<P> From the stance of information theory, information is taken as an ordered sequence of symbols from an alphabet, say an input alphabet χ, and an output alphabet Υ . Information processing consists of an input - output function that maps any input sequence from χ into an output sequence from Υ . The mapping may be probabilistic or deterministic . It may have memory or be memoryless . </P> <P> Often information can be viewed as a type of input to an organism or system . Inputs are of two kinds; some inputs are important to the function of the organism (for example, food) or system (energy) by themselves . In his book Sensory Ecology Dusenbery called these causal inputs . Other inputs (information) are important only because they are associated with causal inputs and can be used to predict the occurrence of a causal input at a later time (and perhaps another place). Some information is important because of association with other information but eventually there must be a connection to a causal input . In practice, information is usually carried by weak stimuli that must be detected by specialized sensory systems and amplified by energy inputs before they can be functional to the organism or system . For example, light is mainly (but not only, e.g. plants can grow in the direction of the lightsource) a causal input to plants but for animals it only provides information . The colored light reflected from a flower is too weak to do much photosynthetic work but the visual system of the bee detects it and the bee's nervous system uses the information to guide the bee to the flower, where the bee often finds nectar or pollen, which are causal inputs, serving a nutritional function . </P> <P> The cognitive scientist and applied mathematician Ronaldo Vigo argues that information is a concept that involves at least two related entities in order to make quantitative sense . These are, any dimensionally defined category of objects S, and any of its subsets R. R, in essence, is a representation of S, or, in other words, conveys representational (and hence, conceptual) information about S. Vigo then defines the amount of information that R conveys about S as the rate of change in the complexity of S whenever the objects in R are removed from S. Under "Vigo information", pattern, invariance, complexity, representation, and information--five fundamental constructs of universal science--are unified under a novel mathematical framework . Among other things, the framework aims to overcome the limitations of Shannon - Weaver information when attempting to characterize and measure subjective information . </P> <P> Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns . In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern . Consider, for example, DNA . The sequence of nucleotides is a pattern that influences the formation and development of an organism without any need for a conscious mind . One might argue though that for a human to consciously define a pattern, for example a nucleotide, naturally involves conscious information processing . </P>

What do you understand by the word information