It may come as a surprise to most people but scientists do not study the things in the world, they study idealizations of them. This is a very Platonic approach and even more surprising when one considered the fact that modern scientists probably see themselves more as the children of Aristotle than as the children of Plato.
Galileo introduced the idea of studying idealizations into physics. If you take an introductory class in physics you will learn about ideal springs, frictionless inclined planes, and free fall in a vacuum. These are all idealizations.
Max Weber introduced the concept of ideal types into social science. He said there is no such thing as a bureaucracy, but we study this idealization because it has greater value in advancing our knowledge.
In information in particular and areas of technology in general, we are concerned not with idealizations of physical phenomena, nor with idealizations of social phenomena. We are concerned with idealizations of artifacts that will exist in the future. And studying artifacts that exist in the future requires imagination.
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