Dear FIS,
welcome new colleagues. Pedro has over the years built a scientific
community that is a pleasant and awakening environment for the
participants.
There has always been a tension between the empirical and the abstract in
FIS. The name of the setup is "Foundations of Information Science". It is
not easy to speak about foundations in a concrete, specific way. The
fundament is the integral of all that are constructed based on these
fundamental insights and rules. One has to abstract from each of the
applications and find that what is common to all of them to speak about
fundamental truths that are valid in each of the particular ancounters with
reality, the applied research.
Basic science is necessarily abstract. There is a strong
mathematical-logical current also in FIS. The rules of speaking clearly in
a rational dialogue were set up and codified by Wittgenstein in his
"Tractatus logico-philosophicus". To transmit an idea with clarity, one
should use such words that have a meaning commonly agreed on, and while
speaking obey the grammatical rules of the logical language. (By using this
technique for contrasting, we can recognise empty blah-blah, manipulative
advertisement, PR sermons etc., as these are grammatically correct but lack
the common agreement on the content. Then again, we can enjoy opera, drama
and maintain social empathy, if the common understanding is there, even
when formal correctness of a logical language is missing, like in
exclamations or laughter.)
By using natural numbers as tokens for words, and performing tricks on
them, we can discuss possible logical sentences. The grammar of the
sentences will be by all means correct, because we use simple rules like
{=,+,<,>}, but the common understanding is not present yet in the necessary
extent.
Understanding how societies, economies, the ecosystem, human thinking,
strategies of collaboration work: these are noble goals. On these fields,
we can conduct experiments, observe facts, enjoy empirics. Sadly, we cannot
communicate our findings among each other in the necessary clarity, because
we do not share a common language to discuss the phenomena in. Previously,
we had the concept of God (or gods or nature, etc.) as an active instance
that creates and manages order, the discovery of which is what we call
"information". This generation is too much multicultural to agree on a
central cause that is the principle (G. Bruno: Of Cause, Principle and
Unity).
There is order in nature, societies, in human thinking, climate changes and
genetics. We can talk about the central order concept and find explanations
(other that "God's work") for its realisations, but this talk will have to
be conducted in a fashion that merits the goals expressed in the name of
this group. It is too much complicated listening first to a sociologist
explaining that subgroups marginalise and/or radicalise and can or can not
integrate after x generations, and then, say, to a forestry professional
that fires have also a self-clearing function, and then a biologist talking
about prophase, metaphase and anaphase. They all talk about continuity,
form and order as expressed by diversity within the whole.
Let me maintain the hope that FIS is a place where translations into each
other's languages are welcome and encouraged.
Karl
2013/11/4 Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
> Dear FIS colleages,
>
> Some new people from the Xian conference have joined our list --welcome to
> all of them. Before coming back to the ongoing discussion, let me briefly
> refer to ongoing changes in FIS organization. The *scientific committee*will
> be enlarged to incorporate new trends, a *steering
> committee* will be established to provide stable management, the
> *Secretariat* will be finally in working order, and the *fis web
> pages*reformed. The compromise is to implement these changes during coming
> months. Information Science is definitely entering a new time, and at FIS
> we need a little bit more of organization if we want to keep playing our
> role of scientific mentorship, also including matters of research,
> publishing, conferences, summer school, etc. Another related news, quite
> recent one, refers to the creation of the *Chinese Chapter of
> ISIS*organization (&
> FIS). It will be integrated by the parties in Beijing, Wuhan, Xi'an, and
> other regions. At the time being it will be coordinated by Xueshan Yan and
> Liu Chang. It will be more amply disclosed during coming weeks.
>
> About the ongoing discussion, why an essentially empirical work is
> reinterpreted exclusively towards the most theoretical-abstract? It is not
> quite useful. There are very cool aspects of Raquel's work that would
> benefit of comments more "having the feet on the ground". Then, from those
> further applied aspects we could connect with the abstract-theoretical, but
> with more fertility than now. I am thinking particularly on Jared
> Diamond's work on the environmental and cultural conditions for the
> development of social complexity. Do these conditions dovetail with some of
> the mental/numerical thresholds of the type argued by Raquel and Jorge (and
> myself)? I think so.
>
> best wishes
>
> --Pedro
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> 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 X
> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
> Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (&
> 6818)pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
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