Dear FIS colleagues, Many thanks to Mark for his elegant and stimulating kickoff--which has already achieved quite a few thought-provoking comments. Accumulation of work has precluded me an earlier participation.
My brief point concerns the role of Shannon's theory and the unifying advancements suggested. Should we think that the disciplinary development of info science will hinge on success in that enlargement of the theory? I doubt. The major sciences have been quite diverse and idiosyncratic in their own processes of advancement; there is no single orthodox model to follow (I mean, in the style of mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum theory, evolutionary theory, neuron doctrine...). Assuming with Krassimir that the proposed formal scheme is a very valuable one, my contention is that it is somehow failing to delineate the "informational way of thinking". Igor Gurevitch made months ago an excellent posting in this list about the central concerns of information physics (unfortunately, many great postings are left undiscussed). Krassimir has also presented tentative new ways of thinking, including knowledge and intelligence concepts and some other rhetorical auxiliary tools. Indeed the new impetus after Beijing (and Yixin's recent session) has been the info connection with knowledge and intelligence. The point I have often made (without great success!) is that genuine "informational entities" are those that selfproduce --so, autopoiesis with nuances-- amidst a dense conglomerate of inner "accounting" processes which are performed in continuous communication with the environment. Up to now, this is reserved to Life, in its very different organization realms (and comprising institutions and societies at large). Coincidentally the de-materialized physics of today, quantum info science, and info-based cosmologies, might dovetail with central aspects of that view. Then it makes sense talking about an "informational perspective", which may already be used, and applied into a number of phenomena by means of quite many different analytical tools, info theory included. But unfortunately at the time being it cannot aspire to the conceptual consistency, clarity of analysis/formal rigor, and empirical extension we associate with science. Without the new thinking we all will continue to live in our own info cottages (or attempting the one thousand and one definition of information). In legal the realm, "preambles" of laws are quite important, tantamount of even more than the formal regulations that develop the laws themselves. Thus, as some parties have already done, there is a lot of stuff to discuss in Mark's preamble. Not to speak about the final questions... best ---Pedro > On the one hand, information is the basic phenomenon of our world. We > live in the world where information is everywhere. All knowledge is > possible only because we receive, collect and produce information. > People discovered existence of information and now talk of information > is everywhere in our society. As Barwise and Seligman write (1997), in > recent years, information became all the rage. The reason is that > people are immersed in information, they cannot live without > information and they are information systems themselves. The whole > life is based on information processes as Loewenstein convincingly > demonstrates in his book (1999). Information has become a key concept > in sociology, political science, and the economics of the so-called > information society. Thus, to better understand life, society, > technology and many other things, we need to know what information is > and how it behaves. Debons and Horne write (1997), “if information > science is to be a science of information, then some clear > understanding of the object in question requires definition.” > -- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª 50009 Zaragoza, Spain Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ ------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
