A coin toss might be emulated by a probabilistic function which returns the value heads approximately one half of the time. Processes also may be defined as algorithms, sets of rules to be followed which produce an output, often in a certain order. A function may be thought of as a computer program or mechanical device that takes the characteristics of its input and produces output with its own characteristics. Every process may be defined functionally and every process may be defined as one or more functions. For this reason, we can use the terms function, process, and algorithm interchangeably in many circumstances.
Information occurs when the process produces something.
The value of the output of a process is informative about the process and its input. This is graphically shown in Figure 1 . We use x in our definition to represent either a single variable or set of variables. For the sake of linguistic simplicity, we treat x as a single variable below. The tree itself is informative about the growth process, the original seed, and the nutrients in the soil, among other factors.