Wheatley on Information

“We suffer from a fundamental misperception of information,” says organizational theorist Margaret Wheatley. “We have treated it as a thing, as a physical entity, which has kept us from contemplating its other dimensions -- the content, character, and behavior of information. We expect information to be controllable, stable, and obedient. We expect to be able to manage it. In the new science, however, information is a dynamic, changing element. Without information, life cannot give birth to anything new. Information is what allows for the emergence of a new order.”