DATA _______ What is data? WARNING! Data is not information. Information is derived from data. The data may be correct, the information may not be. Man as far as I can determine, is the only flora or fauna who can manipulate data for his own personal ends. We may better be able to explain data if we see the universe in an electrical/plasma context. There are three (known) 'forces', viz. strong, electro-magnetic and weak. In a general sense in physics strong forces bind atoms together (at least that is how we explain it), electro-magnetic describes the medium forces and weak is usually referred to in terms of gravitation. No-one really understands these forces at all. They are also on a continuum; they are not separate and there is no dividing line between them, hence a continuum. Forces are manifestations which react with each other in some way. In words, they cannot be explained since explaining them, we remove ourselves from what effect they have. Forces, therefore, are felt by whatever senses are available, for example, by a human person or any other organism (flora or fauna as defined arbitrarily) considered 'living'. 'Living' means the input and output of an organism due to forces which create a dynamism. Dynamism means something that does not remain static although this may be argued since although a rock, for example, does not 'appear' to move, it in fact does due to movements within the earth. However, dynamic life-forms decidedly move over a surface. A universe dictated by the mathematical concept of gravity, a weak force, cannot explain how the universe works. This is because it is mathematical (a pure concept of the brain of Man) and is rarely demonstrated in practice except by allusion. The universe works because it is electrical. Electrical forces can explain (rightly or wrongly) most (if not all) of the events that we can witness given our limited (to our minds) resources for demonstrating them as to become meaningful. Whatever data is, it is input and output. Data requires a receiver a transmitter and a filter. Between the two, there are a myriad possibilities determined by:     the type/state of the data,     the type/state of the receiver     the type/state of the transmitter     and the type/state of the filter ...all at any given moment in time, which is immeasurable, although we presume so. Given what we might be able to conceive at any given time, there are no limits to a measure of any kind. The reason we need to be as accurate as possible, is to live within our (sensual) means at a particular moment in 'time'. For a human person (for example) to be able to 'live', that person must be able to filter the data being received. A filter is a device (however constructed) which eliminates unwanted data that would not suit a particular purpose, at a particular time. Thus, when we sleep, we may filter out the ticking of a clock, for example. A better example (in terms of human survival) is the fact that a man can filter out the cry of a hungry baby during the night (he has to obtain food and maintain the child), whereas a woman cannot filter this out (she has to feed the baby for the survival of the family as-a-whole). These people work together to maintain the whole (their survival). The universe must remain as a whole, it can do nothing else, otherwise there is real chaos and nothing would happen at all; nothing would be dynamic. Whatever data is, it is coming at us all the time; there is no respite; that is how the universe (seems) to work. To survive, we need to receive this data, filter what we do and/or do not need and transmit subsequent data (which has been modified by the circumstances of the moment) and transmitted outwards. All flora and fauna (on any planet one might conceive) receive data from their surroundings (the universe as-a-whole). All flora and fauna need to filter the data (as best they can) for use in their particular circumstances at the moment the data is received (and afterwards transmitted) to survive. All flora and fauna, to enable them to exist at all, need to transmit this 'modified' data to others. They have no choice in the matter if the universe is to work as-a-whole, which it does. Because of all this, we adapt to our surroundings as they are and being dynamic (moving forwards) the universe (as-a-whole), moves in a direction we call 'forward'.

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