A Measure of Computational Work

The computational work of a process is measured in terms of the information in a memory for its table-lookup implementation. This measure is applied first to simple logical and arithmetic processes, and then more complicated processes comprising organizations (called synergisms) of several subprocesses. The computational advantages of Cartesian, compositional, and sequential synergisms are investigated and illustrated by means of the work measure. The relation between the work of a process and the work capacity of a facility on which it is implemented is examined, and a concept of efficiency of implementations is formulated. A few areas for further investigation are outlined.