Semantic Quantum (SQ): A Unit of Measurement for Semantic Information

This paper introduces the Semantic Quantum (SQ) — a formal unit of measurement for semantic information, defined as one atomic true statement within a given formal ontology. The necessity for such a unit is justified by the fundamental inadequacy of syntactic measures of information (bit, byte) for the quantitative description of knowledge, understanding, and meta-knowledge. It is shown that the bit, while ideal for measuring data volume, systematically misleads when attempting to measure meaning: a newspaper article and a video report of the same event may differ by four orders of magnitude in bits but contain the same facts. SQ is invariant to the form of representation (text, video, oral speech), additive, and operationally verifiable through automated logical reasoning in description logics. A procedural standard is proposed, including a canonical ontology and a reference reasoner (Pellet, HermiT, OpenIlet). For non-formalized texts, a three-stage method is developed: ontology construction, text coding by experts with inter-coder agreement calculation, and counting of unique atomic statements. The application of SQ in operationalizing metrics of Hierarchical Informational Immunity (HII) is demonstrated: volume of meta-knowledge, information asymmetry coefficient, meta-understanding index, and speed of meta-knowledge diffusion. SQ does not replace the bit but complements it, opening up the possibility of quantitative measurement of knowledge — a task that has remained unresolved since the emergence of information theory.