Data
Data is/are the facts of the World. For example, take yourself. You may be 5ft tall, have brown hair and blue eyes. All of this is “data”. You have brown hair whether this is written down somewhere or not.
In many ways, data can be thought of as a description of the World. We can perceive this data with our senses, and then the brain can process this.
Human beings have used data as long as we’ve existed to form knowledge of the world.
Until we started using information, all we could use was data directly. If you wanted to know how tall I was, you would have to come and look at me. Our knowledge was limited by our direct experiences.