Think of the most complex number you can. Say a surd like pi. What does it explain, exactly? How complex is the ratio of the circumfrence to the diameter of a circle?
I think numbers can describe relationships, which is why you need formula of multiple variables. A single number doesn't describe a relationship. Only because the problem of the relationship of the diameter to the circumfrence of a circle is so infamous do we even know what pi is. Otherwise, pi itself doesn't describe a thing.
Also , You can put all the details of a problem into a single number (e.g 2424, 362, represent it as 24240362) where these correspond to different details of the phenomenon although a single number won't represent all the data you need to represent the problem. That's analoguous to using a number as the output of a coding algorithm. You still need all the ground rules of how to take the separate numbers apart and apply them together, and that info is outside the aggregated number. So the aggregated number itself is just a number. You haven't put all the details into it, nor would it be possible to do so.
You can say you will always need a common language for this since language is a protocol for how to extra meaning from this raw data. If both parties have the same rules then it is possible , i.e they have a common protocol (like having a common language). However it's analogous to an encryption code (a common language). This means that you can't put "all the details of a problem" into a single number, if you can't also encode the rules of use into it. You'd be using the single number as a field of data, again, much like an encrypted message (which can often be represented as one large number).
My motivations for typing these thoughts out , is how skeptical I am about how such a complicated function such as intelligence , personality or creativity can be described through a single number.