Computers have their own way of distinguishing between a message’s data and its meaning, the first deals with a transmissible bit-coded statement such as “0087” in binary. The second deals with managing data categories; the data structure that knows “0087” is a flight number while “1507” is the EST takeoff time. Before there are data there must be data structures, and these set the data’s meaning. Human communicators say they “understand” something when they get the categories right.
