Pedro,
Ortega's view of Aristotle conceiving sciences (epistemai) as
"uncommunicated" because based on different "principles" (archai) is, in
my view, a misunderstanding. Aristotle is very careful in his starting
(!) analysis of concepts (before delimitating / terminus their fields)
having different meanings also in everyday language. His standard
formulation for this is "this and this concept is being said in
different ways" or in the case of the concept of 'being' 'to on legetai
pollachos'. So, it is this differentiation of the uses of concepts (See
Wittgenstein on this) which makes a translation (meta-pherein,
trans-lation, not metaphorics) or 'communication' possible between the
fields in which concepts/words are used. This possibility of
'translation' is the underlying 'principle' upon which we can start
conceiving new 'paradigms' in science or new ways of being, or
creativity in technology etc.
This takes us also to a plurality of ways of thinking that are also ways
of being, among the, the differences analyzed by Ortega between ancient,
modern and present (at Ortega's time) of science. In fact, the concept
of science itself 'legetai pollachos'. All this implies an open relation
to language and particularly to language 'as' information. Leibniz view
of this 'communication' is the one of an invinite 'unfolding' of
perspectives (according also to his view of infinitesimal calculus). See
on this: Gilles Deleuze: Le pli. Leibniz et le baroque (1988)
http://www.leseditionsdeminuit.fr/livre-Le_Pli-2022-1-1-0-1.html
This 'unfolding' of possible (infinite) perspectives implies a concept
(!) of time that is dependent on its measurability (following also
Aristotle's famous definition of time as the measure of what is before
and after (a process). But the problem with this (possible) view of time
is that it is based (in 'principle') on a perspective of the movement of
natural phenomena. Heidegger's 'Being and Time' (and later on Derrida
and others) questionned this 'principle' by stating that this reduces
time as a 'following' of 'nows' giving the priority to the present (what
'is' is what is present). This is usefull indeed for measurement also of
human time, but human time is three dimensional and so Heidegger (and
partly also Ortega with his concept of (human) life) did what Popper
would call a 'falsification' of the prevailing concept of time by
analyzing a way of being of a being, which are we ourselves, in which
case past, present and future are not reduced to 'being as present': if
we loose our relation to past (as non-being) and future (also as
non-being), then we have not only a very poor view on human life but
also serious problems of different kinds. Present digital technology
focuses on time 'as' present and so we live in some way under the
'pressure' of this time regime.
The relation between words and concepts or language and information was
analyzed carefully by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. I wrote about this
a short text in 1981 (!) on a dialogue between Heidegger and Weizsäcker
(and others) that took place in a meeting in Munich in 1953 on "Arts in
a technological Age".
http://www.capurro.de/heidinf.htm
best
Rafael
Dear FISers,
Taking seriously the idea of information principles, quite probably
demands a specific discussion on principles. Why do we need
"principles" at all? Because of our cognitive limitations. An infinite
intellect would traverse all spans of knowledge without any
discontinuity--presumably. In our collective scientific enterprise,
however, we create special disciplines in order to share
understandable discourses between the limited individuals of each
thought-collective. As knowledge accumulates and gets more and more
complex, particularly in the encounter with other discourses, the
growing epistemic distances fragment the original discipline, and a
new subdiscipline becomes necessary. It starts then a fresh new
discourse, with its own principles. In my brief mention of Ortega,
what he accuses Leibnitz is that being the champion of principles in
science, he becomes fragmentary and asystematic in his
meta-scientific/philosophical "mode of thinking": the hypersystematic
expresses himself fragmentarily (Ortega dixit). It is curious that
along the survey of principles in Ortega's book, the most frequent
interlocutor is not Leibnitz, but Aristotle! Although Husserl,
Heidegger, Descartes, Pappus, Plato, Suarez, Spinoza... and some
others big names also appear, his main concern (to my taste) is
discussing Aristotle's view of specialized disciplines starting from
their respective principles, empirically-sensuously obtained and
"uncommunicated" in between the different fields. It is very intriguing.
If the principles of different disciplines are factually
uncommunicated, the info science view of a new body of knowledge
running across all scales is caught into a difficult "principled"
position. Nevertheless, the three blocks I distinguished (info per
se, bioinfo, ecology of knowledge) seem to allow some fertile
conjugation inside/outside... but the problem remains. I think it is
solvable, as in our times there is a central element that allows a
whole new scientific discourse on information. The dense relationship
between life and information has nowadays acquired a formidable
empirical background, leveraged by the most basic
disciplines--physics, chemistry, computer science, and biology itself.
More concretely, the notion of the "information flow" can almost be
sketched properly, both in its signaling textures and in the
fundamental relationship with the life cycle--and not very differently
along the evolutionary process. Thereafter, recombination appears as
one of the fundamental emergences in the growing complexity of the
evolving information dynamics around life cycles and
information/energy flows. The recombination phenomenon happens for the
knowledge-stocks of cells, nervous systems, enterprises,
sciences-technologies-cultures... It accumulates amazing combinatoric,
topological, dynamic, and closure properties in the different realms,
flowing up and down among scales, multidimensionally, and maintaining
afloa the whole game of adaptive existences.
Our disciplines may apparently work by themselves, autonomously, but
actually they do not. Rather than "on top", they work "on tap". They
endlessly recombine in the ecology of knowledge, differently for each
problem and for each occasion, creating new theoretical and applied
subdisciplines in the thousands. Information science has to shed light
on that fundamental factor of contemporary societies. And more
"psychologically" this discipline has to put LIFE, both individual
life and social life, at the very center of the sharing of meaning. A
new way of thinking starting from specific information principles will
liberate our limited intellects to more creative endeavors. It is time
to quote Whitehead: "Civilization advances by extending the number of
important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.
Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle —they are
strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only
be made at decisive moments."
Best wishes--Pedro
El 20/09/2017 a las 17:46, Michel Godron escribió:
My remarks are written in red
Bien reçu votre message. MERCI. Cordialement. M. Godron
Le 20/09/2017 à 13:54, Pedro C. Marijuan a écrit :
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).I fully agree. For Leibnitz, according to Ortega, "thinking
is proving" so the classical emphasis was on the logical power of
principles. Leibniz has built une "combinatoire" calculable .But
their capability to support an inspiring new way of thinking was
ignored or just left implicit. Leibniz has largely developed new
ways of thinking, mainly in his /Théodicée//./ ! 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).The
book /Ecologie et évolution du monde vivant /showed how Brillouin's
information helps to understand Life at all scales by
self-organization. Would you like that I send two or three pages
explaining that in my poor english ?
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/
-------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
--
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
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
--
-------------------------------------------------
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/
-------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
--
-------------------------------------------------
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/
-------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
--
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
_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
