[Fis] Focusing on Narratives. Social Information Science
Pedro C. Marijuan
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
Fri Dec 14 12:43:39 CET 2018
Dear All,
Joseph and Xueshan's points are of highest interest--and difficulty.
Before trying some response, let me conclude the time-related aspects
that impinge on behavior and their translation on narratives. Somehow we
were distinguishing the "ordered" micro, the "disordered" meso, and the
"reordered" macro. A good story, one of the great traditional ones,
deals with a long time-span, one of the fundamental passages of the life
cycle or even a complete life. But how such a long time span can be
captured or depicted so that it can be told in just one of the "ordered"
micro segments? This is crucial for movies' duration is around one hour
and half, or maybe two hours, like a book chapter, like people attending
a comedy, or a drama, or listening to a storyteller. It is the
fundamental ultradian rhythm of behavior, its basic "granularity". Then,
condensing a tremendous web of events into a consistent story of 90
minutes demands artistry, and a solid way of structuring the stuff. So
most movies contain the same inner structure, with little variation due
to the different genres. The "magic" of the great stories that remove
our deepest feelings and seem anchored into our very molecular nature
(Plamen's comment) derives from a collective authorship during centuries
(Iliad, Odyssean, Spanish Romancero, Nordic Sagas) or from a great
individual mind (Proust, Shakeaspeare, Cervantes...). We are entertained
by their stories because our emotions have been intensely moved during
that really brief segment of time and we have also learned some
significant lesson for our lives, beyond the repetitive and highly
disordered contents of daily events. I feel that something fundamental
herein relates to the properties of our consciousness...
Both Joseph and Xueshan deal with say "foundational" or basic
principles. It is quite right that we must deal with political
information science, for we all see that the tremendous changes in the
social milieu derived from the new circulations of social information
are actually going towards the opposite of the elevated aims supposedly
at our reach decades ago...(I remember naive hyperdemocratic views by
Micheal Arbib in late 70s). But perhaps clearest notions of social
information science should be established first. In my opinion,
"narratives" have brought to our debates the communicational preeminence
of the life-cycle, which disappears in the micro-meso levels and in the
formal analysis of our great communication tool: language. We should try
to find something similar for political information science: how could
"governance" of human societies be contemplated from the
information/communication point of view, which "strategic thread" to follow?
Best--Pedro
El 13/12/2018 a las 8:20, Joseph Brenner escribió:
>
> Dear Pedro,
>
> You make some very good points to which attention should be called
> for future reference. One is that one cannot make progress by
> taking a natural system (DNA-protein) and connecting it to an
> un-natural system of lower complexity. The same kind of error is
> made by ignoring energetic pathways which can only be described by
> reference to the properties of energy and its logic, where meaning
> is present /a priori/ in both the physical and metaphysical senses.
>
> On the positive side, I think the emerging concept of a social
> information science should be a guideline against which to measure
> most if not all of one’s work. It is no longer ethical, if it ever
> was, to waste energy and resources on outdated dogma. Even more
> importantly, perhaps, the concept of /social information science
> /points toward (or includes) a potential /political information
> science/, in which serious issues of ‘post-neo-casino’ capitalism
> can be discussed with the necessary openness and rigor. In my
> view, keeping a discussion like this one completely politically
> neutral makes it neuter in the long run.
>
> Thank you and best wishes,
>
> Joseph
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of
> *Pedro C. Marijuan
> *Sent:* vendredi, 7 décembre 2018 17:38
> *To:* fis at listas.unizar.es
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Focusing on Narratives. Infordomics
>
> Dear Xueshan and FIS Colleagues,
>
> In your two posts you raise fundamental guidelines for social
> information science. I much praise your efforts to bring coherence
> and structure into this fundamental part of the whole information
> realm. A problem you ponder, which Joseph has entered, relates to
> the importance of meaning and semiotics (semiosis, semantics,
> etc.). Given that I maintain a long standing disagreement with
> almost everybody in this matter, both in the biological and in the
> social, I cannot help but saying a couple of things finally trying
> to connect with the leit motif of the current discussion.
>
> My conclusion after considerable years of work in cellular
> signaling (contained in half dozen main papers during last years)
> would not only be that "INFORMATION IS RELATIVE..." but that it
> has to be appended with "... TO THE LIFE CYCLE". So putting them
> together: INFORMATION IS RELATIVE TO THE LIFE CYCLE. Unfortunately
> a whole generation of biosemioticians have only focused in the DNA
> stupendous combinatorics of bases later translated in the ribosome
> as proteins, connecting it with the Peircean schemes. And they
> have disregarded what are the pathways that communicate with the
> environment so that the specific energy contents needed may be
> recognized and imported. This kind of signaling pathways have been
> used later on to produce the astonishing complexity of
> multicellulars. Like in the classical dictum //"omnes viae///Romam
> ///ducunt" (all ways lead to Rome), //all of these signaling
> pathways, all the communication events with the environment,
> directly or indirectly conduce to the advancement of the life
> cycle. Meaning is thereafter built as the generative result of
> each one of these paths or of their coalitions. Overall, a very
> different bioinformational approach looms--unfortunately scarcely
> trodden yet... Anyhow, we are going excessively into the
> biological arena.
>
> The point is whether, in social information science, could
> something similar be occurring? Isn't all the superstructure of
> linguistic communication essentially animated by the necessities,
> pulsions, and expectations of a life in progress? Doesn't the life
> course, in the form of all of its neuronal instantaneities, appear
> as the main mover of our own consciousness contents? (a specific
> discussion session on consciousness would be needed here). At
> least, if we go now to the current discussion, isn't the
> advancement of the individual's life the main focus of traditional
> narratives? If some of these questions are responded positively,
> social information science would benefit of establishing a "zeroth
> principle" around the life course, the Rome to which all human
> communication paths conduce ... which I leave open, as I do not
> like my present attempt ("The multifarious forms of social
> information can only be understood as interwoven in the collective
> fabric of human lives").
>
> This my second cent of the week, so I leave for a next occasion
> the comment on Plamen's touching and intriguing content (plus
> Francesco and Karl).
>
> Best wishes
> --Pedro
>
>
> El 06/12/2018 a las 9:07, Xueshan Yan escribió:
>
>> Dear Joseph,
>>
>> Very sorry for the late reply. I think all the questions you put
>> forward hit the points what I said and each one of them is
>> crucial. Let me give you my brief answers as follows.
>>
>> *1. The root -/domos/ of the word Infordomics*
>>
>> Yes, the basic meaning of Greek root '-/domos/' is /house/ or
>> /place/, but in older English dictionaries, it has another
>> meaning: others, miscellaneous.
>>
>> *2. Semiotics as Linguistics and as a major stand-alone*
>>
>> This question is not difficult to understand. Saussure once said
>> that "Linguistics is a sign subject." In other words, there are
>> many branches of semiotics (just as there are many branches of
>> information science). Linguistics is only one of the most
>> important, mature, and standard branch of semiotics. In addition,
>> we also have many other non-mainstream semiotics branch to deal
>> with body language, music language, dance language, painting
>> language and so on. All these are some human languages, and there
>> are many other natural signs to study yet. So we can only regard
>> (human) linguistics what we usually called as one of the branches
>> of semiotics. Yes, you are right, in my statement, the serious
>> one should be: "Semiotics discusses the form of information."
>> Instead of: "Semiotics (Linguistics) discusses the form of
>> information."
>>
>> *3. Information, Meaning, Semiotics, and Semiotics*
>>
>> Just as Søren and I suggested in another place, we could consider
>> "Information, Meaning, and Sign" as a set of adjacent topics and
>> should gave a special concern. In order to maintain the unity of
>> rhetoric, my suggestion is: Information, Meaning, and Sign. (or
>> Informatics, Semantics, and Semiotics). I agree with your
>> "Semiosis both as meaning and as a dynamic process of reasoning
>> and of generating meaning.", as for whether to add it in this set
>> or not, both will be OK. Generally speaking, you, Søren, and I
>> agree that Information, Meaning, and Sign are three basic
>> concepts in our study of social/human information and communication.
>>
>> *4. Meaning does not mean that it is an unscientific concept*
>>
>> As we can see, the relationship between information and meaning
>> has been discussed in our FIS forums for 20 years. Semantics of
>> human natural language has been studied for about 80 years.
>> Meaning research in other humanities (including a large number of
>> philosophical and logical works) even has a more longer history,
>> but none of these studies has yet produced a universally accepted
>> explanation. Can our fundamental information science explorers
>> contribute a little to this? I'm looking forward to it.
>>
>> When we read the works of biology, genetics, and genomics, the
>> common statement is that the four base combinations of A, G, C,
>> and T constitute a base sequence, and a group of base sequences
>> constitute a gene. In neuroscience, in astrophysics, there is
>> only "information" but no "meaning". In computer science, in
>> Shannon's information theory, there is only "information" but no
>> "meaning" too. Therefore, when I discuss /Inforware/, I define it
>> as the three-level combination of "Information, Sign, and
>> Substrate" rather than the four-level combination of
>> "Information, Meaning, Sign, and Substrate". Very fortunately,
>> Guoheng Jia, a Chinese situation semantist, has given a
>> preliminary judgment that "information" and "meaning" could be
>> equivalent. (I've invited him to come to our FIS to give a talk
>> in due course.)
>>
>> FIS has been discussing for 20 years, and the fundamental
>> exploration of information science has been going on for decades.
>> What is the contribution of the researchers to it? Very little!
>> We would fell relieved if we could take even some small steps and
>> make some small contributions to the basic issues. Starting from
>> some promising place and doing it down-to-earth, greed has no future.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Xueshan
>>
>> *From:*fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es
>> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>
>> <fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>
>> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es> *On Behalf Of *Joseph Brenner
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 4, 2018 7:39 PM
>> *To:* fis <fis at listas.unizar.es> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Focusing on Narratives. Infordomics
>>
>> Dear Xueshan,
>>
>> Thank you for your proposal of a domain of Infordomics. I see it
>> as a way of furthering the useful insights that can be gained
>> thorough classification, guidelines and protocols of discussion.
>> I note that –domics and domain have the same Greek root
>> /‘//domos//’ – /house or place, hence, the _place_ for information.
>>
>> However, I think that your proposed inclusion of Semiotics as
>> Linguistics and as a major stand-alone subject is problematic.
>> This is in part due to the absence, in your list, of an explicit
>> reference to Meaning.
>>
>> Sören has proposed as a subject, in another context,
>> “Information, Meaning and Semiotics”. For discussion here, I
>> would have preferred Information, Meaning, Semiosis and
>> Semiotics. I see Semiosis both as meaning and as a dynamic
>> process of reasoning and of generating meaning. On the other
>> hand, Semiotics is rather a classificatory system applied to
>> formal, structural aspects of language. Of course, there is some
>> overlap with meaning, but Semiotics as most commonly used today
>> suffers from its implied reference to and dependence on the
>> categories, logic and classifications of Peirce. It is necessary
>> to remind ourselves that the Peircean approach is only one among
>> others, and that more serious scientific and ontological
>> commitments can be made in some of the latter.
>>
>> The fact that Meaning in a sense in involved in all the fields
>> you define (psychology, communication, social information) does
>> not mean that it is an unscientific concept; it is that it, like
>> information itself, requires some additional dynamic dimensions
>> for its description.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of
>> *Xueshan Yan
>> *Sent:* mardi, 4 décembre 2018 11:08
>> *To:* FIS Group
>> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] Focusing on Narratives
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> Thanks Pedro for introducing the important topic of narrative,
>> many views of Loet, Joseph, Karl, of course Pedro, etc. are very
>> profound.
>>
>> After accomplished my first book to investigate various
>> information and informational disciplines, my second book,
>> /Infordomics/, will concentrate on discussing information issues
>> in the Humanities and Social Sciences, narrative will be its main
>> concern. I have collected a dozen of books about these aspects.
>> Infordomics is a new discipline which I named. As far as the
>> current information concerned, technological information,
>> biological information, and social information are the three
>> dominating types we have seen. Technological information has been
>> exclusively studied by technological informatics (computer
>> science, telecommunications science), biological information has
>> been exclusively studied by biology, and only social information
>> is a scattered topic in history, journalism, literature, art,
>> religion, anthropology, sociology, and others, we haven’t a
>> special discipline to deal with it so far. Therefore, I think
>> that achievements on information for us are most likely in this
>> field.
>>
>> As far as the information issues we are concerning, Psychology
>> discusses the processing of information, communication
>> (Communicology) discusses the transmission of information,
>> Semiotics (Linguistics) discusses the form of information, and
>> Infordomics will discuss the remaining issues of information. At
>> the beginning, I may concentrate on its structure problems.
>> Psychology, Communicology, Semiotics (Linguistics), and
>> Infordomics (other new disciplines on information may emerge in
>> the future certainly.) constitute a systematic study about
>> social/human information.
>>
>> However, our FIS (including our IS4SI) is at a hard time now, and
>> we need a firm and promising guideline and protocol.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Xueshan
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:Fis at listas.unizar.es>
>> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
>
> --
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> Pedro C. Marijuán
>
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>
>
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--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
-------------------------------------------------
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