20th WCP: The Relation-Functional Concept Of The Information

Information may be considered as an universal property of matter (attributive concept) or as a property of self-managing (cybernetic) system (functional concept).

Then we can not get a full understanding of information, universal and flexible enough. So it is necessary to widen and develop the definition of information.

There are two basic ways of unification of any concept: a) abstracting, b) integration.

The classical theory of information and cybernetics used the first - abstracting. It means the volume ("demanded place") expressed by the quantity of bites. It is a quantity of information.

The semiotics used the second way. It means the sign system (sign), the unity of three attributes - syntactic, semantics and pragmatics.

In this work integration (abstracting) concept of information is offered. For the final description, we said that information is consist of 1) object (attributive), 2) procedural (functional) and 3) morphological (structural) components.

We must offer two definitions for further developing the concept of information.

These are a message and a language. Language is a sign system with alphabet, vocabulary and grammar.

Message is a definite construction in a definite language.

Any language is an interface (means of interaction) between users (communication function) or between users and environment. Exchange of information is possible by plunge into definite surroundings - own language of this message. Any message is a set of signs without such a plunge. So information can not exist in "a pure state", without physical bearer. We also point out that information can exist as messages. Information may be extracted from messages.

Thus we say object component is realized by messages, procedural component is realized by grammar, morphological is realized by material bearers.

We may examine information as a unit with two components: object and procedural. Then we have a relation concept of information. It means a ratio between properties of the object, which consist of tables and charts. The second concept is a set of specific procedures.

We may use a philosophical concept of information. Then we have a concept of message and procedure as a space and a time components of information. The space and time are considered to be wide definitions. The space may be as a physical and an abstract one. The time may be any process despite a physical nature, artificial or natural fit for measuring cycles, periods and longnesses of any processes. So information may be considered as inseparable unit of two (object-procedural model) or three (object-procedural-morphological model) components, which relate to information as "parts-to-the whole".

It is possible to compute (calculate) an information as [i]=[x]*[t], where [i] - unit of measurement of information, [x] - unit of measurement of space, [t] - unit of measurement of time. The formula may be interpreted by two ways: 1) as elementary space-time object, including elementary information, i.e. quantum of information. This is locally-oriented (internal) description of information; 2) as space-time cell, which is necessary for locating of the specified quantum of information - external description of information, i.e. description in external world.

We can affirm, that such attributes of information as syntactics, semantics and pragmatics are not components of information. They are different definitions (receptions) of information.

We said above that information is an abstract unit. Syntactics, semantics and pragmatics are different forms of information. They are considered to be the results of transformations of one into another.

All the aspects of information may be expressed as a pair "message-language", i.e. the ratio between the definite message and its definite language.

We can affirm that there is no essential difference between syntactics, semantics and pragmatics.

CONCLUSIONS

1. Information is an abstract poly-dimensional unit, which consists of three components - object, procedural and morphological, the ratio between them is an invariant of information processes.

2. There are two types for object-procedural model of information:

a) relation: a lot of compound messages with a simplicate procedure of their use.

b) functional: a compound procedure of generating demanding messages from other simplicate ones. Thus it (concept) is called relation-functional concept of information.

3. The aspects of information syntactics, semantics and pragmatics are relating definitions; semantics and pragmatics may be considered as external features of the definite syntactics.