When you talk about "Information processing" what actually do you have in mind?

TL;DR

This paper proposes a definition of information based on Kolmogorov's Complexity theory, distinguishing physical and semantic information as text descriptions, and suggests that information processing is fundamentally text processing, aiming to clarify misconceptions.

Contribution

It introduces a formal definition of information rooted in complexity theory, emphasizing linguistic descriptions and advocating for viewing information processing as text processing.

Findings

Defines information as structures observable in data sets

Distinguishes physical and semantic information as text descriptions

Highlights the importance of linguistic structures in information processing

Abstract

"Information Processing" is a recently launched buzzword whose meaning is vague and obscure even for the majority of its users. The reason for this is the lack of a suitable definition for the term "information". In my attempt to amend this bizarre situation, I have realized that, following the insights of Kolmogorov's Complexity theory, information can be defined as a description of structures observable in a given data set. Two types of structures could be easily distinguished in every data set - in this regard, two types of information (information descriptions) should be designated: physical information and semantic information. Kolmogorov's theory also posits that the information descriptions should be provided as a linguistic text structure. This inevitably leads us to an assertion that information processing has to be seen as a kind of text processing. The idea is not new - inspired by the observation that human information processing is deeply rooted in natural language handling customs, Lotfi Zadeh and his followers have introduced the so-called "Computing With Words" paradigm. Despite of promotional efforts, the idea is not taking off yet. The reason - a lack of a coherent understanding of what should be called "information", and, as a result, misleading research roadmaps and objectives. I hope my humble attempt to clarify these issues would be helpful in avoiding common traps and pitfalls.