**3.2 Semantics – physical information's interpretation**

At this stage, the standard linguistic semantic decomposition goes down to the syntactic components of a word. And this is not accidental – what traditional linguistics calls syntax in our case (information framework) should be called physical information (attributes), or more precisely – the underlying physical information contained in a single semantic word. That is shown in Fig. 2 as the lowest level of semantics hierarchy.

What must be specially emphasized is that these attributes (united, generalized by a higher level semantic word) could be: 1) multiple representations of different word's physical information components, which belong to the same modality; and 2) representations of different word's physical information components, which belong to different modalities. That is – the word's attributes could be represented as visual information (e.g., our case), acoustical information (as in the case of a spoken language), or any other type of physical information, including letters of a certain alphabet (as in a classical linguistic case, when a written language is used as an information bearer). It can also be a mixture of different modalities, where all physical information components are pointing (leading) to the same semantic word.

Now we can switch to the most important part of our discussion: From where semantics hierarchy does initially emerge? How it comes into existence? Somewhere in above I have mentioned that physical information is a description of structures formed by grouping of nearby data elements (I prefer to call them primary data structures) and semantic information is a description of structures formed by grouping of these nearby primary structures (I prefer to call them secondary data structures). While primary data structures are formed by grouping of nearby data elements tied by similarity in some physical property (e.g., pixel's color or brightness in an image), secondary data structures are formed without any grouping rules compliance. That means that secondary structures production (and their further naming/description) is a subjective arbitrary process, guided by mutual agreements and conventions among a specific group of observers which are involved in this (semantic) convention establishment.

This is a very important point, because what follows from it is that a new member of this specific company can not gain the established semantic conventions independently and autonomously. The conventions have to be given (transferred) to his disposal in a complete form from the outside (from the other community members) and then must be incorporated into his semantic information hierarchy. That is, fused and memorized in this hierarchy.

Publications dealing with some similar and related issues of internet documents understanding refer to this process as "a priory knowledge" acquisition and sharing. What is meant by "knowledge" is usually undefined and not considered. I think that my

Fig. 3. Physical and Semantic Information interaction block-schema.

definition of semantic information makes it crystal clear – "Knowledge" is "Semantic information" brought from the outside and memorized into the information processing system.

And yet, the time is ripe to verify what does it means "semantic information processing"? My answer is depicted in Fig. 3 where I show how physical and semantic information are interrelated in a general information processing system.

Let Us First Agree on what the Term "Semantics"

which it is being submerged.

**4. Generalization** 

human language used.

Means: An Unorthodox Approach to an Age-Old Debate 13

The examination of the Fig. 3 must be prefaced with a commonplace statement that human sensory system (as well as all other so-called artificial intelligence systems) provides us only with raw sensor data and nothing else beside the data. Then, at the system's input, this sensor data is processed and physical information is being extracted from it. This physical information is fed in into the semantic information processing part, where it is matched or is being associated with the physical information stored (memorized) at the lowest level of the semantic hierarchy. If a match of physical information details in the input and in the stored information is attained and the details grouping conventions are satisfied, then a semantic label (an object's name) is "fired" on the first semantic level of the hierarchy. The names of adjacent objects are verified in the same manner (the so-called word's context is affirmed)

Thus the meaning of object's label (the semantics of natural language object's name) is revealed by the whole phrase in which the object (the object's name, the noun) was placed in as a suitable and a legitimate part. The semantics of a label (of a word) is defined now not only by its nearest linguistic neighbors, but by the whole phrase and the entire story text in

Approaching the end of the chapter, I would like to generalize the partial clarifications that were just given above. My research motivation was inspired by home security visual scene analysis and understanding goals. Therefore, my main concern was with visual information

I can faithfully state now that every information gathering starts with sensor data acquisition and accumulation. The body of data is not a random collection of data elements, but exhibits undeniable structures discernible in the data. These structures emerge as a result of data elements agglomeration shaped by similarity in their physical properties.

In the eyes of an external observer these primary data structures are normally grouped and tied together into more larger and complex aggregations, which could be called secondary data structures. These secondary structures reflect human observer's view on the arrangement of primary data structures, and therefore they could be called meaningful or semantic data structures. While formation of primary data structures is guided by objective (natural, physical) properties of data elements, ensuing formation of secondary structures is a subjective

Description of structures observable in a data set has to be called "Information". Following the given above explanation about the structures discernible in every data set, two types of information must be declared therefore – Physical Information and Semantic Information. They are both language-based descriptions; however, physical information can be described with a variety of languages, while semantic information can be described only with natural

Every information description is a top-down evolving coarse-to-fine hierarchy of descriptions representing various levels of description complexity (various levels of description details). Physical information hierarchy is located at the lowest level of the semantic hierarchy. The process of data interpretation is reified as a process of physical

processing. However, I think it would be wise to broaden the scope of my findings.

Therefore, such structures could be called primary or physical data structures.

process guided by human habits and customs, mutual agreements and conventions.

and the named object finds its place in a suitable phrase or expression.

The examination of the Fig. 3 must be prefaced with a commonplace statement that human sensory system (as well as all other so-called artificial intelligence systems) provides us only with raw sensor data and nothing else beside the data. Then, at the system's input, this sensor data is processed and physical information is being extracted from it. This physical information is fed in into the semantic information processing part, where it is matched or is being associated with the physical information stored (memorized) at the lowest level of the semantic hierarchy. If a match of physical information details in the input and in the stored information is attained and the details grouping conventions are satisfied, then a semantic label (an object's name) is "fired" on the first semantic level of the hierarchy. The names of adjacent objects are verified in the same manner (the so-called word's context is affirmed) and the named object finds its place in a suitable phrase or expression.

Thus the meaning of object's label (the semantics of natural language object's name) is revealed by the whole phrase in which the object (the object's name, the noun) was placed in as a suitable and a legitimate part. The semantics of a label (of a word) is defined now not only by its nearest linguistic neighbors, but by the whole phrase and the entire story text in which it is being submerged.
