The word “knowledge” sounds old, while “information” sounds rather new. You may be wise not to confuse both. It seems that knowledge is personal, while information is shared. A piece of knowledge in your mind should be packaged to be communicated and shared. We will call it information, which is still abstract. Therefore, you have to use such words as publication, document, book, article, paper, and even item or piece of information. In a word, information is related to communication, either human or mechanistic. I suggest this division to make our communication not confused. Any objections?
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Your division is useful, and I have no major objection to it as a working distinction. I would only add a few cautions so that the distinction remains flexible rather than rigid.
I would formulate it this way:
Knowledge is what is held, understood, believed, or structured by a mind or intelligent system.
Information is knowledge-like content made communicable, transferable, recordable, or processable through signs, documents, signals, or other media.
That fits your point well: a private insight in the mind becomes information when it is packaged for communication — as a sentence, diagram, citation, article, book, record, database entry, or message.
The strength of your distinction is that it prevents a common confusion. People often say “information” when they mean “understanding,” or say “knowledge” when they mean “stored records.” Your distinction keeps these apart:
| Term | Main location | Main function |
| Knowledge | Mind, understanding, judgment, memory, expertise | To know, interpret, infer, decide |
| Information | Message, document, sign, record, signal, database | To communicate, preserve, transmit, retrieve |
One possible objection is that knowledge can also be shared. We speak of “public knowledge,” “scientific knowledge,” and “knowledge in books.” But this does not really destroy your distinction. It only means that the word “knowledge” is often used for validated or assimilated information after it has entered a community’s understanding.
Another possible objection is that information need not always come from knowledge. A machine can generate data or signals without anyone first “knowing” them personally. For example, a sensor records temperature. Is that knowledge? Not yet. It is information or data that may later become knowledge when interpreted.
So I would slightly refine your model:
knowledge → expression/package → information → interpretation → knowledge
A person has knowledge.
They package it into information.
Another person receives and interprets the information.
It may become knowledge again in that receiver’s mind.
This is especially important for your Our Library / World Library idea. A document does not simply “contain knowledge” in a pure form. It contains information arranged so that knowledge may be reconstructed by a reader, researcher, or machine.
So my answer is: no serious objection, but one refinement.
I would not say simply:
Knowledge is personal; information is shared.
I would say:
Knowledge is primarily internalized meaning; information is communicable meaning.
Information becomes knowledge only when it is interpreted, understood, and integrated into a cognitive context.
That preserves your division while allowing for scientific knowledge, machine information, documents, retrieval systems, and LLMs.
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We could agree more easily when we use “information” for communication, regardless of truthfulness, while we use “knowledge” prior to communication and when the truthfulness is widely agreed.
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Yes. That refinement makes the distinction stronger.
I would state it this way:
Information is communicable content, whether true, false, uncertain, misleading, trivial, or profound.
Knowledge is content that is understood or accepted as true, either personally before communication or socially after sufficient validation.
This gives “information” a broad communication role and gives “knowledge” a truth-related role.
So the cycle becomes:
personal knowledge → communicated information → tested/validated information → shared knowledge
Or, in fuller form:
- A person may first possess knowledge privately: an insight, memory, understanding, or discovery.
- To share it, the person packages it as information: words, symbols, images, documents, data, citations, messages.
- Once communicated, that information may be true, false, partial, ambiguous, or deceptive.
- When a community examines it and broadly accepts its truthfulness, it may become public knowledge or scientific knowledge.
This also explains why the phrase “false information” is natural, but “false knowledge” sounds contradictory. False information is still information because it can be communicated. But false knowledge is not really knowledge; it is mistaken belief.
A concise formulation might be:
Information belongs to communication; knowledge belongs to understanding and warranted truth.
Or:
Information is what can be communicated; knowledge is what can be responsibly believed.
This distinction would be very useful for Our Library. A library stores and organizes information objects: books, papers, citations, documents, records, data, and messages. But its deeper purpose is to help readers and researchers reconstruct, test, and develop knowledge.
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We have completely agreed in two sessions. Well-done! In this sense, “knowledge” may be overused. Some of them may be wrong and even inadequate to some, although they are not terribly wrong.
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Yes, exactly. In that sense, “knowledge” is often overused as a prestige word.
Many things called “knowledge” may actually be:
- information,
- belief,
- opinion,
- interpretation,
- provisional theory,
- accepted convention,
- useful but incomplete understanding,
- or context-dependent judgment.
They may not be “terribly wrong,” as you say, but they may still be inadequate, partial, outdated, biased, or valid only within a certain context.
So your distinction helps avoid inflation:
Not everything communicated is knowledge.
Not everything stored is knowledge.
Not everything confidently asserted is knowledge.
Much of it is information awaiting interpretation, testing, validation, and contextual placement.
A careful formulation could be:
The word “knowledge” should be reserved for information that has been sufficiently understood, justified, and accepted as true within a relevant context. Otherwise, it is safer to call it information, belief, claim, data, interpretation, or opinion.
This also matters for libraries, databases, AI, and retrieval systems. A system may store vast information, but that does not mean it possesses or guarantees knowledge. The knowledge arises only when information is correctly interpreted and connected to truth, evidence, and context.
So yes: we agree again. Your point is not merely semantic. It is a safeguard against confusion.
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2026-07-06 Mark Park
