Dear FIS colleagues, Medieval intellectuals had many positive strengths: they did believe that they had to search for objective truth; that complete objectivity is only available to another dimension (that is, that human knowledge is always imperfect): that we have to learn from the others (be humble); and that contemplating the work of God (nature, social life and personal deeds) is as important, if not more, than doing things.
Either, they were not so worried about being brilliant, recognized and honored as individuals as we have become some centuries later. Also, they had a high concept not only of reason but also of work, including manual work. The founder of their religion worked as a carpenter, and Paul, one of the most influential founders, told very clearly that those that do not work, do not deserve eating. And this was not only practical knowledge, present as it is in every culture, but something included in the rules of all those monasteries. Of course, corruption was very great, but it was not the center: it was honoring the virtue. All these has advantages and disadvantages, but probably it is the basis for workable scientific communication, for an open interchange of ideas as Pedro says. There were also very bad things in those ages, but they were not stupid people exactly. Best wishes, Javier García Marco University of Zaragoza El 18 feb 2011, a las 18:00, fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es escribió: > Send fis mailing list submissions to > fis@listas.unizar.es > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > fis-requ...@listas.unizar.es > > You can reach the person managing the list at > fis-ow...@listas.unizar.es > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of fis digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. social intelligence (& discussion prospects) (Pedro C. Marijuan) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2011 13:32:03 +0100 > From: "Pedro C. Marijuan" <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> > Subject: [Fis] social intelligence (& discussion prospects) > To: fis@listas.unizar.es > Message-ID: <4d5e66c3.5010...@aragon.es> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Dear FIS colleagues, > > One of the aspects of the discussion started by James concerns the > medieval achievements on collective or social intelligence, so to speak. > I mean, we can see how the crucial civil institutions for the emergence > of modern societies in the Western world were started around this > period: universities, corporations, urban & merchant & labor democratic > councils, pluralism of hierarchies, liberal arts & mechanical arts, > common language and culture for science and scholarship... From the > point of view of "social information science" a deeper understanding is > needed on what kind of processes made some cultures start up an > open-ended process of transformation while others were left in > stagnation or in decline. > > Thus the medieval paradigm needs a more rigorous historical and > informational analysis than the worn cliches of "dark" "backwarded" and > the like. The contrast with our own times may be quite interesting. > Social collective intelligence of our times is far below the > performances of technological and scientific systems ---up to the > obvious point that planetary or civilized survival is far from granted. > The medievals had "Liberal Arts" (Trivium and Quadrivium), and > "Mechanical Arts"; we have hundreds, thousands of techno-scientific and > humanistic disciplines. But societies can hardly increase their > collective wisdom, improve their "knowledge recombination". As very > often argued in this list, it is a whole conceptual chain we do not make > much sense yet: information, knowledge, intelligence, knowledge > integration ... Is there anything to learn about contemporary knowledge > recombination from the backwarded medievals? I think so! > ........ > ........ > > In a different matter, people waiting for more down to earth discussions > will be happy to know the prospects for next discussion sessions: _on > information theory_ (chaired by Mark Burgin); _chemical information_ > (chaired by Michel Petitjean), and _social information science_ > (chaired by Xueshan Yan). So we will be busy for quite months ahead > --and of course, further suggestions for topics will be very welcome, > please send them to me, better off line. Hopefully in next weeks there > will be good news on the poignant problem that Joseph was kindly > pointing at: the necessity of a properly organized repository for our > conversations. > > best wishes > > ---Pedro > > ---------------------------------------- > Pedro C. Marijuán > Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group > Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud > Avda. Gómez Laguna, 25, Pl. 11ª > 50009 Zaragoza, Spain > Telf: 34 976 71 3526 (& 6818) Fax: 34 976 71 5554 > pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es > http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ > ------------------------------------------------- > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > http://webmail.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20110218/a62cf528/attachment-0001.htm > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > fis mailing list > fis@listas.unizar.es > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > > > End of fis Digest, Vol 546, Issue 17 > ************************************ > _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
