**4. Generalization**

12 Semantics – Advances in Theories and Mathematical Models

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

interrelated in a general information processing system.

system.

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

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

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

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

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 human language used.

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

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information extraction from the input data, followed by a process of input physical information association with physical information stored at the lowest level of a semantic hierarchy. In this way, input physical information becomes named with an appropriate linguistic label and framed into a suitable linguistic phrase (and further – in a story, a tale, a narrative), which provides the desired meaning for the input physical information.
