4. Semantics - converting Data into Information

Language is an extremely powerful way of conveying information.

Consider information = data + context + meaning

In the case of language, data consists of the individual words. When words are joined together to form a sentence, then you have to use semantics to understand the meaning of a sentence.

Does this sentence mean:

1. The insect species known as 'Fruit Flies' like oranges

   

2. All fruit tend to fly in a similar way to an orange.

Perhaps a person reading this has no problem making sense of the sentence, especially if they are allowed to read the rest of the text surrounding it.

But a computer finds this is an extremely difficult task!

Semantic representation of data is of importance when attempting to encode data.  If things can be misinterpreted, problems can arise when trying to assign the correct code.

In the case of language translation, computers are still quite poor at extracting the true meaning of sentences.