Some philosophical aspects of signal processing

Signal processing is viewed as a succession of conformal mappings to match the data to appropriate aspects of the signal, the noise/interference environment, the propagation medium or the intended ultimate use of the received data. These mappings are found to be subject to certain fundamental limiting equations. From this approach, a number of general design guidelines are adduced. The limiting inequalities and design guidelines are then justified a little more formally. The paper concludes with some examples and discussion of the practical application of these principles.