Dear Terry and FIS colleagues,
I think you make a good point. I was reminded on the problems my
research group has found in the development of our "Sociotype project",
cooperating with social science groups and psychologists. The lack of
communication in between those closer to formal fields or just within
natural sciences (our case) and the humanities and social science fields
is amazing. From my point of view they strongly defend some form of
"obscurity", in the sense that they do not accept but a total
disciplinary autonomy often ideologically rooted. Perhaps I am
exaggerating, as the intrinsic complexity of those matters is only
amenable to "foundations" from discoursive approaches... Well, in any
case a metaphorical idea about those principles of Information Science
is that they can work as "posts" where new electric lines may be tended,
so that they can bring new light to new pockets within those
ultracomplex realms. The gap between sceince-humanities might be well
crossed by info science.
(Finally let me apologize for not having processed yet all the late
messages, I have a slow digestion)
Best--Pedro
El 05/10/2017 a las 19:21, Terrence W. DEACON escribió:
Dear all,
I am in agreement with Joseph's suggestion that our discussions of the
foundations of information could be understood as pre-science. Efforts
such as the list of principles proposed by Pedro offer a useful focus
of discussion for working toward a more solid "foundation" precisely
because it helps elicits responses that exemplify the fault lines in
our community. These are not merely points of disagreement but also
theoretical boundaries that need to be clearly identified if we want
to seriously map this still ambiguous conceptual territory. Claims
that this issue has been settled or that there are irresolvable issues
involved or that the whole conceptual territory is useless are
unhelpful. We just need to get explicit about our differences and what
motivates them.
On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 1:45 AM, Joseph Brenner <joe.bren...@bluewin.ch
<mailto:joe.bren...@bluewin.ch>> wrote:
Dear Pedro, Dear FISers,
In the 2 weeks I have been away, an excellent discussion has
self-organized as Pedro noted. Any preliminary comments and
criticisms of Pedro’s 10 Principles I could make now can refer to
this. I would have said first that Pedro is to be thanked for this
construction. Preparing a list of principles involves defining not
only the content but also the number, order and relation between
the entries. Zou, Stan and Ted in particular have recognized the
existence of the list as such and the work involved.
My own view is that we are all currently involved in reworking the
Foundations of Information Science. These Foundations are not
themselves science, but they look forward to the increased
understanding of Information Science as Terry suggests. I propose
the term “Pre-Science” for this process activity, a pun on the
word ‘prescience’ whose normal definition is foreknowledge or
foresight. The people who tend to make mistakes in this effort
will be those who claim that any simple concept or set of concepts
can do the job itself, supported by claims to authorities such as
Peirce. Sets of /principles/, on the other hand, are tools more
difficult to use but they permit directed consideration of several
perspectives at the same time.
Principles are the basis for an interpretation of what is in the
physical and biological processes that are the proper subjects for
non-computational Information Science, without – yet – providing
any explanations. Now this is a lot more philosophical that may
have been expected when the discussion started. However, today,
unlike when Pedro and his colleagues started out, we have the
Philosophy of Information of Luciano Floridi and Wu Kun to work
with, as well as my logic. I am surprised that no-one has yet
referred to Floridi or Wu.
Going back over the postings to-date, I have noted a few which
seem constitutive of a ‘Pre-Science’ of Information: Emmanuel’s
‘duality’, Stan’s hierarchies; Michel Godron’s and John Torday’s
bridges to biology, Pedro’s reworking of communication, /etc/. I
will resist comments that the concepts of Pre-Science are to be
thrown out as part of non-science or ‘just’ philosophy. As
Koichiro clearly said on 20.09, information can, and in my view is
already, bringing in something new empirically to questions of
space and time. In the Pre-Science of Information, ideally, it
should be possible to retain mechanism /and/ materialism or
realism; computationalism /and /non- or natural computationalism;
information as a physical /reality/ and a non-physical /appearance/.
I look forward with great interest to the lines of development of
this thread.
Best wishes,
Joseph
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Pedro C. Marijuan <mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
*To:* 'fis' <mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>
*Sent:* Friday, September 15, 2017 2:13 PM
*Subject:* [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS
Dear FIS Colleagues,
As promised herewith the "10 principles of information
science". A couple of previous comments may be in order.
First, what is in general the role of principles in science? I
was motivated by the unfinished work of philosopher Ortega y
Gasset, "The idea of principle in Leibniz and the evolution of
deductive theory" (posthumously published in 1958). Our
tentative information science seems to be very different from
other sciences, rather multifarious in appearance and
concepts, and cavalierly moving from scale to scale. What
could be the specific role of principles herein? Rather than
opening homogeneous realms for conceptual development, these
information principles would appear as a sort of "portals"
that connect with essential topics of other disciplines in the
different organization layers, but at the same time they
should try to be consistent with each other and provide a
coherent vision of the information world.
And second, about organizing the present discussion, I bet I
was too optimistic with the commentators scheme. In any case,
for having a first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of
philosophers would be very interesting. In order to warm up
the discussion, may I ask John Collier, Joseph Brenner and
Rafael Capurro to send some initial comments / criticisms?
Later on, if the commentators idea flies, Koichiro Matsuno and
Wolfgang Hofkirchner would be very valuable voices to put a
perspectival end to this info principles discussion (both
attended the Madrid bygone FIS 1994 conference)...
But this is FIS list, unpredictable in between the frozen
states and the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to get
ahead at his own, with the only customary limitation of two
messages per week.
Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro
*10 **PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SCIENCE*
1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.
2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns,
messages, or flows.
3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
processed (either computationally or non-computationally).
4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's
self-production processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing
up with the accompanying energy flows.
5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive
life-cycles underlie the complexity of biological
organizations at all scales.
6. It is symbolic language what conveys the essential
communication exchanges of the human species--and constitutes
the core of its "social nature."
7. Human information may be systematically converted into
efficient knowledge, by following the "knowledge instinct" and
further up by applying rigorous methodologies.
8. Human cognitive limitations on knowledge accumulation are
partially overcome via the social organization of "knowledge
ecologies."
9. Knowledge circulates and recombines socially, in a
continuous actualization that involves "creative destruction"
of fields and disciplines: the intellectual /Ars Magna./
10. Information science proposes a new, radical vision on the
information and knowledge flows that support individual lives,
with profound consequences for scientific-philosophical
practice and for social governance.
--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno.+34 976 71 3526 <tel:+34%20976%2071%2035%2026> (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
<http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/>
-------------------------------------------------
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Professor Terrence W. Deacon University of California, Berkeley
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-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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