Consumers of information; the great danger of the Information Society

By Demosthenes Kyriazis

What does it mean the term Information Society

The Society, in which every citizen can participate, by using the means of Information and Telecommunication Technology, in the choice of society’s targets and in the political, economic, social and work activities, is defined as Information Society. Such a society is also called: Knowledge Society or Network Society. In Europe has prevailed the term Information Society, but many believe that the term Network Society has more clarity and protects the citizens from the misunderstandings listed below.

From the aforementioned citizens’ participations, dominating is their participation in the exercise of the political power which has the institutional competence and power to define the other actions.  Therefore the participation of citizens in other actions, without the participation in the exercise of power, has little and unimportant value. Without the first participation, the others quickly degenerate into verbose innings, both from the pressure of the natural laws of entropy, and from the self-interest of the people. Selfishness is a physical characteristic that is present in all people and of course to those exercising the power, despite the contrary proclaimed by them. Ordinary people say: “…and the priest first blesses his beard”. 

Events and Information

In Information Technology the "products" of the sensors are called Events (Facts, news, happenings) and the “products” of processing the Events from the computers, is called Information. Similar to what happens in humans. Information is not what we see and hear, but the products of their logic processing from the brain. This follows from the etymology of the Creek term for information[i]  which clearly states that information is more than what we hear and see.

Information therefore is a product of every person created by the brain from the logic processing of what he hears, sees and generally perceives from his sensory organs. The logic processing of the brain and not the sensors generates the information. The logic processing also creates knowledge and Sophia (wisdom) with a stepwise process that in mathematical formalism can be stated as follows:

• Events + logic processing = Information.

• Information + logic processing = Knowledge.

• Knowledge + logic processing = Sophia

If therefore man loses the ability to transform Events into Information easily comes out the conclusion that he also loses the ability of producing knowledge from information and wisdom from knowledge. 

The information acquisition is not a supply from third parties, but a conquest, like that of knowledge and wisdom of each man.

However, many people believe that news and views presented from the media and Internet sites, are informations and that is why they “consume” them as they are, without logical processing them. 

In the information society it is easy to acquire a lot of Events. However more important is the logic processing of the Events, which can be done easily, faster and cheaper today with the use of technology tools. This possibility is known to proficient researchers, who often do not just use existing tools, but develop new ones that facilitate their efforts for more and faster brain processing of Events. Nevertheless, many people believe that today's technology can substitute the logical power of man. This is a large and dangerous mistake. "The tools assist but do not replace the craftsman”

The above conclusion should be understood and experienced from the people of "Information Society", because there is a serious risk to prevail the view and especially the practice that the acquisition of a lot of events is automatically and without processing, obtaining of information, knowledge and wisdom.

It is obvious that such a view and practice will lead to atrophy of the "brain / logic processor" and will transmute people into beings who will process the events with the power of instincts and motivations rather than with logic.

The biggest crime against humanity

If citizens of the information society,   stop to process the products of their sensors by the power of  logic, then deterministically and through a Darwin type process, the majority of people will transmuted from beings "in the image and likeness of God", in beings that they will process the events with the power of instincts and motivations like the illogical beings.

This mutation will be the greatest crime against humanity.

The perpetrators and the causes of crime

Identifying the perpetrators and the causes of crime is done easily and reliably, by applying the "doctrine of prosecutors." According to this doctrine perpetrators of a crime are those whose interests are served by the crime.

The unreasoning consideration of facts and opinions as information, which is essentially the aforementioned crime, serves the interests of citizens’ representatives, of workers' representatives and of media persons. This happens because the real duty and responsibility of all those persons is to serve the interests of all citizens and not their own. But because this is often contrary to their ambitions and interests, they have found another path; the manipulation of the citizens so that their interests to appear as that of the citizens!! This manipulation is only achieved when citizens treat events with the power of instincts and motivations and not through the power of reason.

 In order, the political, spiritual and economic 'messiahs' to have great power, people should not understand, but to believe and trust blindly them. But as a Chinese proverb says, "The genuine messiahs do not give to the people fish but teach them how to fish”.

The Protection from the major crime against the humanity

It is fact that the treatment of events as information is grown and applied in political life, in the exercise of political power. Contrary to that, in the case of individual life people create genuine and credible information by processing the events with their own logic. Nevertheless, the risk of consuming the events, because we consider them information, is very great because in the political life are determined the rules and the possibilities of our individual life.

The foregoing leads to the conclusion that to protect the people of the Information Society from the "major crime against the humanity", the people must regain the status of "the ruling and the ruled citizen"; the status that creates responsible citizens; the status that will maintain and strengthen the power of people to judge events with the power of logic.

The current regime[ii] of the Greeks,  as well as that of many other countries, which enables representatives of the citizens to act in a way that the citizens:  (1) process the events with the power of incentives and instincts, and (2) have responsibility but not power, is incompatible with the aims and possibilities of the Information Society.