[Fis] FW: New Dialog on Social Systems. The Disinformation Society. Belief
Pedro C. Marijuan
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
Tue Dec 1 21:24:57 CET 2020
Dear Terry, Joseph, and Colleagues,
Thanks for the well crafted reflections. I quite agree. Nevertheless,
disinformation has been a historical constant in human societies, even
within oral cultures. We are quite used to it, on a daily basis, always
having to "struggle" in the little or big attacks against our
reputation. And socially as well. If we remind the great crisis (and
wars) of the past century, the propaganda, lies, and fakes ("bulos" as
we say in Spanish) were an important and even decisive part of the
multiple confrontations. But you are right that the new media, the
social networks, represent uncharted waters --amazingly dangerous-- for
disinformation. Our cultures and institutions have not distilled
appropriate strategies to counteract them yet... In any case, rather
than trying to bring more discussion elements (we already had a NY
Lecture last year about that) I would like to be practical:
Why we do not think on a regular, stable working group about it? A few
parties, in my opinion counting with your and Joseph's own leading
involvement, could start thinking about the organizing details of the
idea. For instance, in future months we could have a regular discussion
session in the list --a well prepared one-- and see the progress. It can
be done under the IS4SI banner, or FIS--or whatever we think convenient.
We never talk in this list about McLuhan, but some of his views become
enormously pertinent in this context.
Best--Pedro
at El 30/11/2020 a las 20:00, Terrence W. DEACON escribió:
>
> Dear Pedro, Joseph, and FIS colleagues.
>
>
> I want to thank Joseph Brenner for keeping us focused on an
> information science challenge that we ignore to our peril:
> disinformation. By blurring the distinction between the statistical,
> referential, and normative aspects of information, we have little
> chance of being able to confront this pragmatically important
> existential challenge; whether politically, medically, scientifically,
> or ecologically. I think that the disinformation issue highlights the
> need to overcome disputes over whose definition of information is
> best, and to dig deeper into these higher-order information concepts.
> In this respect, continuing to challenge each other to rethink the
> assumptions at the foundations of information science is more
> important than ever. Understanding the information/disinformation
> distinction is a foundational social evolution problem. So I am both
> receptive to Joseph’s critique and also encouraged to see how Pedro
> has helped to facilitate an exchange of ideas between information
> theorists and social-evolution theorists.
>
>
> The explosive and destructive “success” of the disinformation
> enterprise has been generated both extrinsically and intrinsically.
> Extrinsically, because of the geopolitical advantages gained by
> creating confusion and discord in the ranks of potential
> competitors—the old divide and conquer strategy. Intrinsically, it
> follows in the wake of radical postmodern skepticism about knowledge.
> This has fueled uncertainties about what’s fact and what’s opinion,
> blurred the science/belief distinction, and promulgated a sense that
> truth is a property best assessed by analyzing the messenger, not the
> message. I think that our work could address some of the intrinsic
> problems, and thereby help us to better counter any extrinsic challenges.
>
>
> Of course, disinformation is a social weapon with a long history. The
> current augmented power of disinformation is a function of the way its
> dissemination has been amplified by the runaway dynamic implicit in
> social media platforms. This has been an unanticipated side-effect of
> the capitalistic foundation of these communication systems as well as
> their unprecedented global extent and ubiquity. Their economic success
> has been based on algorithms that are structured so as to maximize the
> time that users spend in a company’s virtual domain; thus increasing
> the time users spend exposed to their content, clicking on their
> links, getting current users to ensnare additional users, and in so
> doing providing data useful for improving this same capacity. It’s a
> perfect disinformational pyramid-scheme that no one anticipated, and
> will be quite difficult to rein in.
>
>
> This is the information challenge of our era. It is an existential
> challenge, and not merely one of academic relevance. I applaud any
> effort to bring the informational and social evolutionary discussions
> together in the FIS forum and to continue to pay attention to these
> normative and pragmatic challenges at the intersection of these fields.
>
>
> — Terry
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 12:29 AM Joseph Brenner
> <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch <mailto:joe.brenner at bluewin.ch>> wrote:
>
> Dear FISers,
>
> Please excuse my failing to include one additional point in my
> previous note: there has been some discussion of the degree to
> which Trump believes the disinformation he spreads. The conclusion
> of one commentator is that it makes no difference. This is a
> question of his individual psychopathology. The latter is of
> scientific interest, but one needs to be more concerned with the
> damage to society and how that can be remediated.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Joseph
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es
> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>] *On Behalf Of *Joseph Brenner
> *Sent:* lundi, 30 novembre 2020 09:01
> *To:* 'Pedro C. Marijuan'; fis at listas.unizar.es
> <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] New Dialog on Social Systems. The
> Disinformation Society
>
> Dear Pedro,
>
> There is no disjunction between your information science ‘mill’
> and our latest discussion of society. A little less than a year
> ago, we had a very good discussion of disinformation. In this
> period, we have had to experience, and are still experiencing in
> the United States, one of the most massive and vicious
> disinformation campaigns in history. This one comes complete with,
> and is served by, all the latest information and communications
> technologies. In the hands of right-wing ideologues and their
> Master Puppet, they are causing a catastrophic “retreat from
> reality”, as one U.S. journalist aptly named it, by poorly
> prepared segments of the population.
>
> Information science and philosophy thus must include the study of
> the susceptibility of information to this kind of distortion,
> misuse and instrumentalization. One technique, which I might call
> totalitarian, is to occupy as much as possible of the available
> multi-dimensional information space.
>
> To combat this, we should make, I think, a conscious effort to
> better understand the complex ecological knowledge systems in
> which we are embedded to see how they can be furthered for the
> common good.
>
> Thank you and best wishes,
>
> Joseph
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es
> <mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es>] *On Behalf Of *Pedro C.
> Marijuan
> *Sent:* samedi, 28 novembre 2020 19:18
> *To:* fis at listas.unizar.es <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es>
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] New Dialog on Social Systems
>
> Dear Joseph and colleagues,
>
> Let me first cordially thank to the contributors who have chimed
> in the list and expressed their appreciation. About your
> reflection, yes, it was a neat transdisciplinary exercise. It was
> an initial idea from Andrei that we two crystallized during the
> IS4SI venue in Berkeley. In some sense it is unusual business,
> given the compartmentalized structure of most research, but at the
> same time it may be the natural way to look at such "information
> objects" of extreme complexity as societies are. We need a bunch
> of the perspectives capable of saying anything interesting or
> relevant about them. For medieval thinker Raymond Lulli this
> handling of heterogeneous perspectives was the intellectual "Ars
> Magna". It represents the continued recombination processes
> withing the "ecologies of knowledge" of our colleague Yixin. And
> it was one of fundamental information principles I presented last
> month.
>
> And to draw some more water to my own mill, quite many principles
> of those variegated disciplines might be put in connection with
> the principles of information science. Information science and
> information philosophy would appear as the "unofficial handlers"
> of that intuitive Art.
>
> Best regards
>
> --Pedro
>
> El 28/11/2020 a las 10:31, Joseph Brenner escribió
>
>> Dear Pedro, Dear Andrei,
>>
>> Many thanks to you both for the opportunity to have participated
>> in this remarkable project! I look forward to reading all the
>> papers, especially those of some of the non-FIS contributors with
>> whom I have lost contact. It just occurred to me that this
>> /Special Issue /is an exemplary /Transdisciplinary /Project, of
>> the kind that IS4SI is supposed also to help develop. We could
>> either just say: /Nous faisons de la Transdisciplinarité sans le
>> savoir /or we could use this concept in some way. I offer this
>> thought for your consideration during the 3^rd International
>> Congress on Transdisciplinarity which is in progress essentially
>> on-line for the next six months. Comments welcome.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Joseph
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *From:*Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of
>> *Pedro C. Marijuan
>> *Sent:* jeudi, 26 novembre 2020 20:20
>> *To:* 'fis'
>> *Subject:* [Fis] New Dialog on Social Systems
>>
>> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>>
>> You may remember the announcement that Andrei Igamberdiev and me
>> circulated last year on a special issue in BioSystems on the
>> "Evolutionary Dynamics of Social Systems--Looking for a New
>> Dialog". We are glad to tell that the edition is finally over and
>> the contributions (more than 20) of this special issue can be
>> freely visited and downloaded during 50 days, until will 13
>> January 2021, in the link:
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/biosystems/special-issue/107DGX9V85V
>>
>>
>> Quite a few contributors belong to our list: /Joseph Brenner &
>> Andrei Igamberdiev/ (reflexive transformation of reality), /Loet
>> Leydesdorff /(codes in inter-human communications), /Howard
>> Bloom/ (biopolitics: bacterial roots of the new autocracies) ,
>> /Yagmur Denizhan /(from archaic to modern myths), /Wolfgang
>> Hofkirchner /(the contemporary Great Bifurcation), /Pedro
>> Marijuan & Jorge Navarro/ (acceleration of cultural change)....
>> There are also contributions from the /Cliodynamics school /(on
>> political stability of societies), from /Adrian Bejan/
>> (constructal nature of social evolution), from /Nicholas
>> Christakis/' team (selective mating in human evolution), from
>> /Andrei Khrennikov /(entropy and quantum effects in decision
>> making), etc.
>>
>> You may have a previous glance on our editorial presenting the
>> issue:
>> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303264720301489
>>
>> Hope you will find it an interesting and useful special issue.
>>
>> Best--Pedro
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> 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 <mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>
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>
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>
>
> --
> Professor Terrence W. Deacon
> University of California, Berkeley
>
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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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