Information and its Relation to Formalisms for the Complexities of the Real World

The idea of information is closely related to the abstract idea of knowledge, yet seems to imply knowledge in a form that can be communicated or at least interpreted. It is natural therefore in investigating this question to examine the ideas of Chomsky, Winograd, Schank and Abelson concerning natural language and also the ideas of Shannon concerning the transmission of information. In examining the ideas of these researchers we will also concern ourselves with the problem of finding formalisms to deal with the complexities of language and indirectly of the real world. It is often the limitations of these formalisms that also provide the greatest obstacle to our understanding the nature of information. The most basic method of communicating information available to humans is language. What are the ingredients of language that enable it to act in this way? One of the first researchers to seriously investigate this …