In the Beginning was Information

the voluminous data requirements, comprise many ideas, but even so, theresults are just as meagre as they are unambiguous: In all these cases weobtain “texts” which may be morphologically correct, but are semanticnonsense.A word is not merely a sequence of letters, but it has a nomenclatorial functionwhich refers to a specific object (e. g. Richard the Lion Heart, Matterhorn,or London) or a class of objects (animal, car, or church) according tothe conventions of the language. Every language has its own naming conventionsfor the same object, as for example “HOUSE”, German “HAUS”,Spanish “CASA”, French “MAISON”, and Finnish “TALON”. In addition,a single word also has a meaning in the narrow sense of the word.On the other hand, a sentence describes a situation, a condition, or anevent, i. e. a sentence has an overall meaning. It consists of various singlewords, but the meaning of a sentence comprises more than just a sequentialchain of the meanings of the words. The relationships between thesense of a sentence and the meanings of the words it contains are a semanticproblem which can only be investigated in the framework of the delicatelyshaded meanings of the language conventions existing between thesender and the recipient of the message.Conclusion: Even though complete sets of letter groups, syllables, andwords are used, together with their previously established frequency distributions,the statistically produced texts generated by various programmingsystems lack the decisive criteria which would ensure that asequence of letters comprises a real message. The following criteria haveto be met before a sequence of symbols can be accorded the status ofinformation (a message):1. Meaning accorded by the sender: A set of symbols must have beentransmitted by a sender and must be directed at a recipient. (If thedescribed process did generate a letter sequence like “I LOVE YOU”, Iwould be able to understand the text, but it still is not information as faras I am concerned, because it was not transmitted by somebody wholoves me.)2. Truth based in reality: The set of symbols must contain actual truthpertaining to the real world. (If a statistical process might produce a sentencelike “PARIS IS THE CAPITAL OF FRANCE”, this is correct andtrue, but it has no practical significance, because it is not rooted in a realexperience.)3. Recognisable intention: A sequence of symbols must be purposefullyintentional, i. e. it must have been conceptualised by a sender.204