Dear Karl and FIS colleagues,
Many thanks for the comprehensive response. You have made a reference to
the tension between the empirical and the abstract in FIS. I quite
agree, it is one of the essential tensions in any healthy scientific
development (whenever it is possible to maintain it). My tongue-in-cheek
complain was precisely addressed to the usual abscence of such tension
in our discussions, or say, the insufficient presence of the empirical.
For instance, in the current exchange I was mentioning the
ecological-sociological views of Jared Diamond, as one of the most vocal
authors on the "collapse" of historical societies, even pretty complex
ones. His views on the structural traits involving the complexification
of the daily interactions could be quite interesting to discuss along
the present theme.
Nowadays there also a number of network science studies on
person-to-person interactions, often along cell-phone technologies.
Other more general approaches look for the influence of new technologies
in human relationships (in Xian an excellent presentation on
"friendship" from an Aristotelian background in the i-society was made
by Michael Patrick). Another interesting angle concerns the studies on
"smart cities" , how individual life stories are carried out among
energy-material flows coupled with information flows of a new nature.
The contemporary acceleration of "artificial information flows"
impinging on the individual and the parallel decrease in the standards
of mental health may be a matter of concern --are there any correlations?
Finally, I remake "informationally" some of the points raised by Karl
below on forestry --what about making sense on the info flows between
heterogeneous species that couple the life cycles, eg, pheromones
between cattle and grass? About the cell, what about the signaling and
communication infostructure that guides the life cycle of each cell? And
about social groups, that's the theme now in question, on how
conversation becomes the essential info flow knitting them. In short,
there are plenty of informational applied themes that can be put in
general language of information science and can help to maintain more
lively and fertile exchanges. Yes, in the mutual creative tension.
best wishes
---Pedro
Karl Javorszky wrote:
> 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 <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>>
>
> 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 <tel:%2B34%20976%2071%203526> (& 6818)
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> fis mailing list
> [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>
> https://webmail.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 X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
[email protected]
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
fis mailing list
[email protected]
https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
