A modest heap of ideas is accumulating on info ethics. I will comment on some recent postings (Stan, Rafael, Michael...)
To Stan's simplifications on Global Capitalism, second law plus Darwinian penchant, I would had another two: complexity growth and instinct of "conformity with the group", both in combination with the previous ones. Complexity growth may occur precisely because of the introduction of -"constraints", from the very beginning (at the very quantum level of Pauli's exclusion principle!). In human language, the constraints we introduce either in pronunciation or in grammar make possible the linguistic fabrication of open-ended contents. Such rules clearly represent a burden, but are a necessary path to follow in order to generate novelty. It also occurs socially, for we can organize a complex social structure only because people have to follow an increasingly complex set of rules (e.g., think on traffic). Then, the instinct of "conformity with the group" appears as a curious phenomenon, a sort of collective life-saving device which is widely shared among anthropoidea, and that in the human case creeps into a vast variety of social networkings, primitive and advanced ones. At the same time, we compete and are willing to stay safely into the pack. In the US it means it means Wall Street and Silicon Valley together with "Sunday America" and religious fundamentalism... In any case, there seems possible to draw neat relationships of ethics with these two new aspects that add some spice to Second Law and Darwinian competence.
Then Rafael says that "ethics is an informational science as far as it analizes morality i.e. the rules of society(ies) considering them under the conditions of their historical development and future possibilities. The key point is then how far such rules block societal development which means at the same time that the "ideas" or "goals" must/can be reconsidered and "re-imaginized." This is the deep connection between ethics with drama, poetry, music..." I much agree with the vision of ethics as an informational science, particularly because of the "closure" operation that ethics has to perform at the social level. Other integrative disciplines are forced to such closure operations, but perhaps none of them with the amplitude and complexity that ethics has to confront. We have not talked about "values" yet... are they a shorthand for people being able to get a collective ethical orientation, a minimalist "mapping" allowing themselves to align with the group? In the relationship between ethics, arts, sciences and technologies I would disagree with Foucault's over-extended use of the term technologies (see in Rafael's); it can be confusing and misleading.
I have already pointed that the informational discussion of ethics should connect with Jared Diamond's (1996) proposals on the evolution of social complexity. And some of Michael's points on books, media, etc., might be discussed along the guidelines of the informational needs of societies as their complexity grows. This idea may be extended to reopen Richard's and Marcin's suggestions about organizing some modest research on a taxonomy of information. To put it in the terms of the current discussion, the evolution of societies is another theater where an informational way of thinking may enrich traditional disciplines.
At the time being, however, that fis explorations dovetail in conventional institutional settings looks almost a miracle ---unless institutional proposals presented in Paris (2005) by some fis parties fructify, we will be left in the could permanently. As far as I know, Dail, Mary Joe, and Wolfgang are already doing some legal and administrative advancements, so that interesting "novelties" might occur relatively soon. Who knows?
with best wishes,
Pedro
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