"Raw" data is that which contains the maximum currently feasible total information content. I think it's surprising that feasibility enters into it, but it does

"Raw" data is that which contains the maximum currently feasible total information content. I think it's surprising that feasibility enters into it, but it does. In analytics, "raw" often means "the unaltered contents of the application database". This is hardly "unprocessed" or "natural", but to alter it ("clean" it) might lose information which turns out to be important later. An analytics person may express exasperation that the application database is so idiosyncratic. If it were up to them, the "raw" data would be cleaner, or more complete, or less noisy. But the application database is the way it is because it would be infeasible to drastically change it. Certainly nothing can be done for the historical data that's already been collected. Perhaps in the future, data could be collected in a cleaner or less noisy way, the schemas normalized or redesigned, but any proposed changes must compete with the present inertia of the system, and with the need to maintain existing functionality. That is, any such changes must be feasible. For physical experiments, "raw" data is that produced by sensors that were feasible to construct and operate given available technology and resources at the time. One might imagine that "rawer" data than that might be collected some day in the future. :)