In the Beginning was Information

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A2 Language: the Medium for Creating,Communicating, and Storing InformationA2.1 Natural LanguagesMan’s natural language is the most comprehensive as well as the most differentiatedmeans of expression. This special gift has been given to humanbeings only, allowing us to express all our feelings and our deepestbeliefs, as well as to describe the interrelationships prevailing in nature, inlife, and in the field of technology. Language is the calculus required forformulating all kinds of thoughts; it is also essential for conveying information.We will now investigate this uniquely human phenomenon. Firstof all some definitions of language are given, and it should be clear that abrief definition is not possible as is the case for information [L3, p 13 – 17]:Definition L1: Language is an exclusively human method for communicatingthoughts, feelings and wishes; it is not rooted in instinct, andit employs a system of freely structured symbols (Spair).Definition L2: A language is a system of arbitrary sound symbols bymeans of which a social group interacts (Bloch and Trager).Definition L3: Language is the institution used by human beings forcommunication and interaction by means of conventional and voluntaryoral-auditory symbols (Hall).Definition L4: Henceforth I will understand language to comprise aset (finite or infinite) of sentences, each of which is finite in length andconsists of a finite set of elements (Chomsky).A2.1.1 General Remarks on the Structure of Human LanguageLanguage is the ability to express information. Apart from various secondarymeans of expression like mime and gesture-language, natural spokenlanguage is the most important and most extensive vehicle for communicatinginformation. An unlimited range of subject matter can beexpressed by means of human language, achieved by a brilliantly conceivedstructural system, for all languages comprise a hierarchical systemof lingual units. The smallest units are the sounds, and it is noteworthythat only about 600 sounds which could in principle be produced by thehuman speech organs, are used in the known 5,100 languages. When achild learns a language, those sounds heard most frequently are repeated,206
and other sounds are thus not learnt. The child diminishes the range ofsounds, until, eventually, the frequency distribution typical of his mothertongue is obtained.Among languages, the number of sounds employed, varies between 15and 85. The Rotokas language spoken on Bougainville Island, NewGuinea, has the shortest alphabet, namely only 11 letters, six consonantsand five vowels: a, b, e, g, i, k, o, p, r, t, and u. Having said this, we stilldo not know how many different sounds can be produced with these letters.On the other hand, the Nepalese language employs more than 60 letters,while 72 letters including obsolete ones, are used in Kampuchean.The largest number of vowels, 55, is found in Sedang, a language used incentral Vietnam; this includes the various pitches at which “similar” vowelsare voiced. At the other extreme, the Caucasian language Abkhazian,has only two vowels. Another Caucasian language, Ubyxian, employs thegreatest number of consonants, between 80 and 85, while the above-mentionedRotokas uses only six, the smallest known number.The sounds which serve as acoustic elements of a language, are known inlinguistics as phonemes. In German most phonemes are represented bysingle letters, but often two or three letters are required (e. g. ei, eu, andsch). With only a few exceptions, phonemes are meaningless sounds –they carry no meaning. The most concise meaningful units are the morphemes,which are the simplest structures at the lowest linguistic level. Atthe top of the lingual hierarchy is the most complex level, namely theentire text. Being the smallest functional language unit, a morpheme comprisesone or more phonemes, e. g. simple words without prefixes and suffixes.A morpheme is itself part of a lexeme or word, or identical to one.Lexemes are the basic units of the vocabulary of a language in conventionalform (e. g. singular nouns or the infinitive form of a verb). Butmany words appearing in a text are usually inflected forms of the lexicalunit. There are very many possible ways of word formation, but all languagesemploy only a fraction of this total. The greatest number of differentsound combinations would be attained when all sounds or phonemescould be combined with all others in every possible sequence. Sequenceslike ktx, nxr, or bfg appear to be possible, but do not occur in English orGerman. The allocation of the meanings of sound combinations (words)are arbitrary and must be learned through experience. But the combinationof words to form sentences, is a different matter:It is very remarkable that, although we do not know the meaning of aword which we have not yet heard, we can understand sentences that havenever before been voiced, and we can produce an infinite number of newsentences which can immediately be understood by the members of ourlanguage group.207
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Werner GittIn the Beginningwas Info
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ContentsPreface ...................
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A2.1.2 Complexity and Peculiarities
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PrefaceTheme of the book: The topic
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Acknowledgements and thanks: After
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Figure 1: The web of a Cyrtophora s
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3. The Morpho rhetenor butterfly: T
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few days later another wonderful ev
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5. The organ playing robot: Would i
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PART 1: Laws of Nature
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aspects are not covered. Models are
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2.2 The Limits of Science and the P
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numerous mathematical theorems (exc
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mulated on earth, were also valid o
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F = G x m 1 x m 2 / r 2The force F
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The nine above-mentioned general bu
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R2: The laws of nature enable us to
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Conservation theorems: The followin
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Figure 6: Geometrically impossible
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ical bond. The half-life T is given
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PART 2: Information
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Since the concept of information is
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tents and because of the encoding p
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chemical quantities can be steered,
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and there are 468 Greek words. This
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Figure 10: The Rosetta stone.53
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As explained fully in Appendix A1,
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Theorem 5: Shannon’s definition o
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elementary sounds, but pictures are
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- Punched cards, mark sensing- Univ
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Get nymph; quiz sad brow; fix luck
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Theorem 7: The allocation of meanin
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Theorem 11: A code system is always
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Knowledge of the conventions applyi
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Sequences of letters generated by v
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system must have been created by an
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We can distinguish two types of act
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a) Concerning the sender:- Has an u
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no purpose or intent; he represents
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We still have to describe a domain
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5 Delineation of the Information Co
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Definition D5: The domain A of defi
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6 Information in Living OrganismsTh
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code with four different letters is
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Figure 17: The way in which genetic
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6.2 The Genetic CodeWe now discuss
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Figure 19: The theoretical possibil
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Figure 20: A simplified representat
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inevitable interactions ... The ori
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We now discuss some theoretical mod
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Genetic algorithms: The so-called
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“The final result of all my resea
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7 The Three Forms in which Informat
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and methods of transfer (e. g. the
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8 Three Kinds of Transmitted Inform
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languages, creating a programming l
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9 The Quality and Usefulness ofInfo
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vertently), deliberately falsified,
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10 Some Quantitative Evaluationsof
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such diverse topics as technology,
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11 Questions Often Asked Aboutthe I
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Q10: Natural languages are changing
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A19: Biological systems are indeed
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continually shifts in order to avoi
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A23: If we are talking about true l
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The information concept was discuss
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The close link between information
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13 The Quality and Usefulness of Bi
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iguously instructed to “Let the w
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Figure 27: God as Sender, man as re
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way its understanding is also a spi
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dom prepared for you since the crea
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would be known about his Person and
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Missionary and native: After every
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the case, as shown in Figure 29; no
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and defects of the information sent
Page 156 and 157: - Man did not develop through a cha
Page 158 and 159: 15 The Quantities Used for Evaluati
Page 160 and 161: him: “Today salvation has come to
Page 162 and 163: 16 A Biblical Analogy of the FourFu
Page 164 and 165: with God (Ephesians 5:18-20). The p
Page 166 and 167: - energy is utilised, and- the cons
Page 168 and 169: God’s testing fire; only fruit in
Page 170 and 171: A1 The Statistical View of Informat
Page 172 and 173: Figure 31: Model of a discrete sour
Page 174 and 175: a) the factor n, which indicates th
Page 176 and 177: ) Expectation value of the informat
Page 178 and 179: A1.2 Mathematical Description of St
Page 180 and 181: Figure 32: The number of letters L
Page 182 and 183: A1.2.2 The Information SpiralThe qu
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Page 190 and 191: Figure 34: The ant and the microchi
Page 192 and 193: a degree of integration of 11.72 mi
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Page 196 and 197: as expressing the highest possible
Page 198 and 199: H syll = 8.6 bits/syllable. (16)The
Page 200 and 201: Figure 36: Frequency distributions
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Page 204 and 205: the voluminous data requirements, c
Page 208 and 209: The words of a language are linked
Page 210 and 211: (tongo), or from the same level (ba
Page 212 and 213: It should be clear from these examp
Page 214 and 215: A2.1.4 Written LanguagesThe inventi
Page 216 and 217: mation as discussed above, are foun
Page 218 and 219: “Speaking birds”: Parrots and b
Page 220 and 221: Figure 41: Speechless.(Sketched by
Page 222 and 223: we might realise. There are countle
Page 224 and 225: - The impossibility of a perpetual
Page 226 and 227: Figure 42: Three processes in close
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Page 230 and 231: Figure 44: Ripple marks on beach sa
Page 232 and 233: glucose is produced from 6 mol CO 2
Page 234 and 235: individual catalytic enzyme reactio
Page 236 and 237: nature: mechanical work is performe
Page 238 and 239: All human nutritional problems coul
Page 240 and 241: intricately constructed light proje
Page 242 and 243: p = 0.006/h) to produce propulsion
Page 244 and 245: leg they fly back to Canada over Ce
Page 246 and 247: south-east and fly right across the
Page 248 and 249: [E2] Eigen, M.: Stufen zum Leben- D
Page 250 and 251: [G15] Gitt, W.:[G16] Gitt, W.:[G17]
Page 252 and 253: Automatisierungstechnische Praxis 2
Page 254 and 255: H. 12, pp. 68-87[W2] Weibel, E. R.:
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Kemner, H. 146, 167Kessler, V. 11Ki
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