org.leialearns.logic.utilities

Interface HasDescriptionLength

All Known Subinterfaces:

Symbol

public interface HasDescriptionLength

Provides a method to get the description length of the implementing object. This depends of the availability of a prefix-free encoding for objects in a suitable context (e.g., an encoding of symbols in the context of an alphabet, or an encoding of numbers in the context of the set of integers) that assigns a bit sequence to this particular object that is as long as the number returned by this method.

The description length of objects is crucial in LEIA, because the whole point of LEIA is to prove that the age old saw that "a computer only produces what you put into it" can be transcended by a clever two-way pincer application of the Minimum Description Length Principle.

See the Wikipedia page on prefix-free codes and An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and its Applications for a discussion of prefix-free codes.

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
long	descriptionLength() Returns the description length of this object.

Method Detail

descriptionLength

long descriptionLength()

Returns the description length of this object. See HasDescriptionLength for more information on the importance of description lengths in the context of LEIA.

Returns:

The description length of this object