Semantic way of measuring information: essence, basic concepts and properties

The semantic way of measuring information is what? What is it based on? What are the objectives and objectives of the task? We will talk about all this in the framework of this article.

general information

In what cases is a semantic method of measuring information used? The essence of information is used, the content of the received message is of interest - here are the indications for its application. But first, let's give an explanation of what he is. It should be noted that the semantic way of measuring information is a difficult formalized approach, which has not yet been fully formed. It is used to measure the amount of meaning in the data that was received. In other words, how much information from the received is necessary in this case. This approach is used to determine the content side of the information received. And if we are talking about the semantic way of measuring information, the concept of thesaurus is used, which is inextricably linked with the topic under consideration. What does it represent?

Thesaurus

I want to make a small introduction and answer one question about the semantic way of measuring information. Who commissioned it? Proposed to use this method is the founder of cybernetics Norbert Wiener, but significant development he received under the influence of our compatriot A. Yu. Schreider. What is the thesaurus? This name is used to indicate the aggregate of information that the recipient of information has. If you correlate the thesaurus with the content of the message that has arrived, you can find out how much it reduced the uncertainty. I want to correct one mistake, under the influence of which often gets a lot of people. So, they believe that the semantic way of measuring information is introduced by Claude Shannon. It is not known exactly how this error originated, but this opinion is incorrect. Claude Shannon introduced a statistical method of measuring information, the "heir" of which is considered to be semantic.

A graphical approach for determining the amount of semantic information in a received message

Why do you need to draw something? The semantic way of measuring information in computer science uses this opportunity to visually provide data on the usefulness of data in the form of easily understood figures. What does this mean in practice? To clarify the state of affairs, dependency is plotted. If the user has no knowledge of the essence of the message that was received (equal to zero), then the amount of semantic information will be equal to the same value. Is it possible to find the optimal value? Yes! This is called the thesaurus, where the volume of semantic information is maximum. Let's look at a small example. Let's say a user received a message written in an unfamiliar foreign language, or a person can read what is written there, but this is no longer a news for him, as all this is known. In such cases, it is said that the message contains zero semantic information.

Historical development

Probably, this should be talked a little higher, but it is not too late to catch up. Originally a semantic way of measuring information was introduced by Ralph Hartley in 1928. Earlier it was mentioned that Claude Shannon is often mentioned as the founder. Why did such confusion arise? The fact is that although the semantic way of measuring information was introduced by Ralph Hartley in 1928, it was Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver that generalized it in 1948. After that, the founder of cybernetics Norbert Wiener formed the idea of the thesaurus method, which received the greatest recognition as a measure developed by Yu. I. Schneider. It should be noted that in order to understand this, a fairly high level of knowledge is needed.

Effectiveness

What does the thesaurus method give us in practice? It is a real confirmation of the thesis that information possesses such a property as relativity. It should be noted that it has relative (or subjective) value. In order to be able to objectively evaluate scientific information, introduced the concept of universal thesaurus. Its degree of change and shows the significance of knowledge that humanity receives. At the same time, it is impossible to say exactly which final result (or the intermediate one) can be obtained from the information. Take computers, for example. Computer technology was created on the basis of lamp technology and the bit state of each structural element and was originally used for calculations. Now almost every person has something that works on the basis of this technology: radio, telephone, computer, TV, laptop. Even modern refrigerators, stoves and washbasins contain a bit of electronics, based on information on facilitating the use of human data of household devices.

Scientific approach

Where is the semantic way of measuring information studied? Informatics is the science that deals with various aspects of this issue. What is the feature? The basis of the method is the use of the system "true / false", or the bit system "unit / zero". When certain information arrives, it is divided into separate blocks, which are referred to as speech units: words, syllables and the like. Each block gets a certain value. Let's look at a small example. Nearby are two friends. One turns to the second with the words: "Tomorrow we have a day off." Everyone knows the days for rest. Therefore, the value of this information is zero. But if the second says that he works tomorrow, then for the first it will be a surprise. After all, in this case, it may turn out that the plans that one person has built, for example, go to bowling or dig in the workshop, will be violated. Each part of the described example can be described using units and zeros.

Operating concepts

But what else is used besides the thesaurus? What else do you need to know in order to understand the semantic way of measuring information? The basic concepts that can additionally be studied further are the sign systems. They are understood as means of expressing meaning, such as rules for the interpretation of signs or their combinations. Let's look at another example from informatics. Computers operate with conditional zeros and ones. In fact, this is a low and high voltage, which is fed to the components of technology. And they transmit these units and zeros without end and edge. How to make a difference between them technique? The answer to this was found - interruptions. When the same information is transmitted, different blocks such as words, word combinations and individual values are obtained. In oral human speech, pauses are also used to break down data into separate blocks. They are so invisible that most of them we notice on the "automatic". In the letter for this purpose serve points and commas.

Features

Let's also touch on the topic of properties, which there is a semantic way of measuring information. We already know that this is the name of a special approach that assesses the importance of information. Is it possible to say that the data that will be evaluated in this way will be objective? No, it's not true. Information is subjective. Let's take a look at the example of the school. There is an excellent student who goes ahead of the approved program, and the average average, who studies what is stated in the class. For the first, most of the information that he will receive at school will be of rather low interest, since he already knows it and not for the first time hears / reads. Therefore, on a subjective level, it will not be very valuable for him (at the expense of the individual remarks of the teacher, which he noticed during the time of the presentation of his subject). While the average person about new information heard something only remotely, so for him the value of the data that will be presented in the classroom is an order of magnitude larger.

Conclusion

It should be noted that in informatics, the semantic way of measuring information is not the only option within which you can solve existing problems. The choice should depend on the goals set and the opportunities present. Therefore, if the topic is interesting or if there is a need for it, you can only strongly recommend that you study it in more detail and find out what other methods of measuring information, other than the semantic, exist.