Problem, Learning, and Information
I read that Toyota defines the word “problem” to mean the difference between the current condition (actual outcome) and the standard (or expected outcome.) They do this because then when someone asks “What’s the problem”, it helps people point to the actual discrepancy observed, instead of the common response of starting to guess at causal mechanisms that may or may not be relevant.
This also aligns nicely with the idea that learning is the difference between expectation and outcome – which also happens to be the what information (in the Shannon sense) is!
Fun with words!