Re: [Fis] The State of the Art - Discussion of Information Science Education
Hi John, Hi Fis-people On 11 Dec 2011, at 13:49, john.holg...@ozemail.com.au wrote: Thanks Walter, A useful snapshot of PC (Philosophy of Computing). It reminds me that the origin of the word 'computing' is com-putare = to consider together, suppose together, imagine together. This is surely what Steve Jobs was all about. To reduce computation to algorithmic calculation or even Turing machines is as restrictive as limiting information to data and documents, messages and codes. After thirty years of phronesis wrestling with data documents and computers it would be nice to know what computation and information mean. It might be restrictive at the epistemological level, but not necessarily at the ontological level. All mathematical notions, like infinities, sets, provability, definability, etc. can be diagonalized again. They cannot have a universal representation. But computability and computations are immune to diagonalization. This makes it the concept the most explanatively closed we have ever found. I think. This gives a conceptual deep argument in favor of Church thesis, and it leads also to the notion of universal machines. Those machines can not only compute the same class of all (partial or total) computable functions, but can all simulate each other, computing those functions in all possible different ways. Actually, an interesting and vast class of universal machines (those who knows, in some technical sense, that they are universal) can defeat any theory concerning their own behavior (they can practice diagonalization), making their epistemologies beyond any normative or effectively complete theory. It makes computationalism (the doctrine that there exists a level where we are Turing emulable) a vaccine against reductionist conception of machine (and man). I am Bruno Marchal, mathematician, and I met Pedro and Plamen in Paris some month ago. Although I am agnostic on the truth of the computationalist hypothesis in the cognitive science, I am interested to study the mind body problem in that frame. With the computationalist hypothesis, computer science and mathematical logic becomes handy tools for formulating deep questions. In fact I have a deductive argument that computationalism and weak materialism (there exist an ontologically primary physical universe) are incompatible. I have shown that computationalism reduces (in my french PhD thesis in computer science) the mind body problem into a body appearance (to universal numbers) problem in number theory. Physics would not be the fundamental science, and we might have to backtrack to Plato, or even Pythagorus' conception of reality. Physical reality becomes somehow the border of a universal mind (the possible universal machine dreams, or the effective set of all computations seen from inside. The "seen from inside" can be defined from the modal logic of self-reference, which exploits that immunity for diagonalization, and the fact that machines can be "aware" of that fact. The following two papers sum up the main results and questions needed to solve to proceed: http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/SANE2004MARCHALAbstract.html http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/publications/CiE2007/SIENA.pdf Unfortunately the longer version of those works are in french (they can be found from my URL below). This might perhaps put some light on the difficult question of what is information. Like infinite, and like almost all in-# notions, that notion might not have a definitive definition, especially information which walked from syntactic definitions (Shannon) to semantical one (knowledge). Computation is only one mode of information i.e. information AS cognitive process. Perhaps the only way out of our definitional impasse is to adopt the third option of the Capurro trilemma - plurivocity. If we can stop thinking linearly and start to think like a Dharma Wheel with all the different emergent modes of information arranged as spokes (having their expert spokespersons) each having equal validity with ignorance at the fulcrum, then we can move towards a viable transdisciplinary model for info which has hitherto evaded us. Nonlinear thinking has been the great driver of the computing and Internet industries. I agree. Best, Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ On Fri Dec 9 2:55 , walter.riof...@terra.com.pe sent: Dear all, It is possible find some useful ideas to build multi-inter-trans disciplinary approaches in last “closing statement” of Ubiquity Symposium: What is Computation? What Have We Said About Computation? If you are interested in all papers of this ACM Ubiquity Symposium: http://ubiquity.acm.org/symposia.cfm Sincerely, Walter Riofrio Walter Riofrio Researcher; Complex Thought Institute Edgar Morin – University Ricardo Pa
Re: [Fis] The State of the Art - Discussion of Information Science Education
Thanks Walter,
A useful snapshot of PC (Philosophy of Computing). It reminds me that the origin of the word 'computing' is com-putare = to consider together, suppose together, imagine together. This is surely what Steve Jobs was all about. To reduce computation to algorithmic calculation or even Turing machines is as restrictive as limiting information to data and documents, messages and codes. After thirty years of phronesis wrestling with data documents and computers it would be nice to know what computation and information mean.
Computation is only one mode of information i.e. information AS cognitive process. Perhaps the only way out of our definitional impasse is to adopt the third option of the Capurro trilemma - plurivocity. If we can stop thinking linearly and start to think like a Dharma Wheel with all the different emergent modes of information arranged as spokes (having their expert spokespersons) each having equal validity with ignorance at the fulcrum, then we can move towards a viable transdisciplinary model for info which has hitherto evaded us. Nonlinear thinking has been the great driver of the computing and Internet industries.
Best
John
On Fri Dec 9 2:55 , walter.riof...@terra.com.pe sent:
Dear all,
It is possible find some useful ideas to build multi-inter-trans
disciplinary approaches in last âclosing statementâ of Ubiquity Symposium: What
is Computation?
What Have We Said About Computation?
If you are interested in all papers of this ACM Ubiquity Symposium:
http://ubiquity.acm.org/symposia.cfm
Sincerely,
Walter Riofrio
Walter
Riofrio
Researcher; Complex Thought Institute Edgar Morin â University Ricardo Palma, Lima-Peru
Chercheur Associé; Institut des Systèmes Complexes â Paris
Ãle-de-France (ISC-PIF)
Theoretical and Evolutionary Biology
Email: walter.riof...@iscpif.fr
---
On jue 08/12/11 06:25 , John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za sent:
Good to see that fis perspectives are used in teaching. I use information
ideas fundamentally in our second year Cognitive Science course, and also
in some postgrad courses I teach.
John
At 03:03 PM 2011/12/07, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
Thanks a lot, Gordana. It is a
very good idea. Unfortunately I could not participate in the opening of
the session, well, at least I can say now that I had the experience
of teaching for Engineering graduate students two neatly informational
("FIS") disciplines. One of them, Bioinformation:
informational analysis of living systems; and the other Science,
Technology and Society: an introduction to the informational history of
societies. Both of them in Spanish. They were very successful,
particularly the latter. The FIS perspective is ideal not only for
breaking down on "impossible topics" (our familiar demons) but
also for promoting a new, highly original way of analysis --of knolweldge
recombination processes-- on topics of our time and of the most
contentious past.
missing a lot the direct involvement in the discussions!
yours,
---Pedro
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic escribió:
Hi All,
One way of looking at the question of curriculum would be from the point
of view of what already exists
of education in the Foundations of Information.
Are there any courses which might be a part of such a curriculum?
To start with I can tell about the course I have, which does not cover
much of Science of information, but there are several connections.
As I work at the computer science department, my perspective is
computational.
For me computing is information processing and information is that which
is processed, and that which is a result of processing.
Processing may be done by a machine or by an organism or anything else Â
the whole of nature computes (processes information) in different
ways.
As info-computationalist, I believe that information is unthinkable
without computation.
So the course is on Computing and Philosophy but addresses Philosophy of
Information and Science of Information as well and topics on evolution of
life, intelligence (natural and artificial), consciousness, etc.
http://www.idt.mdh.se/kurser/comphil
I believe it would be good to have a course on the foundations of
information science for people in the computing.
Information and computation are completely entangled! And this gives also
an opportunity to introduce other fields into computing, to contribute to
building bridges and
facilitating inter-disciplinary/ cross-disciplinary/
trans-disciplinary learning.
This is not as ambitious as the original question, but can help
understanding where we are now and where we want to be.
Best wishes,
Gordana
http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc/
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