Re: [Fis] THE FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL? - What is a discipline?
Hi Bob, One of the classic studies: *The study of information: interdisciplinary messages* Editors:Fritz Machlup http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81100466573coll=DLdl=ACMtrk=0cfid=677888792cftoken=53847757Una Mansfield http://dl.acm.org/author_page.cfm?id=81100259106coll=DLdl=ACMtrk=0cfid=677888792cftoken=53847757Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ http://dl.acm.org/inst_page.cfm?id=60003269CFID=677888792CFTOKEN=53847757 Publication:· BookThe study of information: interdisciplinary messages http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2578picked=proxpreflayout=tabsJohn Wiley Sons, Inc. New York, NY, USA ©1983 table of contents http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2578picked=proxcfid=677888792cftoken=53847757 ISBN:0-471-88717-X Regards, Ken On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Bob Logan lo...@physics.utoronto.ca wrote: Dear Colleagues - I have been reading the posts in this thread and enjoying the conversation. I started playing with the notion of discipline and came up with these undisciplined playful thoughts which I believe provide an interesting or at least an alternative perspective on the notion of a discipline. A discipline is a tool, a way of organizing ideas that result from scientific inquiry or any other form of scholarly activity and even artistic activity. Now every tool provides both service and disservice. All of the posts so far have dealt with the service of discipline. Here are some thoughts about the possible disservice of discipline. Please take the following with a grain of salt. I believe the notion of a discipline is anti-thetical to scientific inquiry in the sense that it confines ones thinking to the confines of a discipline. One should not be disciplined by a discipline but be free to go beyond the boundaries of that discipline. Note that the root of the word discipline is disciple. If one is to be free to explore new ideas and new phenomena one should not be a disciple of the scientists or thinkers that created a discipline. Now I am not saying that learning a discipline is a bad thing as it provides a solid training and an understanding of how a set of principles describes certain phenomena. It is a model of how a scientific, scholarly or artistic practice can be carried out. As long as one does not become a disciple of one's discipline or disciplines they can be very useful for creating a new discipline or going beyond ones discipline. Perhaps the notion of trans-disciplinary is not such a bad notion if one thinks of trans as beyond. ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] THE FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL?
I believe Moises meant this email for Pedro and all of fis so I am copying you with my reply to Moises On 2015-05-24, at 7:17 AM, Moisés André Nisenbaum wrote: Hi, Pedro, Bob and FISers. It is interesting that the original post lead us to a variety of very important subjects. Thank you Pedro and Bob for resuming, replying and sending more ideas about those subjects. I understand that one of the greatest job of Information Science is to study how Science was organized and how scientists communicate, historically since the first paper was published in Philosophical Transactions at 1666. With the advent of Information Society, this organization of Science is changing. Because of the huge number of disciplines the inter and transdisciplinary has becoming more and more important. In my opinion, Bob’s idea of “Scientific Undisciplinarity” can be the start point of Interdisciplinarity. However, I believe what Japiassu (a great Brazilian philosopher) said: that Interdisciplinarity is impossible without disciplinarity. This is my point too when I wrote: Now I am not saying that learning a discipline is a bad thing as it provides a solid training and an understanding of how a set of principles describes certain phenomena. It is a model of how a scientific, scholarly or artistic practice can be carried out. As long as one does not become a disciple of one's discipline or disciplines they can be very useful for creating a new discipline or going beyond ones discipline. Returning to the Four Great Domains, it is important to understand that it is a “model” that we are using to understand this new way of Science organization and scientific communication. As all models, this approach have advantages but also limitations that we must know and deal with them. For example, in his model, Rosenbloom proposes that disciplines in “Humanities are part of a broad conception of Social Sciences great scientific domain” (it is a big limitation). Good point To make my Idea clear, here are my core questions: 1) The scientific disciplines can be represented by a combination of four Great Scientific Domains? Science that is value free can be represented by a combination of four Great Scientific Domains but we need science with values - what good is knowledge if it is not put to good use to benefit humankind. The four great science domains are not enough - they give us knowledge but we also need wisdom and hence humanistic studies 2) The Informational is the fourth Great Scientific Domain? Informational or computing does not matter they are similar - you cannot do information without computing and similarly you can not do computing without information - and why choose why not Five Great Scientific Domains and a few humanistic ones as well. 3) Is choose of the great domains arbitrary? YES The third question can be thought as an analogy (to be verified). The idea is that disciplines in domains can be analogous to events in space time and then can have a graphic representation (not scientometric) and have some symmetries (coordinate transformation, for example). My goal is to try to verify these questions empirically and I believe that analysis of maps of science, as developed by Loet, can be a good approach. Yes a good approach but you need to do more the classify - we need to synthesize science with value and with human-centric concerns In Brazil, we send “hugs” (“abraços” in Portuguese) at the end of messages. So, Abraços Moisés. Re-abracos and trans-abracos a todos/tutti/all - Bob Reference: JAPIASSU, Hilton. Interdisciplinaridade e patologia do saber. Rio de Janeiro, Imago, 1976. -- Moisés André Nisenbaum Doutorando IBICT/UFRJ. Professor. Msc. Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro - IFRJ Campus Maracanã moises.nisenb...@ifrj.edu.br ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] THE FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL? - What is a discipline?
Bob-- As one who has strayed from the Darwinian discipline of evolutionary biology (my erstwhile field), I can say that I have 'paid the price'. But I have had a wonderful time exploring wherever my thinking has gone. I think the discipline has in a sense guided me anyway, as turning away from it was part of my motivation. That is the disciplines continue to exert their effect in the reactions to them. STAN On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Bob Logan lo...@physics.utoronto.ca wrote: Dear Colleagues - I have been reading the posts in this thread and enjoying the conversation. I started playing with the notion of discipline and came up with these undisciplined playful thoughts which I believe provide an interesting or at least an alternative perspective on the notion of a discipline. A discipline is a tool, a way of organizing ideas that result from scientific inquiry or any other form of scholarly activity and even artistic activity. Now every tool provides both service and disservice. All of the posts so far have dealt with the service of discipline. Here are some thoughts about the possible disservice of discipline. Please take the following with a grain of salt. I believe the notion of a discipline is anti-thetical to scientific inquiry in the sense that it confines ones thinking to the confines of a discipline. One should not be disciplined by a discipline but be free to go beyond the boundaries of that discipline. Note that the root of the word discipline is disciple. If one is to be free to explore new ideas and new phenomena one should not be a disciple of the scientists or thinkers that created a discipline. Now I am not saying that learning a discipline is a bad thing as it provides a solid training and an understanding of how a set of principles describes certain phenomena. It is a model of how a scientific, scholarly or artistic practice can be carried out. As long as one does not become a disciple of one's discipline or disciplines they can be very useful for creating a new discipline or going beyond ones discipline. Perhaps the notion of trans-disciplinary is not such a bad notion if one thinks of trans as beyond. As to the notion that there are these four super categories of disciplines or great domains of science: Physics, biology, social and the 4th domain which is computing or infomation depending on how one likes to classify thing here are some thoughts. I find these classification schemes and their inter-relations fascinating and useful. But I believe another challenge worthy of consideration is to consider the interaction of the great domains of science with the great domains of the humanities, ethics, the arts. How does we connect the knowledge of the sciences with the wisdom of how to best use that knowledge to benefit humankind. Here are some thoughts I developed before this thread began that might be pertinent to our current discussion. Science can be thought of as organized knowledge given that the etymologically the word science derives from the Latin to know: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/*science* [edit]. From Old French *science*, from Latin scientia (“knowledge”), from sciens, the present participle stem of scire (“know”). *Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom: *The relationship of data, information, knowledge and wisdom “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” – TS Eliot “Where is the meaning we have lost in information?” – RK Logan “• Data are the pure and simple facts without any particular structure or organization, the basic atoms of information, • Information is structured data, which adds meaning to the data and gives it context and significance, • Knowledge is the ability to use information strategically to achieve one's objectives, and • Wisdom is the capacity to choose objectives consistent with one's values and within a larger social context (Logan 2014).” While checking out the etymology of science I encountered the following on http://www.luminousgroup.net/2013/05/on-etymology-of-science.html “This might be a good time to examine the etymology of the word *science*, It comes from the Latin *scientia*, from *sciens*, which means *having knowledge*, from the present participle of *scire*, meaning *to know*, probably—and here's where it gets exciting—akin to the Sanskrit *Chyati*, meaning* he cuts off*, and Latin *scindere*, *to split, cleave*. Science operates by cutting off questions of value. And this is why I advocate consideration of the four great domains of science with the great domain of the humanities, the arts and ethics. The greatest challenges facing humanity is not just increasing our store of knowledge through science but also how we choose to deploy our scientific knowledge in the best interest of human kind. So ends my challenge to Moises Nisenbaum and Ken Herold with thanks for stimulating this
[Fis] THE FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL? - What is a discipline?
Dear Colleagues - I have been reading the posts in this thread and enjoying the conversation. I started playing with the notion of discipline and came up with these undisciplined playful thoughts which I believe provide an interesting or at least an alternative perspective on the notion of a discipline. A discipline is a tool, a way of organizing ideas that result from scientific inquiry or any other form of scholarly activity and even artistic activity. Now every tool provides both service and disservice. All of the posts so far have dealt with the service of discipline. Here are some thoughts about the possible disservice of discipline. Please take the following with a grain of salt. I believe the notion of a discipline is anti-thetical to scientific inquiry in the sense that it confines ones thinking to the confines of a discipline. One should not be disciplined by a discipline but be free to go beyond the boundaries of that discipline. Note that the root of the word discipline is disciple. If one is to be free to explore new ideas and new phenomena one should not be a disciple of the scientists or thinkers that created a discipline. Now I am not saying that learning a discipline is a bad thing as it provides a solid training and an understanding of how a set of principles describes certain phenomena. It is a model of how a scientific, scholarly or artistic practice can be carried out. As long as one does not become a disciple of one's discipline or disciplines they can be very useful for creating a new discipline or going beyond ones discipline. Perhaps the notion of trans-disciplinary is not such a bad notion if one thinks of trans as beyond. As to the notion that there are these four super categories of disciplines or great domains of science: Physics, biology, social and the 4th domain which is computing or infomation depending on how one likes to classify thing here are some thoughts. I find these classification schemes and their inter-relations fascinating and useful. But I believe another challenge worthy of consideration is to consider the interaction of the great domains of science with the great domains of the humanities, ethics, the arts. How does we connect the knowledge of the sciences with the wisdom of how to best use that knowledge to benefit humankind. Here are some thoughts I developed before this thread began that might be pertinent to our current discussion. Science can be thought of as organized knowledge given that the etymologically the word science derives from the Latin to know: en.wiktionary.org/wiki/science [edit]. From Old French science, from Latin scientia (“knowledge”), from sciens, the present participle stem of scire (“know”). Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom: The relationship of data, information, knowledge and wisdom “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” – TS Eliot “Where is the meaning we have lost in information?” – RK Logan “• Data are the pure and simple facts without any particular structure or organization, the basic atoms of information, • Information is structured data, which adds meaning to the data and gives it context and significance, • Knowledge is the ability to use information strategically to achieve one's objectives, and • Wisdom is the capacity to choose objectives consistent with one's values and within a larger social context (Logan 2014).” While checking out the etymology of science I encountered the following on http://www.luminousgroup.net/2013/05/on-etymology-of-science.html “This might be a good time to examine the etymology of the word science, It comes from the Latin scientia, from sciens, which means having knowledge, from the present participle of scire, meaning to know, probably—and here's where it gets exciting—akin to the Sanskrit Chyati, meaning he cuts off, and Latin scindere, to split, cleave. Science operates by cutting off questions of value. And this is why I advocate consideration of the four great domains of science with the great domain of the humanities, the arts and ethics. The greatest challenges facing humanity is not just increasing our store of knowledge through science but also how we choose to deploy our scientific knowledge in the best interest of human kind. So ends my challenge to Moises Nisenbaum and Ken Herold with thanks for stimulating this interesting conversation with kind regards -Bob __ Robert K. Logan Prof. Emeritus - Physics - U. of Toronto Chief Scientist - sLab at OCAD http://utoronto.academia.edu/RobertKLogan www.physics.utoronto.ca/Members/logan www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Logan5/publications ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
Re: [Fis] THE FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL?
Physics students in Brazil do not read much about philosophy. They should read more :-). I remember I thought that the physical universe was entirely explained by mathematics. I found out later, for example, a huge number of mathematically possible universes. Then, I was then presented to the anthropic principle. The fact is that physicists has a tendency to believe only on what can be proven experimentally. I believe that it is not only a characteristic of Physics. In the case of Information Science, Bibliometrics have given an important part of its experimental proofs. The tool Loet presented in the 1st post is so simple to use that I decided to make a test. I searched the Web of Science for the word information in Titles of Scientific Articles and overlay this search on maps of of science (10 in 10 years). The results are: Video with images generated by VOSviwer: http://youtu.be/RWo4BL5pSds Video with images generated by Pajek: http://youtu.be/ivCYqg3VW4M My idea is to map a particular discipline on the four great domains: Physical, Life, Social and Informational. Any suggestion? -- Moisés André Nisenbaum Doutorando IBICT/UFRJ. Professor. Msc. Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro - IFRJ Campus Maracanã moises.nisenb...@ifrj.edu.br ___ Fis mailing list Fis@listas.unizar.es http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
[Fis] THE FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL?
*A Dialog on the Informational as the 4th Great Domain of Science* *Moisés André Nisenbaum Ken Herold* */PART 1: /**/Informational as the 4th Great Domain of Science/* (Moisés André Nisenbaum) To classify is human (BOWKER STAR 2000). The organization of scientific knowledge is concern of scientists long ago. It started as a matter of librarianship and has evolved over time using various tools like enumerative classification, faceted classification, universal classification, controlled vocabulary, thesaurus, ontologies, Semantic Web. But how Information Science should organize scientific knowledge taking into account the dynamic behavior of disciplines and multi, inter and trans-disciplinary science of the twenty-first century (Information Society)? Rosenbloom (2012) proposed a model in which four great Scientific Domains - Physical (P) Life (L), social (S) and Computing (C) - can be combined to form any discipline http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/images/rosembloom-figure-2.1-domains-composing-disciplines.jpg. The first three (P, L and S) are well known domains and he proposes that the 4th is Computing. The small number of domains (compared with 10 of DDC and UDC) is offset by dynamic http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/images/Rosenbloom-figure-2.9-relationships.jpg relationships http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/images/Rosenbloom-figure-2.2-domains-simple-relations.jpg between domains that can be written by Metascience Expression Language http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/images/Rosenbloom-table-2.1-ME-Language.jpg. Although the prerequisites of a Great Scientific Domain has been well developed, Rosenbloom does not explain why they are in number of four or why these specific four domains. NAVARRO, MORAL and Marijuan (2013) propose that the 4th Great Scientific Domain is the Informational (I) instead of Computing. However, the biggest proposal is that the Information Science needs to be rethought to support theoretically and methodologically this 4th Great Scientific Domain. At the end of the article, the authors propose the insertion of the four Great Scientific Domains http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/images/Map-Pedro.jpg in High-Resolution Map of Sciences (Bollen at all, 2009) http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/images/Map-Bollen.jpg The problem is that all this is still in its philosophical field and miss a more pragmatic approach. When I observed this map, I just thought about how to measure these four domains and, even without even knowing exactly how to do this, I asked Bollen the raw data of his research. My initial idea was to identify every scientific discipline by a mathematical entity, for example a digital 4x4 matrix representing quantitatively the four Great Scientific Domain components and their relationships. The problem how to establish the criteria (bibliometric) that would define the matrix elements. Once created, we can check if the matrices really come together as expected. Best, Moisés /References:/ BOWKER, Geoffrey C.; STAR, Susan Leigh. Sorting things out: Classification and its consequences. MIT press, 2000. https://books.google.com.br/books?id=xHlP8WqzizYClpg=PR9ots=Mz3xtCt2nEdq=Sorting%20things%20out%3A%20Classification%20and%20its%20consequences.%20lrhl=pt-BRpg=PR9#v=onepageq=Sorting%20things%20out:%20Classification%20and%20its%20consequences.f=false ROSENBLOOM, Paul S. On computing: the fourth great scientific domain. MIT Press, 2012. https://books.google.com.br/books?id=WGfxkn8OkwAClpg=PP1dq=On%20computing%3A%20the%20fourth%20great%20scientific%20domain.%20google%20bookshl=pt-BRpg=PP1#v=onepageq=On%20computing:%20the%20fourth%20great%20scientific%20domain.%20google%20booksf=false NAVARRO, Jorge; MORAL, Raquel del; MARIJUÁN, Pedro C.. The uprising of informational: towards a new way of thinking Information Science. Presented at 1st International Conference in China on the Philosophy of Information, Xi'an, China, 18 October 2013. http://moisesandre.com.br/FIS/debate/articles/pedro-article.pdf BOLLEN, Johan et al. Clickstream data yields high-resolution maps of science. PLoS One, v. 4, n. 3, p. e4803, 2009. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004803 */ PART 2: Comments from Ken Herold/* I appear to be a fringe observer of the history of information science from within my professional (since 1984) domain of librarianship and information studies. [1] For a broader example, Chaim Zins conducted a multi-year study of information science internationally from 2003-2005. [2] My own edited works [3] in 2004 and 2015 reprise various works going back to Machlup from 1962 [4]. I am somewhat skeptical of the suggestion that recombining knowledge is new or previously critically not examined. The international documentation movement, predecessor to information science, has been shown by Buckland and Rayward [5] among others to be exactly the rich response to
