The Storage Of Meaning And How We Disappear

InnovationEnterprise TechThe Storage Of Meaning And How We DisappearByThomas Coughlin,Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Covering Digital Storage Technology & Market. IEEE President in 2024Follow AuthorMay 11, 2026, 12:11am EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.Meaning and hopegettyI recently read a Norton pre-print book by Thomas S. Mullaney, a History Professor at Stanford University, called How We Disappear. As a person very involved in digital storage and long-term digital preservation, I found it a very interesting read. I read most of the book while I was on a personal journey with my cousin in April to bring lots of family history stuff, after my mom died last October (my dad died in 2001), in a rented truck, from Sioux Falls, South Dakota to California, where now I live. Considering the topic of Dr. Mullaney’s book, it was a very appropriate topic.Dr. Mullaney reflects on the deaths of his own parents and how human lives disappear, and the efforts people take to try to capture their family history and create meaning from what is left behind. In his book he ranges from discussing Claude Shannon’s information theory that enabled modern digital communication to discussing how he took a forensic approach to going through his dad’s office after he died to put all of his things into perspective, and the family secrets he unveiled in the process of doing so.As Mallaney said, Shannon’s “information” could be anything from a string of random digits to a love letter. Shannon introduced the concept of entropy into information science from Physics. He sought to quantify the uncertainty, or randomness, of a message. Shannon’s information though, in order to last, must be maintained, because the natural order of the universe is for disorder to increase over time. Mullaney says that, “Information is, quite simply, any set of entities, physi...