[Fis] Fwd: PRINCIPLES OF IS
Pedro C. Marijuan
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
Wed Sep 20 13:54:08 CEST 2017
Dear FISers,
Many thanks for all the comments and criticisms. Beyond concrete
agreements/disagreements the discussion is lively, and that is the main
point. It is complicate pointing at some fundamental, ultimate reality
based on disciplinary claims. Putting it differently, the hierarchies
between scientific disciplines were fashionable particularly in the
reductionism times; but now fortunately those decades (70s, 80s) are far
away. Actually, the new views taking shape are not far from the term
"knowledge recombination" that appears in some of the principles
discussed. Modern research could be typified by being: curiosity-led,
technologically driven, multi-scaled, interdisciplinary, and integrative
(paraphrasing Cuthill et al., 2017). Contemporary philosophers like John
Dupré have dealt with some soft "perspectivism" but they do not deal
with the disciplinary recombination rigorously. I think this is one of
the main concerns of our nascent info-science.
Rafael in his message enters into some undergrounds of the idea of
Principles/Methods/Explanations in the way Ortega discusses it for
Leibnitz. That book is particularly dense, and I am not aware of
interesting synthesis about it. One of its early claims is that
Principles have to be evident (intuitive for Husserl), useful for
verification and for the construction of logical proofs, and further
they have to open "new ways of thinking" ("modos de pensar" for
Ortega). For Leibnitz, according to Ortega, "thinking is proving" so
the classical emphasis was on the logical power of principles. But their
capability to support an inspiring new way of thinking was ignored or
just left implicit. And this is a big problem not only in our field but
in many multidisciplinary endeavors: excellent research ideas are
accompanied by really vulgar "metaphysics" (or better, metadisciplinary
views). See for instance the Big Data research on so-called "social
physics". Or the excellent book on "Scale" recently published (great at
climbing from atoms to cells, organisms, enterprises, and cities; but
really poor in the multifarious information/communication underlying
worlds).
Anyhow, these are superficial comments inspired by the many excellent
messages exchanged. There is a self-organization of the discussion
taking place, and it is nice that we are concentrating discussion on the
3 first principles, somehow devoted to information per se. Once we smash
these topics, we may go for the biologically related (principles 4-6),
later on for the recombination and ecology of knowledge (principles
7-9), and finally for the ethical goals of our new science efforts, as
Joseph has commented (principle 10).
Best whishes to all
--Pedro
The El 19/09/2017 a las 11:30, Pedro C. Marijuan escribió:
>
> -------- Mensaje reenviado --------
>
> Asunto: Re: [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS
> Fecha: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 09:21:51 +0200
> De: Rafael Capurro <rafael at capurro.de>
> Responder a: rafael at capurro.de
> Para: Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>
>
>
> Dear Pedro,
>
> a short comment to your intro to the 10 principles: I very much agree
> with your views (following Ortega) that information science can be
> conceived as a multifaceted or "multifarious" network of concepts and
> theories dealing phenomena partly related partly not (yet) related
> with each other for which we need different languages/concepts and
> 'translations' and kinds of calculations also with regard to their
> goals and 'utility'.
>
> If this makes sense, then we should try to develop some kind of
> 'principles' or 'archai' in the Greek sense, i.e., of 'initial forces'
> that give rise to possibilities of 'un-concealing' different kinds of
> phenomena that we could not see when disregarding other paths or by
> not entering through other 'portals' each portal announcing different
> kinds of what makes sense or not when entering the path.
>
> Sometimes it makes sense to go up and see the landscapes from the top,
> knowing that this view(s) from the top also conceal a lot of things on
> the bottom. It is easiear to understand these 'principles' if we have
> experience with walking in the mountains (but also in other natural
> and artificial environments like a forest, a desert, cities etc.).
> Maybe we could learn from such experiences which kind of 'principles'
> are to be conssidered in the 'methods' (hodos = path) of scientific
> research.
>
> So, my suggestion is to invite our FIS colleagues to describe
> phenomenologically their walking experiences and 'principles' in
> different enviroments (mountains etc.) and try to 'translate'
> (trans-late) them into the field of information science.
>
> Best
>
> Rafael
>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> As promised herewith the "10 principles of information science". A
>> couple of previous comments may be in order.
>> First, what is in general the role of principles in science? I was
>> motivated by the unfinished work of philosopher Ortega y Gasset, "The
>> idea of principle in Leibniz and the evolution of deductive theory"
>> (posthumously published in 1958). Our tentative information science
>> seems to be very different from other sciences, rather multifarious
>> in appearance and concepts, and cavalierly moving from scale to
>> scale. What could be the specific role of principles herein? Rather
>> than opening homogeneous realms for conceptual development, these
>> information principles would appear as a sort of "portals" that
>> connect with essential topics of other disciplines in the different
>> organization layers, but at the same time they should try to be
>> consistent with each other and provide a coherent vision of the
>> information world.
>> And second, about organizing the present discussion, I bet I was too
>> optimistic with the commentators scheme. In any case, for having a
>> first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of philosophers would
>> be very interesting. In order to warm up the discussion, may I ask
>> John Collier, Joseph Brenner and Rafael Capurro to send some initial
>> comments / criticisms? Later on, if the commentators idea flies,
>> Koichiro Matsuno and Wolfgang Hofkirchner would be very valuable
>> voices to put a perspectival end to this info principles discussion
>> (both attended the Madrid bygone FIS 1994 conference)...
>> But this is FIS list, unpredictable in between the frozen states and
>> the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to get ahead at his own,
>> with the only customary limitation of two messages per week.
>>
>> Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro
>>
>> *10 **PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SCIENCE*
>>
>> 1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.
>>
>> 2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages,
>> or flows.
>>
>> 3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
>> processed (either computationally or non-computationally).
>>
>> 4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's
>> self-production processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with
>> the accompanying energy flows.
>>
>> 5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive life-cycles
>> underlie the complexity of biological organizations at all scales.
>>
>> 6. It is symbolic language what conveys the essential communication
>> exchanges of the human species--and constitutes the core of its
>> "social nature."
>>
>> 7. Human information may be systematically converted into efficient
>> knowledge, by following the "knowledge instinct" and further up by
>> applying rigorous methodologies.
>>
>> 8. Human cognitive limitations on knowledge accumulation are
>> partially overcome via the social organization of "knowledge ecologies."
>>
>> 9. Knowledge circulates and recombines socially, in a continuous
>> actualization that involves "creative destruction" of fields and
>> disciplines: the intellectual /Ars Magna./
>>
>> 10. Information science proposes a new, radical vision on the
>> information and knowledge flows that support individual lives, with
>> profound consequences for scientific-philosophical practice and for
>> social governance.
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> 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 0
>> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
>> Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
>> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
>> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> 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
>
>
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--
-------------------------------------------------
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 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
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