Re: [Fis] Verification of the Principle of Information Science and the Definition of Information ON THE EXAMPLE OF GARDEN PEAS

[Karl Javorszky]

Dear Professor,

your rightful indignation will be even deeper when you consider that the
official important and valuable discussion among the most prominent and
recognised eminent functionaries of highly respected institutions has been
repeatedly disturbed by boring patterns of observations related to garden
peas.



Am 19.10.2017 09:52 schrieb "Xueshan Yan" :

Dear FIS Colleagues,

Since April 2017, the FIS forum has been silent for as long as 5 months.
September 15, Pedro has raised 10 Principles of Information Science with
his amazing insight. As we all know, since the December 1997, FIS forum has
run nearly 20 years, colleagues gathered here mainly focused on two
topics:1) The analysis of different information problems that they apply
the concept of information; 2) Definition of information; But this time,
Pedro opened a third FIS topic: Principle of Information Science.
Undoubtedly, it is the highest goal of FIS colleagues and all information
scientists in the world.

However, after the presentation of the 10 principles, the discussion has
not been developed in accordance with the expectations of all FIS
colleagues, including Pedro. After about 6 or so direct reviews about the
10 principles, the discussions quickly shifted to the topic of eternal
controversial on FIS: The definition of information. And then the
discussion start moving to Data, Meaning, Message, Reflection, Agent and so
on, it is a stunned. Are the 10 principles wrong? Why has the definition of
information been put on the table again? Looking back, at least one year
ago, at the FIS forum, Bateson's "Information is a difference that makes a
difference" still occupies the stage of information definition with an
overwhelming majority of leading roles. The 10 principles put forward by
Pedro are undoubtedly meaningful, but why do it secretly change the topic
into information definition again?.

*1. Pedro's 10 Principles of Information Science*

Referring to Pedro's view (Sept. 20), we can divide the 10 principle into
the following 3 groups: 1~3: The Universal Principle which is suitable for
all types of information; 4~5: The Local Principle which is only suitable
for the type of organic information; 6~10: The Local Principle which is
only suitable for the type of human information. From a macro point of
view, these 10 principles are related to Pedro's personal professional
research — Biological Information — of his lifelong field of study, and
information flow and knowledge recombination is his favorite topic in
recent years. As for human information, this is a subject that I am most
interested in and I am glad that he can put forward 4 principles from his
view.

The first principle is the exact expression of Wiener's 1948 statement
(Wiener, 1948), and it is now well known among scientists all over the
world. The other 9 principles come from Pedro himself. Unfortunately, in
the discussions during these period, in addition to about 6 colleagues
commented on these principles directly, almost no else commented.
Obviously, there must be some problems. My view is that the problem lies
mainly in the universal nature of the principle. It consists of two
aspects: 1) Scope. Since it is called principle of information science, all
principles under it should generally be applied to all information types
and disciplines rather than to some kind of them. If they are expressed as
"X principles of Biological Informatics", or "X principles of Human
Informatics", they may be more precise; 2) Correctness. Verification for
each principle requires time, this can be observed in the future
discussion, we don't have to worry. I believe that these principles will
eventually inspire the vitality they deserve.

*2. Definition of Information*

Looking back over the past 20 years of FIS discussion, almost every other
time, someone must put forward the definition debate on information, and
then produced new definition. Whether your topic is to talk about any other
type of information, at the end, someone may intentionally or
unintentionally turn the topic to the definition of information. It reminds
me of some of my own research experiences. When I proposed that we should
pay attention to information science research in 1987 to a vice-president
of Peking University (A famous Linguist), he immediately questioned me: "Is
information science not the study of information definition?" Till November
2015, at the presidential meeting of Peking University, when I gave the
account on the establishment of China Chapter of IS4SI, the current
president just only asked me one question: what is your definition of
information now? Decades later, we can see that this problem has not
changed, and this is what we have to introspect. FIS forum, including
information scientists from other places, should not always discussed in
such a simple and unrestricted way to define the definition of information.
I recall Marcin said at our FIS 10 years ago: When somebody gives me

[Fis] Verification of the Principle of Information Science and the Definition of Information

[Xueshan Yan]

Dear FIS Colleagues,

Since April 2017, the FIS forum has been silent for as long as 5 months. 
September 15, Pedro has raised 10 Principles of Information Science with his 
amazing insight. As we all know, since the December 1997, FIS forum has run 
nearly 20 years, colleagues gathered here mainly focused on two topics:1) The 
analysis of different information problems that they apply the concept of 
information; 2) Definition of information; But this time, Pedro opened a third 
FIS topic: Principle of Information Science. Undoubtedly, it is the highest 
goal of FIS colleagues and all information scientists in the world.

However, after the presentation of the 10 principles, the discussion has not 
been developed in accordance with the expectations of all FIS colleagues, 
including Pedro. After about 6 or so direct reviews about the 10 principles, 
the discussions quickly shifted to the topic of eternal controversial on FIS: 
The definition of information. And then the discussion start moving to Data, 
Meaning, Message, Reflection, Agent and so on, it is a stunned. Are the 10 
principles wrong? Why has the definition of information been put on the table 
again? Looking back, at least one year ago, at the FIS forum, Bateson's 
"Information is a difference that makes a difference" still occupies the stage 
of information definition with an overwhelming majority of leading roles. The 
10 principles put forward by Pedro are undoubtedly meaningful, but why do it 
secretly change the topic into information definition again?.

1. Pedro's 10 Principles of Information Science

Referring to Pedro's view (Sept. 20), we can divide the 10 principle into the 
following 3 groups: 1~3: The Universal Principle which is suitable for all 
types of information; 4~5: The Local Principle which is only suitable for the 
type of organic information; 6~10: The Local Principle which is only suitable 
for the type of human information. From a macro point of view, these 10 
principles are related to Pedro's personal professional research — Biological 
Information — of his lifelong field of study, and information flow and 
knowledge recombination is his favorite topic in recent years. As for human 
information, this is a subject that I am most interested in and I am glad that 
he can put forward 4 principles from his view.

The first principle is the exact expression of Wiener's 1948 statement (Wiener, 
1948), and it is now well known among scientists all over the world. The other 
9 principles come from Pedro himself. Unfortunately, in the discussions during 
these period, in addition to about 6 colleagues commented on these principles 
directly, almost no else commented. Obviously, there must be some problems. My 
view is that the problem lies mainly in the universal nature of the principle. 
It consists of two aspects: 1) Scope. Since it is called principle of 
information science, all principles under it should generally be applied to all 
information types and disciplines rather than to some kind of them. If they are 
expressed as "X principles of Biological Informatics", or "X principles of 
Human Informatics", they may be more precise; 2) Correctness. Verification for 
each principle requires time, this can be observed in the future discussion, we 
don't have to worry. I believe that these principles will eventually inspire 
the vitality they deserve.

2. Definition of Information

Looking back over the past 20 years of FIS discussion, almost every other time, 
someone must put forward the definition debate on information, and then 
produced new definition. Whether your topic is to talk about any other type of 
information, at the end, someone may intentionally or unintentionally turn the 
topic to the definition of information. It reminds me of some of my own 
research experiences. When I proposed that we should pay attention to 
information science research in 1987 to a vice-president of Peking University 
(A famous Linguist), he immediately questioned me: "Is information science not 
the study of information definition?" Till November 2015, at the presidential 
meeting of Peking University, when I gave the account on the establishment of 
China Chapter of IS4SI, the current president just only asked me one question: 
what is your definition of information now? Decades later, we can see that this 
problem has not changed, and this is what we have to introspect. FIS forum, 
including information scientists from other places, should not always discussed 
in such a simple and unrestricted way to define the definition of information. 
I recall Marcin said at our FIS 10 years ago: When somebody gives me logically 
correct definition of some concept I cannot say "It is wrong" but only that "I 
am not interested in this concept or that", "I do not believe this definition 
can be applied to what we agreed is denotation of the concept." The general 
concept of information requires for its foundations an appropriate rich