That’s what other compression advocates want to do. In fact, it’s pretty obvious that this is true—if you found an algorithm capable of computing the Kolmogorov complexity of any input string, you would pretty much put all theoretical scientists out of work. Unfortunately or not, this problem is uncomputable. Some people (Hutter et al) think, however, that it is possible to find good general purpose algorithms for computing approximations to the K-complexity.
I disagree—I think such algorithms are far out of reach. To me, the compression idea is interesting because it provides a new way to evaluate one’s understanding of various phenomena. I want to study text compression because I am interested in text, not because I think it will lead to some grand all-purpose algorithm. This is in the spirit of The Virtue of Narrowness.
That’s what other compression advocates want to do. In fact, it’s pretty obvious that this is true—if you found an algorithm capable of computing the Kolmogorov complexity of any input string, you would pretty much put all theoretical scientists out of work. Unfortunately or not, this problem is uncomputable. Some people (Hutter et al) think, however, that it is possible to find good general purpose algorithms for computing approximations to the K-complexity.
I disagree—I think such algorithms are far out of reach. To me, the compression idea is interesting because it provides a new way to evaluate one’s understanding of various phenomena. I want to study text compression because I am interested in text, not because I think it will lead to some grand all-purpose algorithm. This is in the spirit of The Virtue of Narrowness.