Comment by mmiller

I think what Alan was getting at is that what you see as "data" is in fact, at its basis, just signal, and only signal; a wave pattern, for example, but even calling it a "wave pattern" suggests interpretation. What I think he's trying to get across is there is a phenomenon being generated by something, but it requires something else--an interpreter--to even consider it "data" in the first place. As you said, there are multiple ways to interpret that phenomenon, but considering "data" as irreducible misses that point, because the concept of data requires an interpreter to even call it that. Its very existence as a concept from a signal presupposes an interpretation. And I think what he might have been getting at is, "Let's make that relationship explicit." Don't impose a single interpretation on signal by making "data" irreducible. Expose the interpretation by making it explicit, along with the signal, in how one might design a system that persists, processes, and transmits data.