ABSTRACT
The three essays in this short part are quite different. The first one, "Information, Communications and Understanding," is very much "theoretical" though free from the jargon of theory. It discusses the nature of information and the conditions under which information becomes communications, that is, logic, understanding, and thereby meaning. Its foundation, though never made explicit, is the ancient theory of logic and rhetoric as first expounded in two great Platonic dialogues, the Phaedo and the Phaedrus, the dialogues respectively, about logic and rhetoric, their requirements, and their limitations. But the essay then melds into these traditional concepts the findings of modern logic and perception theory and does this without using "scientific" language and in a form easily accessible to the layman and easily applicable in and to an organization. The second essay, "Information and the Future of the City" shows the impact on social and community structure of our new ability to define, move, and use information. It is particularly concerned with the impact on that proudest of nineteenth-century achievements, the modern city, based as it was on the then new technology of moving people. The last essay, "Information-Based Organization," projects information on the social organization of people at work and shows how our newly gained information ability changes both the conceptual basis of organization and the relationships within it.
