Machine Talk

I would just like to say a word about the differences between information and data.  Information root is in form, thus information is the only information the first time you encounter it.  Data, on the other hand, is a body of facts, then is the storage of things that may be known or unknown to the user of the data bank, and thus may or may not be information to those who avail themselves to the data stored by another.  This information is learning, and data are remembering what you have learned.

"Inform" has two morphemes "in-" as a prefix meaning "into" and "-from" as "suffix" from Latin meaning "a form" (-form also has another variant "forms")

"Information" has 3 morphemes "in-; -forms; -ton".  The two words do come from one root, that is "formal"  Source: Oxford dictionary.

Feedback is a machine, be it electronic or mechanical, term, and refers to a controlling command returned to the system to tell it either to keep doing what you are doing, or quit what you are doing.  Feedback has to be negative else the system will drive itself to its limit and on to its destruction in some cases.  

Negative feedback occurs when the result of a process influences the operation of the process itself in such a way as to reduce changes. Negative feedback tends to make a system self-regulating; it can produce stability and reduce the effect of fluctuations. Negative feedback loops where just the right amount of correction is applied in the most timely manner can be very stable, accurate, and responsive. Negative feedback is widely used in mechanical and electronic engineering, but it also occurs naturally within living organisms, and can be seen in many other fields from chemistry and economics to social behaviour and the climate.  Wikipeda

A home heating/cooling system can give a good example of how feedback is used to control the temperature in the home.  The system consists of heating and cooling units, and a thermostat.  The thermostat is the feedback part of the system.  It has the on and off switch, a heat/cool sensor, and a temperature control function.  In most thermostats the last two are combined in one device, but they do not have to be.  A simple feedback unit consists of a strip that has two different types of metals on each side that will expand and contract with the heat at different rates causing the strip to bend one way or the other.  As the strips bend it will make or break the on/off switch that goes into the system.

You set the temperature desired by sliding the contact up or down, or back and forth on the thermostat.  What you are doing is either increasing or decreasing the distance which the contact strip has to bend to make or beak its contact with the system.  If the room where the thermostat is is cooler that the temperature that you set, the strip will be in contact to the on/off circuitry, and the heater will turn on.  As the room heats up the contact switch will bend enough to break contact and this is the negative feedback to heater to stop heating.  Stop or less is negative, more or faster is positive.

As the room cools the strip will bend back and touch the contact and turn the heater back on.  This is not a positive feedback, it is the removal of the negative feedback.  If this feedback is removed, say the contacts stick together, the system runs away, and keeps on heating at it's max until it burns itself out, or makes you turn if off because you are so hot.

This feedback principle is used steam engines using pressure valves to provide the feedback, and in all electronic, including computers, negative feedback is used to control the transistors, turning an amplifier on and off, setting flip flops to 0s and 1s, no positive feedback is employed.  It is only when we took the term from machines and applied it to human intercourse did positives feedback enter the lexicon.

After we started using feedback as a concept applying to human processing soon followed.  Humans do not process information, machines do, humans think.  The danger in using machine terms to apply to humans is the tendency to start treating them like they were machines.  Personally I avoid using machine words like feedback and processing when talking to others. Instead of asking what kind of feedback they got while they were being interviewed I will ask, "Did they seem interested, do you think you impressed them?" Or some such.  Instead of asking someone if they have processed the new procedure yet I will ask, "Do you understand that yet?"

I know that English is a living language and constantly in flux with the adoption of new words and the abandonment of others, and putting old words to new uses.  With the change of words we use come a change in the way we think because words are not only the expression of our thoughts, they, by our use of them, shape our thoughts as well.

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Rexx