" What is important is not merely the information that we put into the line, but what is left of it when it goes through the final machinery to open or close sluices, to synchronize generators, and to do similar tasks. In one sense, this terminal apparatus may be regarded as a filter superimposed on the transmission line. Semantically significant information from the cybernetic point of view is that which gets through the line-plus-filter, rather than that which gets through the line alone. "

― Norbert Wiener , The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society