Signals and Meaning

Every day, digital systems produce an enormous volume of information.

A car is purchased at a dealership. The transaction is recorded. The registration is filed. Insurance is taken out. A service is booked. A parking fine is issued. Across the street, an artist releases an album. Streams accumulate on Spotify. Reviews are published. Fans post on social media. Playlist editors add the record. A radio station logs a play.

Each of these events generates a signal: a record, a document, a reference, distributed across different systems simultaneously.

But signals are not meaning.

A signal is a raw fragment of information. It exists at a moment in time, on a specific platform, in a specific format. On its own, it tells you something happened. It does not tell you what it means, how it connects to what came before, or whether it will still be accessible tomorrow.

Consider what those signals could tell you together. For the car: who owned it, how it was maintained, where it travelled, what it was worth at each point in its life. For the artist: how a release performed, which platforms drove discovery, how reception evolved over time, which collaborations followed.

Without structure, those signals remain isolated.

The dealership record sits in one system. The registration in another. The Spotify streams in a third. The review in a fourth. Each fragment exists. But the meaning they could form together, a coherent history of the vehicle, or a continuous picture of an artist's trajectory, is never assembled.

This is the problem that infrastructure exists to solve.

Not the production of signals. Systems generate those automatically. But the transformation of signals into something that persists: structured, connected, and meaningful across time.

Signals tell you something happened.

Structure is what allows you to understand it.

Meaning and Identity

Digital systems do not interact with reality directly. They interact with representations of entities.

A car appears in a dealership database. In a government registration system. In an insurance record. In a parking enforcement system. In a traffic camera log. In a maintenance history at a garage.

An artist appears as a stage name on Spotify. As a legal name in a record contract. As a username on Instagram. As a shortened name on a festival lineup. As a full name in an interview from ten years ago.

Each system contains a representation. None of these representations is the car or the artist itself.

They are fragments. Partial, contextual, and dependent on the system in which they exist.

Consider what happens when the car is sold and reregistered under a new license plate. Traffic camera records reference the old plate. The new owner's insurance references the new one. The registration system holds both, but links them only if the process was followed correctly.

Consider what happens when the artist changes their name, moves to a new label, and deletes their old social media accounts. Early reviews reference the old name. Streaming platforms hold incomplete catalogue histories. Fan databases contain conflicting information.

Without a stable identity connecting these representations, continuity becomes fragmented.

Without identity, signals cannot accumulate. They remain disconnected observations with no continuity.

Identity is the persistent reference that allows these fragments to be understood as belonging to the same underlying entity.

Infrastructure does not create truth by centralising data.

It creates continuity by stabilising identity.

Identity and Continuity

Digital information is inherently unstable.

Systems change. Records are updated. Organisations restructure. Databases are migrated. Platforms are decommissioned. Links break. Data disappears entirely.

A car accumulates records across its lifetime: registration documents, ownership transfers, insurance policies, service logs, accident reports.

An artist accumulates records across a career: releases, credits, collaborations, performances, interviews.

Ownership changes. Names change. Systems change.

Over time, continuity becomes fragile.

Without a stable reference point, it becomes difficult to determine what persists.

Persistent identifiers provide that reference point.

The Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is assigned once at manufacture and remains constant throughout the life of the vehicle. Ownership, color, license plate: these change. The VIN does not.

A persistent artist identifier functions the same way. It remains stable across name changes, label moves, and platform migrations.

These identifiers allow signals to accumulate into continuous histories.

They do not replace records.

They connect them.

This continuity is not automatic.

It must be maintained.

Infrastructure ensures that identity persists beyond individual systems.

Continuity and Persistence

Signals appear continuously.

A car is purchased. Registered. Insured. Serviced. Sold.

An artist records a track. Releases it. Performs it. Licenses it. Is sampled years later.

Each event generates information within a specific system.

On its own, each signal is isolated.

What allows signals to accumulate into persistence is structure.

The car appears across registration systems, insurance records, maintenance logs, and enforcement systems.

The artist appears across streaming platforms, rights databases, archives, and catalogues.

Each system records part of the history.

Persistent identifiers connect these records across systems and across time.

These identifiers form the structural backbone that allows continuity to persist.

Infrastructure maintains this structure.

It captures signals. It connects them to identity. It preserves relationships.

Without infrastructure, signals remain isolated.

With infrastructure, signals accumulate.

Infrastructure does not create meaning.

It allows meaning to persist.

Persistence and Loss

Before digital systems, records were fixed in physical form.

A vehicle's logbook travelled with the car. An artist's discography existed in physical archives.

These records were imperfect. But they persisted.

Digital systems made records easier to create, and easier to lose.

Systems are replaced. Platforms shut down. Companies disappear. Archives are not migrated.

Records vanish.

When records disappear, continuity breaks.

When continuity breaks, meaning collapses.

History becomes fragmented.

Without persistent infrastructure, knowledge becomes dependent on the lifespan of individual systems.

Infrastructure transforms signals into memory.

Without persistence, signals fade.

With persistence, signals become history.

These concepts are explored through real-world examples in Notes.