[Fis] Scientific Communication and Publishing

Wed Oct 5 15:43:10 CEST 2016

Dear Mark,

thank you for your message and particularly for your 'theological'
thoughts about pre-understanding, information and 'logos'.

What is intriguing for me is your  visw of information _as_
constraint and what you call the "no-there". If I understand you
correctly you bring together information with apophasis which
is, at first sight, an oxymoron, as apophasis means what is
un-spoken and therefore 'in-formation' as what is _no_ formed
(or said) as I could learn from a young Brazilian researcher
who questioned my early interpretation (1978!)
of "informatio" as to form something (not to _un-form_ it).
See more on p. 9ff of this paper
http://www.capurro.de/icil2016.pdf

So, in this sense, "no-there" can be understood _as_
'no-formation' and, following Shannon, a kind of _non-message_
or a message with no (new) content (for the receiver). The
receiver might we willing to discard such a message, but,
if I follow you correctly, this could mean that he/she remains
within his/her pre-understanding (or paradigm or...) instead
of becoming intrigued by a message that _apparently_ says
nothing (new) to him/her in his/her daily _here being_
(or normal science in Kuhn's terminology). If what I say is
correct, then I can see one of the problems of scientific
(and also everyday) communication as a kind of academic
cacophony where each one just discards what is seen as
"no-there" or 'irrelevant'.

You write also about the relation between information and
logos. I was thinking about Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's
article "Language as Information" (1959) in which he analyzes
the 'circle' between the plasticity and polyphony of human
language and the search for univocity. In the conference
in Munich where W. presented these ideas, Heidegger
spoke about "The path towards language" where he
point to the phenomenon of being _ex-posed_ to
language (Lacan followed this path for psychoanalysis).
In this sense and, again, if I am following your hints correctly,
language/logos is the 'no-there' of information unless we
are able to make a turn, so to speak, in our relation to language,
and such _no-there_ becomes a source of un-sponken
(apophasis) messages that we usually discard as irrational,
non-scientific, non-relevant etc. according to the context
in which we _are-there_.

Allow me a final remark concerning _apophasis_ and
_apophantic_. The last concept is Aristotelian and means
something which is _explicit_. Heidegger contrasts this
kind of _apophantic as_ (our theories for example)
with what is un-spoken and/or un-thought in them,
that he calls _hermeneutic as_. So, in this sense,
the _hermenetic as_ is similar to the _apophasis_
More on this at the "Conclusion" of this long palimpsest
in which I try to connect Greek, Latin, Jewish, Arabic and
Persian roots of the concept of information
http://www.capurro.de/iran.html

Having been a member of the Jesuit Order for eight years,
when I read how you connect the signifiers  'theology'
and 'Rafael' brought me back to my past.

best regards
Rafael

> Dear Sergej, Rafeal, Loet, Dai and list,
>
> First of all, thank you very much for the references – Gieryn looks
> fascinating (thanks Loet), and I will check out the Hobart and
> Schiffman (thanks to Pedro). It always strikes me how powerful acts of
> intellectual generosity are, and how much difference there is between
> pointing to a reference as if to say “This is the gang of academics
> who either agree with me or I disagree with them!” and “As someone
> who’s travelled along a similar path to you, I believe you might find
> this enlightening”. When we write academic papers, we tend to (indeed,
> have to) do the former. The latter is far more empathic - which leads
> me to reflect on Rafael’s comment about pre-understanding (I say more
> about this further down) On a forum like FIS, we can do the latter. I
> ask myself which is more useful or constructive in scientific
> discourse, and which should be encouraged?
>
> Between the comments of Dai and Sergej I think there is what Pedro
> refers to as the ‘critical stance’ (as in critical theory etc, I
> guess). Here I would like to clarify my position. I do not believe
> that we “ought” to change the way we communicate about science because
> publishers and universities have too much power; that they have too
> much power is a systemic consequence of something else. Rather the
> argument is that the nature of the science we now practice (complex,
> uncertain, contingent) necessitates new forms of communication, and
> this science cannot effectively communicate itself through traditional
> media. It is not an argument about ‘oughts’, it is an argument about
> the ontology of complex science and communication; it is a complex
> science reflection on the communication of complex scientists.
>
> That we currently have complex science and highly attenuated channels
> of communication is a source of pathology: we are at a transitional
> stage in history and such periods are often accompanied by all manner
> of social and political problems (just think of the pathologies of the
> early 1600s!). One feature of this is that we slip from talking about
> ‘is’ to ‘ought’ without reflection. I’m unconvinced by the power of
> political arguments (however much our professors of sociology would
> like to persuade us otherwise!) for moving things on – it only
> encourages what Bacon criticized in the Cambridge academics of the
> 1600s: “They hunt more after words than matter” (I worry about words
> like ‘entanglement’ – what does it mean?); it is scientific arguments
> and practices which carry the greatest power and which (in the end)
> are ontologically inseparable from political change. I suspect the
> distinctions between different kind of arguments are the result of
> different kinds of constraint.
>
> Having said all this about science, I want to say something about
> theology(!) Rafael’s point about “pre-understanding” sent me to the
> work of Arthur Peacocke and to the relationship between ‘information’
> and ‘logos’. To see information as constraint in both in the science
> we do, and in the way we communicate our scientific understanding, is
> to emphasise the ‘not-there’. Alongside Loet’s work on redundancy
> (which is Shannon’s ‘not-there’), I’m fascinated by Bob Ulanowicz’s
> ‘apophatic’ information: the term ‘apophatic’ is also theological. I
> hope the point is not seen to be a fuzzy or ‘god squad’ one (that’s
> not me): it is simply to say that focus on the ‘not-there’ –
> particularly if it can be given an empirical dimension – presents a
> way of seeing the ‘not-there’ of multivariate empirical practice in
> the same scope as the ‘not-there’ of scientific communication. The
> theologians (Keith Ward and John Haught should also be mentioned here)
> have an important contribution to make. I’d be grateful if anyone on
> the list has looked into this further. Paul Davies’s edited collection
> “Information and the nature of reality” is a good starting point.
>
> So there’s a scientific question: There is a ‘not-there’ in my videos
> (actually, a lot of redundancy); there is a ‘not-there’ in our
> experiments; there is a not-there in our academic papers; and there is
> a not-there in this message too. How might we go about analysing it?
> How can we connect this up?
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> On 3 October 2016 at 18:46, Dai Griffiths <dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Dear Mark, and all,
>>
>> Great videos. Sorry to be slow on this important theme, I have just got back
>> from some intensive travel in China.
>>
>> Mark asks at the end of the first video "why (in an uncertain world) do we
>> continue to put so much emphasis on the academic journal".
>>
>> In answering, I would not disagree with any of Mark's comments, but I would
>> stress the policy and political entanglement of technology. In the past
>> there was no alternative to print media, and so no need to enforce the
>> hegemony of the journal in the ways that Mark has outlined. The publishers
>> and universities who were passive recipients of the tribute of the academic
>> community as if by right (where else would you go), are now forced to take
>> an active role in order to maintain their preeminence in the new
>> technological environment. They use their existing position to avert threats
>> to their future control, through coordination  on policy, regulation and law
>> (e.g. right of access to papers, brought into sharp focus by the tragic
>> death of Aaron Swartz a couple of years ago).
>>
>> In a separate dynamic, technology is being used to manage these changes,
>> which are themselves given impetus by the alignment of technology with
>> managerial methods (Key Performance Indicators, etc), and with the business
>> models of financialisation, privatisation and precarious employment.
>>
>> I don't think we will get to the bottom of these matters, still less change
>> them, without engaging with the processes in a political way, however good
>> our analysis of technology per se may be.
>>
>> Now I'll go off to check out Sci-Hub, ... or maybe I'll wait until I leave
>> the office and get home.
>>
>> Dai
>>
>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: Fis [fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] on behalf of Loet Leydesdorff
>>> [loet at leydesdorff.net]
>>> Sent: 27 September 2016 08:27
>>> To: 'Moisés André Nisenbaum'; 'Mark Johnson'; 'fis'
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: [Fis] Scientific Communication and Publishing
>>>
>>> Dear Mark, Moises, and colleagues,
>>>
>>> I agree that this is a very beautiful piece of work. The video is
>>> impressive.
>>>
>>> My comment would focus on what it is that constructs reality "by language"
>>> (p. 2). I agree with the remark about the risk of a linguistic fallacy; but
>>> how is the domain of counterfactual expectations constructed? The answer in
>>> the paper tends towards a sociological explanation: "status" for which one
>>> competes in a new political economy. However, it seems to me that the
>>> selection mechanism has to be specified. Can this be external to the
>>> communication? How is the paradigmatic/epistemic closure and quality control
>>> brought about by the communication? How is a symbolic layer shaped and
>>> coded?
>>>
>>> One cannot reverse the reasoning: the editorial boards follow standards
>>> that they perceive as relevant and can reproduce. The standards are not a
>>> convention of the board since one would not easily agree. Reversing the
>>> reasoning would bring us back to interests and thus to a kind of neo-marxism
>>> a la the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). In actor-network theory
>>> (ANT) the emergence of standards happens historically/evolutionarily, but is
>>> not explained.
>>>
>>> I don't have answers on my side. But perhaps, the strength of anticipation
>>> and the role of models needs to be explored. Models can be entertained and
>>> enable us to reconstruct a knowledge-based reality.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Loet
>>>
>>>
>>> Loet Leydesdorff
>>> Professor, University of Amsterdam
>>> Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
>>> loet at leydesdorff.net ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
>>> Associate Faculty, SPRU, University of Sussex;
>>> Guest Professor Zhejiang Univ., Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, ISTIC,
>>> Beijing;
>>> Visiting Professor, Birkbeck, University of London;
>>> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Moisés André
>>> Nisenbaum
>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2016 1:45 AM
>>> To: Mark Johnson
>>> Cc: fis
>>> Subject: Re: [Fis] Scientific Communication and Publishing
>>>
>>> Dear Mark.
>>>
>>> Thank you for the excelent video and article. It is very important to
>>> discuss this and, if you agree, I will use your video with my students (can
>>> you send me the transcription?).
>>> No doubt we are in a changing world and we have to fight against abusive
>>> processes, like publication industry.
>>>
>>> In Rafael's article, the question “what is a scientific journal in the
>>> digital age?” I understand that we must think outside the box. I think it
>>> would be great if some group invent a kind of "Uber" of scientific
>>> production. Something that connect directly authors and readers at feasible
>>> rates.  arXiv does this connection in some way, but it is not universal.
>>> E-science is also a good initiative.
>>>
>>> Related to this discussion, UNESCO will do an event on Wednesday
>>> (sep/28th) at Museu do Amanhã (Rio de Janeiro) called International Day
>>> for Universal Access to Information (http://en.unesco.org/iduai2016).
>>>
>>> But the fact is: we are human and the worry about "reputation" is the real
>>> reason of today's organization of scientific communication (about this, this
>>> book chapter is very good: VAN RAAN, Anthony FJ. The interdisciplinary
>>> nature of science: theoretical framework and bibliometric-empirical
>>> approach. Practising interdisciplinarity, p.
>>> 66-78, 2000.)
>>>
>>> Kind regards,
>>>
>>> Moisés
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 2016-09-26 4:55 GMT-03:00 Mark Johnson <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com>:
>>>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> To kick-start the discussion on scientific publishing, I have prepared
>>>> a short (hopefully provocative) video. It can be found at:
>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bh3vqM98-U
>>>>
>>>> (if anyone's interested, the software I used for producing it is
>>>> called 'Videoscribe')
>>>>
>>>> I have also produced a paper which is attached.
>>>>
>>>> I hope you find these interesting and stimulating!
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>
>>>> Mark
>>>> --
>>>> Dr. Mark William Johnson
>>>> Institute of Learning and Teaching
>>>> Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
>>>> University of Liverpool
>>>>
>>>> Phone: 07786 064505
>>>> Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
>>>> Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Fis mailing list
>>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Moisés André Nisenbaum
>>> Doutorando IBICT/UFRJ. Professor. Msc.
>>> Instituto Federal do Rio de Janeiro - IFRJ Campus Rio de Janeiro
>>> moises.nisenbaum at ifrj.edu.br
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fis mailing list
>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Fis mailing list
>>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis.
>>>
>> --
>> -----------------------------------------
>>
>> Professor David (Dai) Griffiths
>> Professor of Education
>> School of Education and Psychology
>> The University of Bolton
>> Deane Road
>> Bolton, BL3 5AB
>>
>> Office: T3 02
>> http://www.bolton.ac.uk/IEC
>>
>> SKYPE: daigriffiths
>> UK Mobile: + 44 (0)7826917705
>> Spanish Mobile: + 34 687955912
>> (Please don't leave voicemail)
>> email:
>>     d.e.griffiths at bolton.ac.uk
>>     dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Fis mailing list
>> Fis at listas.unizar.es
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
>

-- 
Prof.em. Dr. Rafael Capurro
Hochschule der Medien (HdM), Stuttgart, Germany
Capurro Fiek Foundation for Information Ethics (http://www.capurro-fiek-foundation.org)
Distinguished Researcher at the African Centre of Excellence for Information Ethics (ACEIE), Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Chair, International Center for Information Ethics (ICIE) (http://icie.zkm.de)
Editor in Chief, International Review of Information Ethics (IRIE) (http://www.i-r-i-e.net)
Postal Address: Redtenbacherstr. 9, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany
E-Mail: rafael at capurro.de
Voice: + 49 - 721 - 98 22 9 - 22 (Fax: -21)
Homepage: www.capurro.de