Dear FIS, welcome new colleagues. Pedro has over the years built a scientific community that is a pleasant and awakening environment for the participants.
There has always been a tension between the empirical and the abstract in FIS. The name of the setup is "Foundations of Information Science". It is not easy to speak about foundations in a concrete, specific way. The fundament is the integral of all that are constructed based on these fundamental insights and rules. One has to abstract from each of the applications and find that what is common to all of them to speak about fundamental truths that are valid in each of the particular ancounters with reality, the applied research. Basic science is necessarily abstract. There is a strong mathematical-logical current also in FIS. The rules of speaking clearly in a rational dialogue were set up and codified by Wittgenstein in his "Tractatus logico-philosophicus". To transmit an idea with clarity, one should use such words that have a meaning commonly agreed on, and while speaking obey the grammatical rules of the logical language. (By using this technique for contrasting, we can recognise empty blah-blah, manipulative advertisement, PR sermons etc., as these are grammatically correct but lack the common agreement on the content. Then again, we can enjoy opera, drama and maintain social empathy, if the common understanding is there, even when formal correctness of a logical language is missing, like in exclamations or laughter.) By using natural numbers as tokens for words, and performing tricks on them, we can discuss possible logical sentences. The grammar of the sentences will be by all means correct, because we use simple rules like {=,+,<,>}, but the common understanding is not present yet in the necessary extent. Understanding how societies, economies, the ecosystem, human thinking, strategies of collaboration work: these are noble goals. On these fields, we can conduct experiments, observe facts, enjoy empirics. Sadly, we cannot communicate our findings among each other in the necessary clarity, because we do not share a common language to discuss the phenomena in. Previously, we had the concept of God (or gods or nature, etc.) as an active instance that creates and manages order, the discovery of which is what we call "information". This generation is too much multicultural to agree on a central cause that is the principle (G. Bruno: Of Cause, Principle and Unity). There is order in nature, societies, in human thinking, climate changes and genetics. We can talk about the central order concept and find explanations (other that "God's work") for its realisations, but this talk will have to be conducted in a fashion that merits the goals expressed in the name of this group. It is too much complicated listening first to a sociologist explaining that subgroups marginalise and/or radicalise and can or can not integrate after x generations, and then, say, to a forestry professional that fires have also a self-clearing function, and then a biologist talking about prophase, metaphase and anaphase. They all talk about continuity, form and order as expressed by diversity within the whole. Let me maintain the hope that FIS is a place where translations into each other's languages are welcome and encouraged. Karl 2013/11/4 Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es> > Dear FIS colleages, > > Some new people from the Xian conference have joined our list --welcome to > all of them. Before coming back to the ongoing discussion, let me briefly > refer to ongoing changes in FIS organization. The *scientific committee*will > be enlarged to incorporate new trends, a *steering > committee* will be established to provide stable management, the > *Secretariat* will be finally in working order, and the *fis web > pages*reformed. The compromise is to implement these changes during coming > months. Information Science is definitely entering a new time, and at FIS > we need a little bit more of organization if we want to keep playing our > role of scientific mentorship, also including matters of research, > publishing, conferences, summer school, etc. Another related news, quite > recent one, refers to the creation of the *Chinese Chapter of > ISIS*organization (& > FIS). It will be integrated by the parties in Beijing, Wuhan, Xi'an, and > other regions. At the time being it will be coordinated by Xueshan Yan and > Liu Chang. It will be more amply disclosed during coming weeks. > > About the ongoing discussion, why an essentially empirical work is > reinterpreted exclusively towards the most theoretical-abstract? It is not > quite useful. There are very cool aspects of Raquel's work that would > benefit of comments more "having the feet on the ground". Then, from those > further applied aspects we could connect with the abstract-theoretical, but > with more fertility than now. I am thinking particularly on Jared > Diamond's work on the environmental and cultural conditions for the > development of social complexity. Do these conditions dovetail with some of > the mental/numerical thresholds of the type argued by Raquel and Jorge (and > myself)? I think so. > > best wishes > > --Pedro > > ------------------------------------------------- > 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 X > 50009 Zaragoza, Spain > Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& > 6818)pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ > ------------------------------------------------- > > > _______________________________________________ > fis mailing list > fis@listas.unizar.es > https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis > >
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