Dear FISers,
Many thanks for all the comments and criticisms. Beyond concrete
agreements/disagreements the discussion is lively, and that is the main
point. It is complicate pointing at some fundamental, ultimate reality
based on disciplinary claims. Putting it differently, the hierarchies
between scientific disciplines were fashionable particularly in the
reductionism times; but now fortunately those decades (70s, 80s) are far
away. Actually, the new views taking shape are not far from the term
"knowledge recombination" that appears in some of the principles
discussed. Modern research could be typified by being: curiosity-led,
technologically driven, multi-scaled, interdisciplinary, and integrative
(paraphrasing Cuthill et al., 2017). Contemporary philosophers like John
Dupré have dealt with some soft "perspectivism" but they do not deal
with the disciplinary recombination rigorously. I think this is one of
the main concerns of our nascent info-science.
Rafael in his message enters into some undergrounds of the idea of
Principles/Methods/Explanations in the way Ortega discusses it for
Leibnitz. That book is particularly dense, and I am not aware of
interesting synthesis about it. One of its early claims is that
Principles have to be evident (intuitive for Husserl), useful for
verification and for the construction of logical proofs, and further
they have to open "new ways of thinking" ("modos de pensar" for
Ortega). For Leibnitz, according to Ortega, "thinking is proving" so
the classical emphasis was on the logical power of principles. But their
capability to support an inspiring new way of thinking was ignored or
just left implicit. And this is a big problem not only in our field but
in many multidisciplinary endeavors: excellent research ideas are
accompanied by really vulgar "metaphysics" (or better, metadisciplinary
views). See for instance the Big Data research on so-called "social
physics". Or the excellent book on "Scale" recently published (great at
climbing from atoms to cells, organisms, enterprises, and cities; but
really poor in the multifarious information/communication underlying
worlds).
Anyhow, these are superficial comments inspired by the many excellent
messages exchanged. There is a self-organization of the discussion
taking place, and it is nice that we are concentrating discussion on the
3 first principles, somehow devoted to information per se. Once we smash
these topics, we may go for the biologically related (principles 4-6),
later on for the recombination and ecology of knowledge (principles
7-9), and finally for the ethical goals of our new science efforts, as
Joseph has commented (principle 10).
Best whishes to all
--Pedro
The El 19/09/2017 a las 11:30, Pedro C. Marijuan escribió:
-------- Mensaje reenviado --------
Asunto: Re: [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS
Fecha: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:21:51 +0200
De: Rafael Capurro <raf...@capurro.de>
Responder a: raf...@capurro.de
Para: Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
Dear Pedro,
a short comment to your intro to the 10 principles: I very much agree
with your views (following Ortega) that information science can be
conceived as a multifaceted or "multifarious" network of concepts and
theories dealing phenomena partly related partly not (yet) related
with each other for which we need different languages/concepts and
'translations' and kinds of calculations also with regard to their
goals and 'utility'.
If this makes sense, then we should try to develop some kind of
'principles' or 'archai' in the Greek sense, i.e., of 'initial forces'
that give rise to possibilities of 'un-concealing' different kinds of
phenomena that we could not see when disregarding other paths or by
not entering through other 'portals' each portal announcing different
kinds of what makes sense or not when entering the path.
Sometimes it makes sense to go up and see the landscapes from the top,
knowing that this view(s) from the top also conceal a lot of things on
the bottom. It is easiear to understand these 'principles' if we have
experience with walking in the mountains (but also in other natural
and artificial environments like a forest, a desert, cities etc.).
Maybe we could learn from such experiences which kind of 'principles'
are to be conssidered in the 'methods' (hodos = path) of scientific
research.
So, my suggestion is to invite our FIS colleagues to describe
phenomenologically their walking experiences and 'principles' in
different enviroments (mountains etc.) and try to 'translate'
(trans-late) them into the field of information science.
Best
Rafael
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 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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--
Prof.em. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM), Stuttgart, Germany
Capurro Fiek Foundation for Information Ethics
(http://www.capurro-fiek-foundation.org)
Distinguished Researcher at the African Centre of Excellence for Information
Ethics (ACEIE), Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria,
South Africa.
Chair, International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE) (http://icie.zkm.de)
Editor in Chief, International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE)
(http://www.i-r-i-e.net)
Postal Address: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail:raf...@capurro.de
Voice: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage:www.capurro.de
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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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