial accounting serves as accounting information. For example, accounting information is: the number of parts of a given name produced by a worker per shift (operational accounting), the worker’s wages for manufactured parts (accounting), the actual cost of manufacturing the product (accounting and financial accounting).
Regulatory
—reference information (RSI)
contains various reference and normative data related to production processes and relationships. This is the most voluminous and diverse type of information. It is enough to note that in the total volume of information circulating in the company, normative and reference information makes up 50-60%. Examples of reference data can be: technological standards for the manufacture of parts, assemblies, and the product as a whole; cost standards (rates, tariffs, prices); reference data on suppliers and consumers of products, etc. In a company, the number of standards can reach several million, and the volume of reference data can reach hundreds of megabytes.
Reporting and statistical information
reflects the results of the actual activities of the company for higher management bodies, state statistics bodies, tax inspectorates, etc., for example, an annual accounting report on the company’s activities.
Classification by management levels
(place of origin):
Input information
– comes to the company (structural unit) from the outside and is used as primary information for the implementation of economic and managerial functions and management tasks.
Intermediate information
is formed for a certain time to prepare and create resultant information.
Output information
comes from one control system to another. The same information can be an input for one structural unit as its consumer and an output for the unit that produces it. In this case, the form of representation (coding into different types of data) of economic information can be: alphanumeric (text) - in the form of sets of alphabetic, numeric and special characters; graphic - in the form of graphs, diagrams, drawings, and physical information (data) media - paper, magnetic disk, image on the display screen.
The above classifications are carried out based on qualitative characteristics of information. Any qualitative selection of information must ultimately lead to a quantitative measurement and fixation of this measurement using certain types of data, and data of the same type can be combined into certain structures. The quantitative and qualitative measurement of information is discussed in more detail in the appendix. 2.
In the future, we will be interested only in economic information, its measurement and coding, as well as (since the specificity of economic information is the variety of types and large volumes) the structuring of data arrays.
As already noted, the main economic activity is manifested in a variety of business transactions, each aspect of which is reflected in the relevant documents (contracts, acts, invoices, pay slips, etc.). The main source of economic information is the so-called primary documents, the role and importance of which cannot be overestimated. For future economists and financiers, knowledge and ability to work with professional (and especially primary) information is very important. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the state educational standard in the basic discipline “Economic Analysis” includes the topic “Information flows and professional reading of the business press.” The textbook “Analysis of Economic Activities in Industry” (for the specialty accounting, analysis and audit, Minsk, 1998. P. 23) states the following on this matter: “To implement these general methodological principles (the interconnection, interdependence of all phenomena and processes and their development ; interaction of quantitative and qualitative factors...) use a set of special analytical techniques. One of the techniques for analyzing a financial position is reading the balance sheet and studying absolute values. Reading, i.e. familiarization with the contents of the balance sheet allows you to see the main sources of funds (own, borrowed), the main directions for investing funds, the composition of receivables and payables, etc.”
The variety of business transactions (in the real world of the economy) is impossible to describe, and it is not necessary, since they all have several fundamental properties, and the differences in details are important to take into account only at a practical level. Let's look at several business transactions and the corresponding documents. Thus, each delivery of products to the consumer must be capitalized, i.e., record: what was received, in what quantity, from whom, under what agreement (on what basis), at what price, to what warehouse. As a rule, the cargo arrives from the supplier with the document “Bill of Lading”. The signature of the storekeeper who accepted the cargo completes the registration of the invoice. Next, the products are spent for one purpose or another. For example, material (raw materials) is transferred to a production workshop for processing (processing). Each fact of transfer of material from a warehouse to a workshop also requires accurate and timely registration: what type and size of material and in what quantity, from which warehouse and to which workshop it was transferred, when this happened, etc.
Further along the production (technological) chain, there are repeated movements of each item of labor (a part at different stages of readiness, an assembly joint, a finished product) from one workshop to another. And again, each fact of movement must be recorded: what, from where, where, in what quantity transferred and when. A document of the type “Intershop invoice” appears. In all these numerous operations and the messages that record them, the following elements are certainly present:
object identification transfers (“what”);
quantification("How many");
subject identifiers transfers (“from whom”, “to whom”);
timestamp(“when it happened”).
These elements are also present when describing business transactions in retail trade (for example, in a store: acceptance of fabrics from a supplier to the warehouse, delivery of fabrics to the sales floor, registration of sales, delivery of daily revenue to cash registers, etc.).
In the situations considered, we were talking about the movement of material assets. However, a similar situation also manifests itself in operations involving the consumption of labor resources. Let's consider a situation where piecework (individual) wages have been introduced at an enterprise. This means that before starting any technological operation, the worker must receive an order, i.e. a document that clearly states: what kind of operation needs to be performed, on what subject of work, what is the scope of the task (say, how many parts he must process) , what time needs to be completed, how much the work costs, etc. Having completed the task, the worker hands over the processed objects of labor (either to the inspector, or the foreman, or to the workshop storeroom) and receives confirmation (for example, in the form of a copy of the work order signed by the foreman) that he actually performed a certain operation, handing over such and such a number of high-quality parts at that time. On the one hand, this information flows into the general information flow and serves the purpose of monitoring the progress of production and the expenditure of resources, on the other hand, it is necessary for calculating wages to the worker.
The outfit (and corresponding message) includes:
subject identifier(“who performed the operation”);
labor object identifier(“which part is processed”);
operation ID("what was done");
quantification(“how many good ones have been made”);
quantification(“how much should you pay”);
timestamp(“when the work is done”)
and perhaps some other elements.
In each individual case, taking into account specific circumstances, other elements can be added, for example, the identifier of a document or message about a business transaction (say, “invoice number”).
So, to register any business transaction, i.e. to obtain primary (initial) information (data) about the processes occurring in the management object, to establish their quantitative and qualitative characteristics, it is necessary to perform such actions as identification, measurement, time reference.
Under identifier
understand a combination of symbols associated with an identification object and uniquely distinguishing it from any other object (at least within a certain class of objects and in a given information system). Figuratively speaking, an identifier is a unique (within certain boundaries) name of an object.
Measurement
– a process whose essence is to quantify information. Its specific forms are very diverse, because they decisively depend on the type, physical essence of the object of measurement (solid object, liquid, gas, intangible flow of energy, etc.), the required accuracy of measurement, the quantities to be measured, etc.
Time reference
- an element of the formation of documents and messages, performed either in the most traditional way (a person looks at the calendar, watch and manually enters data into a document), or with the help of special devices that automatically enter the date and time into a document or other medium.
Returning to the general concept of information, let us note its main features (characteristics, properties):
Relevance
– the ability of information to meet user needs.
Credibility
– the property of information to accurately reflect the object under study.
Completeness
– the property of information to sufficiently characterize the displayed process (object).
Availability
– a property of information that makes it possible to obtain it.
Timeliness
– the ability of information to meet user requests at the required moment.
Vitality
– the ability of information to satisfy user needs over time.
Ergonomics
– a property that characterizes the user’s effective work with information.
The most capacious characteristics of man in the world and the world of man are rapidly changing their meaning. More recently, during the Enlightenment, man was defined as homo sapiens (thinking, rational) - the generic antithesis of the unreasonable way of life of our plant and animal forerunners and creatures coexisting with us, and hence the moral right to dominate them. However, after the socio-political (primarily military), economic and environmental shocks and disasters of the 20th – early 21st centuries. the legitimacy of man as a rational person is called into question, and more and more clearly the question is not about his dominion over the world, but about coevolution with him, searching for the fundamental foundations of not only continuity with the evolution of the world, but also the ability, according to the laws common to us, to radically transform the world of man and man in the world.
“Revaluation of values” in this vein does not occur immediately, but as a synthesis of the socio-historical experience of millennia, formation, development, decline and change of its forms. Terminologically, they were identified in different ways, but K. Marx’s thought is invariably confirmed that “reflection on the forms of human life, and, consequently, the scientific analysis of these forms generally chooses the path opposite to actual development. It begins post festum (retrospectively), that is, it comes from the finished results of the development process." In such deductive logic, Marx left a brilliant aphorism: “The anatomy of man is the key to the anatomy of the ape.” This principle explains why we are no longer satisfied with defining modern society as “capitalism” or “socialism” in their classical forms and demand its definition in such fundamental terms as social information and communication. It is about them that one can speak in the words of the early Christian thinker Plotinus: “I am in everything and everything is in me.” However, the initial difficulty lies in the different interpretations of these basic and “cross-cutting” concepts. Meanwhile, “before arguing, we need to agree on terminology.”
Term "information" comes from lat. informatio, what does it mean information, explanation, introduction. The concept of information was considered sporadically by ancient philosophers even before the industrial revolution of the 17th–18th centuries. was primarily the prerogative of general philosophy, but not yet social philosophical knowledge with its specific problems.
In general philosophical terms, there is a consensus that information is not matter, but one of its attributes properties. Like all known properties, it stands on a par with such attributes of the material world as space, time, systematicity, function, structure, etc. These are fundamental concepts of a formalized reflection of objective reality in its diverse existence and manifestation. It exists in any material object in the form of a variety of its states and is transmitted from object to object in the process of their interaction. Information is the objective property of material objects and phenomena to generate many states, which, through the fundamental interactions of matter, are transmitted from one object (process) to another and are imprinted in their structure. The existence of information, as an objective property of matter, is due to its structure, the continuity of changes (movement) and interaction of material objects and its states - the mutual transmission, storage and transformation of “traces” of its structure.
The structure of matter manifests itself as the internal dismemberment of integrity, the natural order of connection of elements in the composition of the whole. In other words, any material object, from a subatomic particle to the Metaverse as a whole, is a system of interconnected subsystems. Due to continuous movement, understood in a broad sense as movement in the space-time continuum, material objects change their states. They also change when interacting with other objects.
The question of the nature of information is complex and relates to the fundamental laws (mysteries) of the evolution of the world. Leaving aside discussions about its transcendental source, rationally, in a natural-historical context, we will try to look at the evolution of the information process.
If we proceed from the law of negation of negation, then it cannot be considered universal, and its formula is applicable only to processes known to us that are ultimately carried out progressively. Such a fateful shift on the island of the Universe called Earth occurred in the evolution of the information process over hundreds of millions of years of transition from inanimate to living, organic matter, the gradual formation of its biological foundations.
One of the significant signs of this shift is the emergence and development of such information diversity as life, emergence new, increasing the height of self-organization such substrates, their states and properties that were not previously known in previous inanimate states.
Without the emergence of something new, there would be no forward movement in development. At best, it would just be a cycle. The new turned out to be capable of greater improvement. However, it should be noted that not every new thing can ensure the forward movement of information processes. This is only new, which contributes to the improvement of objects and their interaction, creates additional impulses for their development.
Hegel, in the spirit of his logocentrism, reduced this evolution to a qualitative leap in the information process from biological forms in nature to self-realized matter, or “history.” “In nature,” he wrote, “nothing is new under the Moon, and in this regard, the diversity of its forms causes boredom. Only in the changes taking place in the spiritual sphere does something new appear.” However, as evidenced by the complex of sciences about the evolution of life on Earth, this process was “end-to-end” - from the objectively purposeful life activity of microorganisms to the world of primates, amazing in the plasticity of its adaptation to the environment.
If we ask the question about the mechanism of this forward movement, then the answer is an increase difficulties information processes. A higher level invariably turns out to be more complex in its structure, connections and relationships between organisms. Complication is the result of the cumulative nature of this process, because the new that emerges in it does not completely deny the old, but absorbs its viable properties and relationships, thereby leading to an increase in the diversity of information interaction. The process of complication, of course, cannot be understood absolutely: along with complication, there also occurs a simplification of certain aspects and properties of life. However, simplification is only a moment of this process, since its higher stage always ultimately turns out to be more complex.
The complication of information processes leads to an increase in diversity in interaction, an increase in opportunities, and new additional ways to improve it, and this, in turn, causes an increase in its dynamics and increases internal and external activity. In other words, a higher and more complex stage of evolution is characterized by acceleration. “The higher, the faster things go,” noted F. Engels in “Dialectics of Nature”.
Ultimately, no matter how one views Hegel’s “break of gradualism” in the evolution of life, one should still accept his conclusion that something qualitatively new appears and develops in it with the formation, development and change of stages of a previously unknown form of life - man. At the current stage of development, there is a dialectical “removal” of previous and still dominant, but increasingly critically perceived forms and a “return” to the ideologically neutral, due to its general scientific nature, concepts of “information” and “communication”, “information society”, “communicative (network) society” as more adequate exponents of the meaning of the ongoing deep social transformations.
In the modern world, information is one of the most important resources or sources of development of human society. In the human world, information flows are becoming more complex. One of the most complex structures of their evolution is the human brain. So far, this is the only structure known to us that has a property that man himself calls consciousness. Speaking about information, we, as thinking beings, a priori attribute to it that, in addition to the signals we receive, it also has some meaning. Forming in his mind a model of the surrounding world as an interconnected set of models of its objects and processes, a person uses information in the form of semantic concepts. Meaning - this is the essence of any phenomenon we imply, which does not coincide with its content and connects it with the broader context of reality. In human society, it is not information as such that is of decisive importance, but rather its semantic content. The human brain's ability to create meaningful concepts and connections between them is the basis of consciousness. Consciousness can definitely be seen as self-evolving semantic model the surrounding world.
Currently, there is no single definition of information as a scientific term. From the point of view of various fields of knowledge, this concept is described by its specific set of characteristics and is used in various sciences (computer science, cybernetics, biology, physics, etc.), and in each of them the term “information” is associated with different systems of concepts. In other words, he is general scientific concept.
Information processes occurring in the material world, nature and human society are studied (or at least taken into account) by all scientific disciplines. The increasing complexity of scientific research problems has led to the need to attract large teams of scientists from different specialties to solve them. Therefore, almost all of the theories discussed below are interdisciplinary.
Historically, the study of the phenomenon of information itself is carried out by two complex branches of science of the latest generation - cybernetics and computer science.
Cybernetics – This is a multidisciplinary branch of science that studies such highly complex systems as human society (social cybernetics), the economy (economic cybernetics), a living organism (biological cybernetics), the human brain in the variety of its functions, including problematic artificial intelligence. The founder of cybernetics N. Wiener wrote about information that it is “neither matter nor energy, information is information.” But the basic definition of information that he gave in his books is the following: information is a designation of content received by us from the outside world in the process of our adaptation to it. This thought by Wiener contains an indication of the objective nature of information, that is, its existence in nature independent of human consciousness (perception). However, in the surrounding world, many states of systems represent information, but for a person they are the primary code, or source code. Thus, literally every material system is a source of information.
Computer science, formed as a science in the middle of the last century, separated from cybernetics and is engaged in research in the field of methods of obtaining, storing, transmitting and processing (transforming) semantic information. Both of these industries use several underlying scientific theories. These include information theory and its branches - coding theory, algorithm theory and automata theory.
Computer science is a complex science that includes the description and evaluation of methods for retrieving, transmitting, storing and classifying information. Information carriers are considered as elements of an abstract (mathematical) set, and the interactions between them are considered as a way of arranging elements in this set. This approach makes it possible to formally describe and explore the information code. These studies apply methods from probability theory, mathematical statistics, linear algebra, game theory and other mathematical theories. In 1928, the foundations of this theory were laid by the American scientist R. Hartley, who determined the measure of the amount of information for certain communication problems. Later, the theory was significantly developed by the American scientist K. Shannon, Russian scientists A. Kolmogorov, V. Glushkov, Polish scientists J. Lukasiewicz, S. M. Mazur and others.
The theory of algorithms plays a significant role in cybernetics and computer science. For the first time in history, they were developed by the famous ancient scientist Al-Khorezmi in the 9th century. n. e. In his honor, formalized rules for achieving any goal are called algorithms (previously the term “algorithm” was used). The subject of the theory of algorithms is to find methods for constructing and evaluating effective (including universal) computational and control algorithms for information processing. To justify such methods, the theory of algorithms uses the extensive mathematical apparatus of information theory.
The modern scientific concept of algorithms as methods of information processing was introduced in the works of computer science pioneers E. Post and A. Turing in the 20s. XX century (the so-called Turing Machine). Russian scientists V. Glushkov, A. Kolmogorov, A. Markov (Markov Normal Algorithm) made a great contribution to the development of the theory of algorithms.
The achievements of computer science and cybernetics should not be understood in the sense that, as the positivists of the second generation, the Machians of the early 20th century, proclaimed, “matter has disappeared” in the spirit of replacing material things and phenomena with certain information ones. Let us emphasize once again: information is not materiality. We cannot call information matter simply because the latter is informative, and otherwise we would have to deal with a meaningless statement about the materiality of matter. The information content of the world (nature) is an intangible prerequisite for human existence and development. This premise is associated with ideal-subjective forms of organizing human knowledge and experience, which are based on creative and cognitive practices of working with information.
What kind of information relations does a person enter into? The answer to this question depends on the possible classification options for these relationships. One can, for example, proceed from the fact that they are, first of all, associated with the implementation of the material foundations of human existence. The material determinant of life is impossible without the informational determinant, bearing in mind that all goals, intentions, principles, conditions, etc. of the implementation of material and practical activity are always (if we do not take into account deviant behavior) due to conscious or subconscious recombination (reflection) of the corresponding information. In this regard, it is quite appropriate to recall the well-known thesis: whoever owns the information owns the world. But a person has not only material, but also spiritual life. The latter also has informational grounds. Moreover, in this regard, we can also talk about various options for the relationship between spiritual and material principles. The problem, thus, acquires a certain globality, amenable to analysis only in abstraction, in accordance with a certain “dismemberment” and conditionality.
Taking into account the above, we will proceed from the fact that these relations (especially in their post-industrial dimension) can be characterized from the point of view of the movement of information as a product (result, reality, etc.) created by man. Until a certain time, the information component of the reality surrounding a person is not such a product. This product is created by a person in the process of his relationship with the real world. In contrast to objectivity, which is identical to the objectivity of the world, it (the product) turns into a reality constructed by human consciousness. Ultimately, this is our knowledge about the structure and patterns of the surrounding existence as an expression of its information “load”, or its information “constitution”.
In the literal sense, human knowledge (personal knowledge) cannot be called information. If this is information, then it is information “for ourselves”, and a potential information product “for us”, which becomes relevant through possible methods of transmission and objectification using various material means. There is an analogy between the information essence of nature and man. In both cases, we are talking about information “for ourselves”, and, potentially, about information “for us”. Changes in nature, understood as the movement of matter, are changes that are purposefully ordered or, to put it differently, carried out in accordance with given information bases. Such foundations are the information “for oneself” contained in nature (matter), evolving along with the evolution of the material world. But nature reveals itself (if it does), and we learn about its patterns (if, of course, we find out). This follows from our ability to adequately a) recreate human information on the basis of natural (given) information; b) conscious (creative) construction of a new (in relation to man, but not to nature) information product based on available information; c) objectification of personal knowledge as the transformation of a potential information product into an actual one.
If we leave aside the most complex problem of information transformations at the level of objective natural laws, a diagram of human information relations emerges, including:
a) relationships with a potential information product as a relationship, in one case, with the information potential of the world outside a person and the laws of his existence (subject-object interactions), in another case (and on this basis) - with the information potential of the person himself: subject- subjective connections and reconstruction of personal knowledge (intrapersonal information transformations) based on available information “for oneself”;
b) relationships with an actual information product - knowledge and data objectified with the help of material media, in one case, as their adequate inclusion in the system of personal knowledge, in the other - preliminary transformation into an information product “for oneself” with subsequent creative rethinking at the level of individual consciousness . This group of relations also includes the reverse transformation of a subject-potential information product into an actual one, that is, all procedures related to the problems of objectifying personal knowledge.
Each person, to one degree or another, enters into these relationships, which by nature are of a subject-object nature, for they exist only insofar as the person himself exists. The result of these relationships is always a real information product, capable of taking not only subjective, but also objective forms of existence. As already noted, this product has a knowledge essence, because in its subjective expression it is directly the personal knowledge of the subject, in objective expression it is knowledge mediated by linguistic formalism and recorded on various material media. In the latter case, we are talking about information in the literal sense as clearly formalized and structured information “for us.”
What sociocultural meaning information relations in modern conditions? Whatever symbols societies label themselves with (“the Age of Enlightenment,” “information age,” etc.), the integral criterion of their reality and historical perspective is the cultural creative ability to form and realize human capital. In turn, this capital should always be considered in a specific historical context. In relation to our topic, this approach ultimately determines what the real meaning and value of the objective foundations of modern cybernetics and computer science are. Their epicenter is the most complex problem of “information - communication”, understood in practical-humanistic key.
The decisive paradox of this problematic is that, in the words of one of the representatives of postmodernity, “we find ourselves in a universe in which there is more and more information and less and less meaning ... Because where we believe that information produces meaning , the opposite happens. Information devours its own contents. It devours communication and the social.”
The basis of this metamorphosis is an encroachment on the holy of holies of early modernization - the “three-link machine” (an engine machine, a transmission machine and a machine that directly interacts with the object of labor) and the principles embodied in it and conditioned by it. At a certain stage in the evolution of the “man-machine” system, direct, without intermediate links, connections between them completely exhausted the resource for further improvement and became an insurmountable barrier not only to the increase and qualitative renewal of human capital, but also material wealth. Even in highly efficient conveyor and semi-automatic production, the machine limits man, but he is also its unlimited progress.
From the point of view of the need for the upward evolution of human capital, this is degeneration and a dead end. The cardinal outcome, it would seem, was found in the breakthrough of the vicious circle “man - machine”. The initial impulse is given information revolution (IR). This revolution overcomes the direct and rigid connection between man and machine, creates a mediator in the form of an informationally more efficient and flexible intermediate link - an electronic computer (computer) and initially means a revolution in the way labor. But before our eyes there is a transformation and expansion of this method of activity on a global scale. production and management. At the same time, the material substrate of IR remains almost ideal, but still car, in principle, capable of endlessly enhancing the “intelligent”, amenable to algorithmization, human potential.
Nevertheless, significant structural changes are occurring in the technological foundations of industrial production. The main one is the lack of self-sufficiency of the symbiosis of machine and man as external factors, the need for integral and remotely controlled communication man-machine systems, transferring their center of gravity from material components to intellectual interactions, to the production of information as replacing the intellectual machine-thing universals production of human capital.
The cultural and civilizational consequences of the triumphant march of informatization are widely presented at different levels, starting with the assessment of the well-known B. Gates. He predicts, for example, that “business is going to change more in the next ten years than it has in the last fifty,” and “that change will happen because of a simple, disarming idea: the flow of digital information.” This orientation develops into justification of the concept "Information society" as an adequate meaning-forming paradigm for comprehending modern sociocultural dynamics.
Moreover, this term, introduced into scientific circulation in the early 1960s. by such authors as M. Porat and Y. Masuda in the 1990s. is considered by Professor of Sociology at the University of Berkeley M. Castells as key a historiosophical concept of understanding the logos of the evolution of modern society. M. Castells writes that “network information structures simultaneously act as its universals - products and means... The processes of transformation, which are expressed in the ideal type of network society, go beyond the boundaries of social and technical... relations: they deeply invade the spheres of culture and power... We are closer to creating a purely cultural structure of social interactions."
It would seem that the eternal conflict “nature – culture” finds its resolution in the dominance of information. However, unlike B. Gates, M. Castells is not an apologist for the “information society”. For him, it “is not the end of the story,” which “ended with the happy reconciliation of humanity with itself. In reality, everything is completely different: history is just beginning... We are talking about the beginning of a different existence, about the advent of a new, information age, marked by the independence of culture in relation to the material basis of our existence. But this can hardly be a reason for great joy, because, finding ourselves in our world alone with ourselves, we will have to look at our reflection in the mirror of historical reality. We are unlikely to like what we see."
The creativity of this approach is nevertheless reduced by reducing the problem to the dual opposition “nature - culture”. In this opposition it remains unclear Why Global information culture does not give reason for optimism, much less for assessing it as an “axial”, that is, a meaning-forming cultural and civilizational breakthrough. Obviously, the answer can be found by considering the contradictory purpose of information in the semantic connection “culture - civilization” and the derivative of the contradictions between them, as defined by Z. Bauman, “secondary barbarization”.
In principle, information is initially one of the hypostases of Chaos - a disordered flow of meaningless “traces” that cognizable objects leave in the consciousness of the subject (not to mention the special problem of technological and operational “noise” distorting these “traces”). To use Aristotle's figurative expression, an imprint on wax can mean anything if we do not know that it is the imprint of a ring. Information is a “black box” of such “traces” - codes, symbols. Their decoding presupposes preliminary knowledge of established codes and subsequent operation with them to transform information chaos into cognitive logos. Hypothetically, we do not find “brothers” in cosmic intelligence because we do not know the meaning of the signals they send, and vice versa, we find them where they do not exist, since only anthropic meanings in the world. In this perspective, “to know means to possess information. To understand means to penetrate beyond knowledge, through information. Knowledge (information) is a screen that must be overcome in order to reach something else, to make it yours. O-get it. O-own. To understand means to “possess the essence.” Most people “know, but do not own”... Many people read in order not to think,” noted Diderot (quoted from:).
Nevertheless, today the multi-million inhabitants of the information web are convinced that when they “read” they not only think, but are also authentic. rulers of thoughts. The "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace" states: "Our world is different... (it is) simultaneously everywhere and nowhere... Your legal concepts of property, expression, movement and context do not apply to us... This mode of government will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours" ( cm.: ).
Before us is only apparently an informational Babylon, in which “every existing language” gives itself names. In fact, the content of information flows is pre-created, symbolically interpreted and transmitted in a certain way. semantic context. The decisive problem is his direction, culture of handling information.
The World Wide Web and virtual cyberspace are becoming an arena not only of natural cultural messianism, but also of geopolitical missionary and expansion, which significantly transform modern sociocultural processes. “Universal cultural stereotypes do not even reflect the outwardly valid sociocultural, political and economic conditions of the present and historical development of the culture of the countries where these information paradigms are now created and modeled... Information cultural stereotypes, outwardly based on democratic principles... ignore the fundamental historical roots and features of economic development individual countries".
Such expansion is reminiscent of the warning of the biblical Joseph in the famous literary version: “Omnipotence is. If you think about it, it's a great temptation. Look at it as a relic of chaos!.. You will have to fight with yourself... as you once did with others.”
Thus, it becomes clear that the information revolution is not self-sufficient to explain the key trends in modern sociocultural dynamics. Moreover, without being adapted by cultural and civilizational meanings, total informatization can become a tool for reducing society to “secondary barbarization.” According to Dostoevsky, unlimited freedom inevitably leads to unlimited despotism.
Excerpt from the book “The Formation of the Information Society. Communication-epistemological and cultural-civilized foundations” by A.A. Lazarevich
2. Information system
In this work, we will consider only the security of information impact technologies as an instrument of social management in the state policy of the Russian Federation. All other aspects of information warfare are beyond the scope of the study of this work.
2.1 Social information space
This subsection formulates the main terms used.
Information- information about persons, objects, facts, events, phenomena and processes, regardless of the form of their presentation;
Social information- any information circulating in society that ensures that it performs its functions precisely as a social system. At the same time, for society it is possible to identify some information that is of greatest importance to its members. Such information is called socially significant.
Socially significant information- this is information that includes, among other things, the following information:
On the state of the economic sphere;
About events of public life within the country and abroad that are of interest to a significant number of people;
On the activities of political parties and movements, leaders of society and the state;
About the labor and capital markets, etc.
Information system (IS)- an organizationally ordered set of documents (arrays of documents) and information technologies, including the use of computer technology and communications that implement information processes;
User (consumer) of information- a subject who turns to an information system or intermediary to obtain the information he needs and uses it.
Information sphere- a set of subjects of information interaction or influence; actual information intended for use by subjects of the information sphere; information infrastructure that provides the possibility of exchanging information between entities; social relations that develop in connection with the formation, transmission, dissemination and storage of information, the exchange of information within society.
Information and psychological sphere represents a part of the information sphere, which is associated with the effects of information on human mental activity. It is formed by a combination of:
The information they exchange and perceive;
Social relations arising in connection with information exchange and information influences on the human psyche.
Information policy- a tool for regulating conflicting social relationships in the information-psychological sphere, resolving contradictions regarding power and the implementation of political leadership in the information-psychological space, as well as regarding the redistribution of the role, place and functions of subjects of information-psychological activity in the socio-political system of the information society and transferring social interaction into the mainstream of consent.
Social space- part of the information sphere perceived by people taking into account their psychological characteristics.
Information management- this is the process of developing and implementing management decisions in a situation where the control action is implicit and the control object is provided with information about the situation (information picture) determined by the subject of control, focusing on which this object, as it were, independently chooses its line of behavior. This is a key concept for the automated control system described here. Here there is a transformation of the concept of management into the sphere of manipulation technologies. PR specialists often view management from this point of view.
In addition to the definition of IP given in the law, it will be convenient for us to use its expanded version with the classification given in:
IS - This system, carrying out: receiving input data; processing this data and/or changing one’s own internal state (internal connections/relationships); issuing a result or changing one’s external state (external connections/relationships).
Simple information system let's call a system whose elements function in accordance with rules generated by the same mutually consistent set of axioms.
Complex information system let's call a system that contains elements that function in accordance with rules generated by sets of axioms that are different from each other. It is assumed that among the rules for the functioning of various elements there may be mutually contradictory rules and goals. Depending on what changes occur in the internal state of information systems, it is proposed to carry out the following classification (Fig. 1):
1) class A - systems with an unchanged internal state;
2) class B - systems with a changing internal state. In turn, in class B the following subclasses can be distinguished:
subclass 1 - systems with an unchanged processing algorithm, but with changing data (databases, individual arrays, etc.), which are used in the process of processing input information;
subclass 2 - systems with an adaptive processing algorithm, i.e. the algorithm is adjusted to the application conditions; adjustment is carried out by either changing the control coefficients or automatically selecting an algorithm from a set of equivalent algorithms;
subclass 3 - systems with a self-modifying goal and, accordingly, with a completely self-modifying algorithm that goes beyond the set of equivalent algorithms
In general socio-psychological information is a socially significant topic refracted in the subjective space of consciousness, which has become a socio-psychological phenomenon that unites semantics, aesthetics and energy. Socio-psychological information has its own information space, formed from specific information fields, correlating with other spaces and fields (social and psychological).
In the course of information exchange in a social system, information processes arise and occur - i.e. processes of creation, collection, processing, accumulation, storage, search, transmission, receipt, use and destruction, distribution and consumption of information.
Information process in society (society) is the totality of the unity of the diversity of various flows of reproduction, perception, evaluation, production, attitude, disposition and position towards information and the formation on this basis of motives for social behavior. The information process is a complex interweaving of the conscious and unconscious influence of the source of information on all levels of the human psyche: from biopsychological to the level of social consciousness.
The information process can be considered:
1) as an object of analytical work;
2) mainly in terms of information impact on the population, where the media play a certain role, where information impact on mass consciousness, information and psychological warfare occupy a significant place;
3) as a means of public administration.
The combination of various types of information processes, information systems, systems of mass consciousness and psyche create a system of a more complex order - information space.
Information confrontation- rivalry between social systems in the information and psychological sphere regarding influence on certain areas of social relations and establishing control over sources of strategic resources, as a result of which some participants in the rivalry receive the advantages they need for further development, while others lose them.
Before moving on to the description of the object of protection - the information system, we will define the object and subject of information processes (information warfare)
2 2 Subject and object of information warfare
The object of information warfare is any object in relation to which it is possible to carry out information influence (including the use of information weapons) or other influence (force, political, economic, etc.), the result of which will be a modification of its properties as an information system.
The object of information warfare can be any component or segment of the information-psychological space, including the following types:
1. mass and individual consciousness of citizens;
2. socio-political system (hereinafter will be identified with the subject of management)
3. information infrastructure;
4. information and psychological resources.
Psychological resources are understood as the following components of the information space:
Society's value system;
Psychological tolerance of the value system (stability of the value system in relation to external or internal destructive influences);
Psychological tolerance of the consciousness of citizens (resistance of the consciousness of citizens to manipulative influence and involvement in illegal activities by manipulative methods of secret coercion of the individual);
Mental health of citizens;
Tolerance of mental health of citizens (stability of mental health in relation to external or internal destructive influences).
Subjects of information warfare (mainly by):
- states, their alliances and coalitions;
- international organizations;
- non-state illegal (including illegal international) armed groups and organizations of a terrorist, extremist, radical political, radical religious orientation;
- transnational corporations;
- media corporations (controlling the media and mass communications - media and MK);
Signs of a subject of information warfare:
The presence of the subject’s own interests in the information-psychological space;
The presence within the subject of special forces (structures) functionally designed to conduct information warfare or authorized to conduct information warfare;
Possession and/or development of information weapons, means of delivery and camouflage;
Under the control of the subject is a segment of the information space, within which it has the preemptive right to establish norms for regulating information-psychological relations (on property rights established by the norms of national and international legislation) or state sovereignty (the national segment of the information space as part of the state territory);
(addition dated March 17, 2006)
From the point of view of information management, it is more convenient to divide the objects of confrontation into control objects and communication objects. The objects of communication are understood as the media and mass communication (media and MK). They are both a means of interactive communication between the authorities, the political and economic elite and the rest of society, as well as a one-way tool for the information and psychological influence of their owners on information consumers. Often this influence is carried out against the will of the addressee, for example, when information acts as a kind of background in places where a person is forced to be at one time or another. Whatever is distributed through these channels, a person cannot influence the source of information and psychological influence and, thus, is forced to perceive information in which psychological manipulation is woven.
According to the form of organization, media and media organizations are divided into:
TV broadcasting
Broadcasting
Newspapers and magazines
Book publishing houses
Electronic resources Internet
2 3 Control system (protected object)
Expressing the essence of information policy through the category “information power,” we can say that “information policy is the ability and opportunity of political subjects to influence the consciousness, psyche of people, their behavior and activities in the interests of the state and civil society with the help of information.”
“The ongoing movement in psychology in the direction associated with attempts to construct general laws of social behavior seems erroneous, and the associated belief that knowledge about social interaction can be accumulated in the same way as knowledge in the natural sciences appears unjustified.” Social-psychological research is, first of all, historical research, and social forecasting is an analysis of socio-psychological memory.
The state information management system must control the social dynamics of the citizens (territorially limited nation) of their country. This control system is the object of protection.
In technical systems under management is understood as “the process of organizing such a targeted impact on an object, as a result of which this object is transferred to the required (target) state.” Let us take the mass and individual consciousness of the country's citizens as an object of management. The state of an object changes under the influence of the environment in which it is located. Let X- the state of the environment interacting with the object, and Y- state of the object (1). Then the object can be represented as a converter F 0 environment state to object state:
Where F 0 - unknown entry operator yet X and exit Y object, characterizing the specifics of its work. (Here X already acts as an entrance, and Y- as an output of an object.)
Speaking about management as a goal-oriented process, one cannot ignore those whose goals are realized in the management process. To do this, it is necessary to introduce the concept of “subject”, which is the source of the goals realized by management. Ideally, the subject should be the state, but it can be any of the subjects described above or a combination of them.
If the condition Y object satisfies the needs of the subject interacting with this object and exploiting it, then no control is needed. If the state of the object for some reason does not satisfy the needs of the subject, then the latter must organize such an impact on the object that would transfer the object to a new state that satisfies the subject. This is management.
Information ‹ X", Y"› forms the sensory environment of the subject, i.e. that part of the environment ‹ X, Y› which he is able to perceive with his sensors. It is convenient (although this is not true) to assume that the subject always formulates his goal(s) regarding any object. Z*, the implementation of which in the object will lead, in the opinion of the subject, to the satisfaction of his needs. This goal is a set of requirements made by the subject to the state Y object. We will denote the fulfillment of target requirements Z* in an object by the equality
and failure to comply is inequality
In the latter case (in the absence of management), the subject’s goals are not realized. As a result, the subject has to solve a dilemma:
1) either come to terms with the existing situation, expressed by inequality (3), and thereby endure certain damage associated with the dissatisfaction of one’s needs;
2) or create a management system that would realize its goals Z* in the object, that is, to achieve equality (2), but at the same time to spend inevitable funds and efforts on its creation and operation.
In any case, to implement control it is necessary to create a control channel U, with which you can influence the state of the control object:
Where F 0 - still an object operation operator, but taking into account the presence of a control factor U. In our case, this is information disseminated by the media and mass communications. Now you can create control system, by which we mean a set of information processing algorithms and means of their implementation, combined to achieve specified control goals in an object.
The block diagram of the control system is shown in Fig. 2. Here D X And D Y- sensors that measure the state of the environment and the object, respectively. As D X may be any analytical service that evaluates the characteristics of the perception of the environment by the mass and individual consciousness of citizens, and as a D Y- sociological analysis of empirical facts (such as “Validata” or the Institute of Comprehensive Social Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences). Measurement results
arrive at the control device (CU, in this case the state apparatus), which generates control commands U. These commands must be processed by actuators (IM, i.e. media and MK) in order to change the state of the controlled input U" object.
For the control device to function, it needs to be told the target Z* management (what should be strived for in the management process), as well as the control algorithm φ - an indication of how to achieve the goal, having information about the states of the environment, object and goal:
(6)
As you can see, management is primarily related to goals ( Z*), which come from outside into the control system. These goals are formed (generated) by the subject, who is the consumer of the future object management system. The subject acts as a customer and consumer of the created management system.
The control device is an automated administrative and organizational management system designed for comprehensive automation of all or most of the main functions of management bodies: collection and analysis of information, planning and decision-making, communication of decisions to the executor and control of execution. It is a complex complex of teams of specialists, mathematical, software and information support.
This model is well suited for describing technical systems, but in our case it does not take into account some factors, such as the multitude of subjects with interests in a single information space, the way and adequacy of the perception of the environment X 0 by the subject himself and the formation of goals Z *.
To do this, it will be necessary to significantly alter the control scheme described by L.A. Rastrigin. , as shown in Fig. 3.
From the beginning, it is necessary to determine the goals (set of goals) that must be implemented in the management process. The word “goal” is used here in the sense of a model of the required future subject, i.e. some specific state of the environment (the object is separated from the environment conditionally), which is desired by the consumer and which in a certain sense is “unnatural”, i.e. is not realized in a natural way without outside interference (without control).
The subject, in the process of communicating with the environment, fixes his attention on those of its parameters, which, on the one hand, determine the state of his needs, and on the other hand, can be changed by him, i.e. the subject has the means to influence the environment in such a way that these parameters change in the direction he needs. We will assume that the subject, forming goals, reacts only to these parameters. Environmental parameters that determine his needs but cannot be changed by the subject, generally speaking, indirectly influence his goal-setting behavior. Here, apparently, the mechanism of emotions comes into play, which cannot but influence the process of goal formation.
Thus, the CU perceives the environment as a finite or infinite set of its parameters
each of which interests the subject and can be changed by him. The perception of the environment is also formed under the informational influence of the aggressor subject. The situation perceived by the subject is always controllable:
Where U, R- management of subjects. However, the management does not formulate its goals in terms of the environment. S: it is more convenient for the subject to operate with other concepts characteristic of him (let’s call them target ones). Let these target concepts be described by the vector
where each target parameter z i uniquely determined by the situation S, i.e.
and the functions ψ i( ) determine the relationship between the state of the environment and the target parameter z i . If we consider k-dimensional goal space ( Z), then in it the subject can formulate his goal as .
By the structure of an object we mean the type, nature of the dependence F 0 object state Y from its inputs (4). In general, the dependence F 0 determined by some algorithm that indicates how, given information about the inputs X, U And R, determine the output Y. The form of this algorithm, up to its parameters, determines the structure F 0. Conventionally, we can assume that the model F 0 consists of structure and parameters:
Where St- model structure F, C= (With 1 , ..., with k) - its parameters. A feature of the structure, for example, is that the object at the input X perceives the environment in an insignificant volume. With the growth of population, man became to a certain extent separated from reality. He directly communicates with a very limited circle of people, and for him the general information field, formed mainly by input, is becoming increasingly important. U And R. Mass consciousness via channel X can only perceive information that affects all individuals equally (for example, rising gasoline prices).
Options C= (With 1 , ..., with k) basically determine that the processes in the system are non-Markovian (i.e. processes with “memory”). The main parameters can be identified as follows:
from 1- need-motivational (knowledge, beliefs, value orientations, drives, desires);
from 2- intellectual-cognitive (sensations, perceptions, ideas, imagination, memory and thinking);
from 3- emotional-volitional sphere (emotions, feelings, moods, volitional processes);
from 4- communicative and behavioral (the nature and characteristics of communication, interaction, relationships, interpersonal perception).
These parameters can be identified both in individual and mass consciousness. As a result, the operator F 0, takes a complex form:
The maximum possible reduction of processes to Markov processes is a simplification of control algorithms, and therefore can be used by both the aggressor subject and the control device (, ).
The control object is “complex” because it has the following properties (classification by):
1. Lack of necessary mathematical description. By mathematical description we mean the presence of an algorithm F object state calculations Y from observations of its entrances. From the point of view of considering man and society as self-learning information systems, the following types of networks can be distinguished:
C-networks are self-learning information systems in which the acquisition of information occurs due to the birth of elements in the system.
CP networks are self-learning information systems in which the acquisition of information occurs due to the death and birth of system elements.
R-networks are self-learning information systems in which the acquisition of information occurs due to the destruction of system elements.
The problem of training an information self-learning system (human society), built on the principles of the SR-network (class B, subclass 3), to solve any problem, even provided that the information capacity of the SR-network (the “initial number of elements) is sufficient to store the input information is algorithmically undecidable. However, training one person as a P-network (neurons only die) is an algorithmically solvable task (proofs are given in).
2. "Noisy"- also a very important feature of the control object, characterizing the difficulty of the processes of analysis and management. The noise level is due to the fact that the information system under consideration is complex (from the above classification). Therefore, the behavior of an object often turns out to be unexpected for the subject, and it is more convenient to consider this surprise as a random factor, as noise, than to understand the mechanism of secondary processes occurring in a complex system and giving rise to the surprise of its behavior. The task of the management system is to reduce these minor processes to a minimum. For this purpose, consciousness manipulation technologies have adopted the classical method of imposing the myth of the absence of social conflicts and the myth of the unchangeable nature of man, which ultimately contribute to the predominance of passivity in the mass consciousness. However, in some cases there is a departure from this model, such as the outbreak of street riots in the 60s in America, or the initiation of pogroms in 1938 in Germany. In both cases, the creation of fear in the mass consciousness contributed to the tightening of the regime.
3. "Intolerance" to control is perhaps the most annoying feature of a complex system. The fact is that it exists, roughly speaking, not at all to be controlled. She “does not like” management due to the “independence” of her existence from the goals of the subject who wants to manage her. It is difficult to expect that the “own” goals of a complex system will coincide with the goals of management. Rather, they will contradict each other. This causes a “negative” reaction of a complex system to control, the purpose of which is “not consistent” with it. A necessary condition here is to make the control invisible. For this, various mechanisms of consciousness manipulation are used, which a person is not aware of.
4. Nonstationarity a complex system naturally follows from its complexity. Nonstationarity manifests itself in the drift of system characteristics, in changes in its parameters, in the evolution of a complex system over time. The more complex the system, the more clearly this feature manifests itself, which creates serious difficulties in creating a model of a complex system and managing it. The nonstationarity of the control object is manifested not only in its modeling as a CP network, but also in the constant migration of the population and the instability of the demographic situation, which complicates the modeling of the system.
5. Irreproducibility of experiments with a complex system is also its important feature. It is associated primarily with the noise and nonstationarity of a complex system. This feature manifests itself in different reactions of the system to the same situation or control at different points in time. A complex system seems to cease to be itself all the time. This feature imposes special requirements on the processes of synthesis and correction of the system model. Forecasting social dynamics has practically no precise mathematical apparatus.
Concept of social information
Social information is semantic information, that is, which is processed by human consciousness and implemented in people’s activities; it is determined by the needs of individuals and the interests of social groups that are in constant communication with each other in the process of production and all social life.
Social information is specific not only in terms of its nature, but also its circulation in society. Countless information flows interact here, moving through various channels: this is the “memory” of the past, living in the present, and planetary forms of communication (international, interstate, etc.), and intrastate (between different classes, parties, social groups, between people and government bodies, carried out in the form of an exchange of public opinion, on the one hand, and official government decisions, on the other, as well as in the form of education, training, communication in the process of work, leisure, etc.). Thus, social information moves in two planes: horizontal and vertical.
Consequently, social information is understood as that information that circulates in society as a set of knowledge, information, messages, ideas about the world around us, especially about society, serving the purposes of managing social processes. Optimal management, pursuing reasonable goals, presupposes objective, true, complete information.
Concept of social management
Where there is information, management operates, and where management is carried out, information is certainly present.
The starting point of any management process (the main one among which is the development and adoption of management decisions, as well as its execution) is the receipt and processing of information. Management is a function of any organized system, aimed at maintaining its qualitative certainty, maintaining dynamic balance with the environment and its development. Management is a kind of response to the entire sum of information interactions of the system, aimed at giving it such behavior and state, such structural organization and development trends that would correspond to all the information accumulated by this system and would take into account its objective needs. It is focused not only on the information past of the system, but on its future.
Management of society is fundamentally different from management in living organisms and technical devices. Being a complex structure that includes material and spiritual processes, it acts as a specific type of human activity. Its peculiarity lies in the fact that control influence is present in all spheres of social life, that is, it represents a special type of social relations. This means that managerial relations form a necessary element of the social environment. In managerial relations, several aspects can be distinguished - political, economic, ethical - each of which has two interconnected sides - informational and organizational. Since management is always a function of social power, in a class society it is a function of political, state power, and, therefore, management decisions in a class society are always of a class nature.
In the mechanism of social management, a fundamental role is played by the principle of feedback: where this principle is violated or absent altogether, the results of social management are absent or distorted. In general form, this principle states: in any interaction, the source (the subject of information and control) and the receiver (the object of information and control) inevitably change places. Consequently, in the process of social management there is a reverse influence of the object of management on its subject. Further, the feedback principle presupposes the exchange of information as a necessary element. This means that social management is an information process with feedback. In principle, feedback carries out the informational impact of a control object on its subject. In society, this principle operates continuously, since the response actions of the managed system influence the dynamics of management acts of the management system, which constantly takes into account newly received information. At the same time, it is important to remember that here the subject and object of control seem to change roles for some time. The commander, commanding the army, is the subject of control, but he acts on the basis of information received from subordinates - intelligence, etc. And in this case, he already acts not only as a subject, but also as an object of control. In turn, the object of control, for example, an officer, receiving this or that managerial decision of the commander, in the process of its execution acts as a subject of control. Thus, the subject and object of control perform a double - subject-object function.
The main link in the management structure is the development and execution of management decisions. And here an important principle is the principle of optimality, which means that when developing a management decision it is necessary to take into account the maximum possible options for its implementation and select those that would most fully ensure the achievement of the set goals. Consequently, a management decision is developed by the subject with a focus on the object of management, taking into account its needs and interests, as well as its real capabilities and the conditions for converting these capabilities into the actual implementation of the decision. In the sphere of public administration, without sufficient scientifically based knowledge of the needs of the people, the principle of optimality loses its effectiveness.
The nature of social management in modern conditions imposes on the subject of management the requirement of increased responsibility for making management decisions, which is determined by both the scale of management influences and the complexity of the structural organization of the management object. So, social management is a targeted or spontaneous influence based on the principle of feedback on the elements of society as an integral system for its optimally organized functioning and development.
The principles of socio-political management of society change depending on the nature of the social system and the forms of state power. They, for example, can be strictly determined, when the control action seeks to unambiguously “program” the behavior of the “addressee,” and, so to speak, softly determined, when the management program assumes a relatively wide range of possible types and forms of behavior of control objects. However, hard and soft principles in a “pure” form are rarely encountered in history: management in social systems, as a rule, in one way or another combines both of these principles. They are most paradoxically combined in systems in which a spontaneous control mechanism is implemented, which is very clearly seen in the example of the market, where the “invisible hand” operates, which A. Smith wrote about. On the one hand, this “hand” directs the free play of elemental forces, allowing flexibility and pliability of the competing parties, and on the other hand, it dictates tough and ruthless rules of the game, inexorable as fate.
As an example of the operation of an extremely rigid principle of social management, we can cite despotic regimes, the extreme form of which was fascism. A distinctive feature of the latter in comparison with, say, the regime of a military dictatorship is, on the one hand, the attraction of the population to its side with the help of all kinds of myths, anti-scientific, utopian ideas, slogans promising “heaven in the future”, and on the other hand, the use of refined and sophisticated forms of violence, the fight against dissidents, mass terror elevated to the rank of state policy. The entire management system of the fascist state is focused on using people for the benefit of the ruling elite or even one person - the Fuhrer, whose service is elevated, essentially, to the level of a religious cult. Apologists for fascism argued that there was no longer a free state of thought in the state: there were only correct thoughts and thoughts that were subject to extermination.
