[Fis] FW: On disinformation. Why disinformation survives
Joseph Brenner
joe.brenner at bluewin.ch
Wed Dec 9 10:10:38 CET 2020
Dear Mark J. and Loet,
Your last two notes state very clearly the key properties of the complex system of people and their capacities, interactions and communications. It is a good place from which to continue the discussion. I would just like to suggest that the latter can be made more fruitful if explicit or implicit binary distinctions can be excluded from our common ‘language’:
1. The conceptions of Spencer-Brown and Luhmann are formal (diagrammatic) and epistemic. They do not describe the properties of real systems and the interactions that prevail in them. They follow nothing but their own semantic rules and incorporate pre-relativistic ideas of time and space.
2. It should not be assumed that systems must provide complete descriptions of themselves. Nothing real can be ‘completely’ described anyway, so why suggest it as a criticism? Systems are characterized by both indeterminacy and determinacy, and to call the former ‘unresolvable’ begs the question.
3. When Loet writes: it is difficult to tell someone else that s/he is misinformed I think there is a possible categorial confusion: it may indeed be difficult to say some things to other people, but these things may be correct and it may be necessary to say them, literally, for the common good. Please do not imagine that I am somehow insulated from the probability (hopefully low) of error. If I did not accept this probability, then I could be criticized for being inconsistent, even prima facie misinformed. I do not think this, and only ask that my approach be given no less attention than what is paid to more familiar ones.
4. We are not, at least I am not, experts in psychology who can define the pathology of mental phenomena scientifically. (To call some two-dimensional curves ‘pathological’ is pure metaphor.) Nevertheless, I think Mark’s point 3 about a decline in variety, echoing Ashby, is an excellent perspective since it describes things in terms of change. Just following the line of my first sentence, it might be useful to point out the necessity of limiting variety if it, too, grows out of proportion.
As I look at what I have just written, the task of distinguishing information and disinformation as types is no different from that of identifying how they, and other binary pairs, are also similar and overlap. The alternative is to make the kind of error ridiculed by Ionesco in a play (I have forgotten which) in which several actors shout at once: “It’s not this but that; it’s not this but that!”
Best,
Joseph
_____
From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Mark Johnson
Sent: mardi, 8 décembre 2020 22:42
To: fis
Subject: Re: [Fis] FW: On disinformation. Why disinformation survives
Dear Loet, all,
Yes it is complex - but fascinating, and throws up some fascinating points about the meaningfulness of categorising "disinformation".
I can't see that it is necessary to distinguish disinformation from information: this distinction seems at the wrong level of analysis. Echoing Joe's point that there is a difference between systemic viability (altruism) and pathology, rather than specific messages being disinformative or not, can I suggest the following:
1. Disinformation is a meta-systemic categorisation of a systemic pathology;
2. To recognise its own pathology is to recognise a systemic loss of variety and a reduced capacity to self-organise the communication system in comparison to the past; This is the "meaningfulness" the metasystem establishes in its own systemic behaviour;
3. The meaning of disinformation, like all meaning, results from the construction of a selection mechanism which determines "this is disinformation". That selection mechanism must be anticipatory, must it not? And for it to be anticipatory (for it to foresee the pathological consequences of a pattern of decline in variety), the pattern of its own historical development (or decline) must enter into the process of constructing the anticipatory system.
The problem of disinformation then highlights the fact that the evolutionary history of communication and historical meaning-making is entailed by all our meaning-making processes: it is not just that meaning arises from anticipating future events, but anticipating future events in the light of anticipating the system's capacity to anticipate. I must say (with apologies to Joe who is no fan of Luhmann!), that Luhmann's late turn to Spencer-Brown and the embedding of time in distinction-making (see here: The <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291099-1743%28199711/12%2914%3A6%3C359%3A%3AAID-SRES160%3E3.0.CO%3B2-R> control of intransparency - Luhmann - 1997 - Systems Research and Behavioral Science - Wiley Online Library) makes more sense when we appreciate the meaningfulness of disinformation:
"General systems theory shows that the combination of self‐referential operations and operational closure (or the re‐entry of output as input) generates a surplus of possible operations and therefore intransparency of the system for its own operation. The system cannot produce a complete description of itself. It has to cope with its own unresolvable indeterminacy. To be able to operate under such conditions the system has to introduce time. It has to distinguish between its past and its future. It has to use a memory function that includes both remembering and forgetting. And it needs an oscillator function to represent its future. This means, for example, that the future has to be imagined as achieving or not achieving the goals of the system."
Best wishes
Mark
On Tue, 8 Dec 2020 at 19:05, Loet Leydesdorff <loet at leydesdorff.net> wrote:
Dear Mark, Joe, Terry, and other colleagues,
It seems to me that this is complex. The complexity comes to the fore if we realize that one needs criteria about what is disinformation and what can be considered as information. For example, the criteria will be different for Democrats or Republicans in the US.
If we assume with Niklas Luhmann that society is differentiated and also differentiating into functional subsystems with different codes in the communication, one can expect the different logics to operate upon one another and also to confuse, have unintended effects, and irritate one another. It is relatively simple as long as "Roma dixit' what is communication and what is disinformation. Traditionally, the role hasbeen taken over by the law system. But we cannot go to court for each miscommunication/dis-information.
Who authorized the social media (Facebook) to take the policing role. Which codes are developed and used? Empirical questions. One expects self-organization of the communication leading to differentiation to prevail, and organization in forms of operational coupling and thus irritation.
Things become complex as soon as it is no longer obvious what is mis-information and as soon as one is aware that there are no standards given. Perhaps, moral standards but these no longer work in a pluriform society. "Cuius regio, eius religio" was the principle in 1658 at the Peace of Westfalia. But it assumed sovereignty. Nowadays, we have freedom of religion and it is difficult to tell someone else that s/he is misinformed.
Best,
Loet
<https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508> Loet Leydesdorff
________________________________
Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
loet at leydesdorff.net <mailto:loet at leydesdorff.net> ; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ <http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en> &hl=en
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7835-3098;
"The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge" at
<https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508> https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508
------ Original Message ------
From: "Mark Johnson" <johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com>
To: "fis" <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Sent: 12/8/2020 5:14:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Fis] FW: On disinformation. Why disinformation survives
Hi Joe,
Regarding your "objective altruistic criteria" (I quite agree), is this in Bob Ulanowicz's and Loet's territory, do you think? Bob - are you there?
Is this a trade-off between autocatalysis and mutual information in communication ecosystems? That would provide some kind of metric - particularly in the light of Loet's work.
Personally, I would expect distortions in anticipatory systems which might be analysable through communication processes. Trump's tweets, and the chilling dynamics unfolding around what is obviously a stand-off in electoral trust are an excellent test-ground for some practical work.
What do you think?
Mark
On Tue, 8 Dec 2020 at 08:37, Joseph Brenner <joe.brenner at bluewin.ch> wrote:
Dear All,
Disinformation survives and flourishes in part because supported by statements such as those of Bloom. They are strictly equivalent in form to Trump’s saying that “there are good people on both
sides”, when one of those sides is composed of people who kill peaceful protesters.
In the United States, despite their uniformly good reaction to the current attacks on the electoral process, the courts will not be able to help in a catastrophically large number of cases in the future. Apart from the ideologue majority in the Supreme Court, the lower courts have been stuffed with young right wing reactionaries who will poison decisions for at least a generation.
A new process is required, one that explicitly recognizes the existence of objective altruistic criteria in behavior, where economic or social self-interest can be shown to be absent. I order not to drown in pessimism, I repeat to myself the statement of the biologist E. O. Wilson: “Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”
I like to think that this discussion, in a small way, is part of such a process, since the trans-categorial role of information is crucial.
Best wishes,
Joseph
_____
From: Fis [mailto:fis-bounces at listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of Howard Bloom
Sent: mardi, 8 décembre 2020 02:39
To: dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com; fis at listas.unizar.es
Subject: Re: [Fis] On disinformation
thanks, dai.
one man's truth is another man's lie. each subculture has its own truth and its own devil spilling disinformation.
to trumpers, joe biden is part of a coup to take the white house fraudulently. to trumpers, the democrats are the liars.
to anti-trumpers, trump is trying to pull off a coup to upend the election. trump and his "army" are the liars. the disinformation spewers.
which group is right? which truth is right?
how do we judge? especially if freedom of speech is one of our most basic values?
so far, we are relying on the courts.
with warmth and oomph--howard
-----Original Message-----
From: Dai Griffiths <dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com>
To: fis at listas.unizar.es <fis at listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Mon, Dec 7, 2020 9:05 am
Subject: Re: [Fis] On disinformation
That's all true, Howard.
I think it is important to distinguish between compliance and consensus. Throwing dissidents to the lions does the trick for compliance, and preventing challenges to power (as per the shocking first chapter of Foucault's Discipline and Punish).
As to consensus, the creation of a canon is partly a practical matter: given it takes so long to copy a book, which ones do we think are worth copying and sharing. Printing, and now information technology, have completely changed these decisions. But on top of these features of the medium, there is a political process. For example, it seems likely that leaders in early China saw how consensus through control of the canon could provide an alternative (or a useful addition) to lion feeding as a method for achieving authority, by promoting Confucian ideas. Both strategies are at work in Hong Kong today, it seems.
The two strategies continue side by side in differing combinations. Some absolute rulers don't worry too much about consensus outside the group of those standing in line to assassinate them. Others focus more on control of the development of consensus through control of the communications ecology, and perhaps Russia has taken the lead in this. Neither of these two extremes is attractive, but both are widespread. Most of us on this list have been fortunate to live in a democratic space carved out between the rock of forced compliance, and the hard place of manipulated consensus. The configuration and maintenance of that space always involves hard work, compromise, and trade-offs that are never ideal for everybody (and maybe for nobody), but I am certainly grateful for it.
If we want to say something sensible about all this, and if we want to make any practical step which might preserve both our discourses and democracy, then I think we need to address two quite different kinds of questions:
1) What is the impact of information technology, its accompanying regulatory framework and established patterns of use, on the ecology of communications? How might the patterns change if we altered this or that part of the system? These are cybernetic questions.
2) Who is benefiting from the emerging communications ecology, what are they doing to shape it's future, and why? What (if any) changes would we like to persuade legislators and organisations to make in response and how can this be achieved? These are political questions.
Dai
On 06/12/2020 02:16, Howard Bloom wrote:
dai,
as an indication that your idea that disinformation is the norm and consensus the exception,
look how hard previous ages have worked to impose consensus. spreading roman culture amongst tribal peoples in the days of the roman empire. throwing dissidents to the lions. making sure that everyone's education was the same with the same roughly five books studied and the same alphabet used from roughly 200 bc onward in china. hunting heretics once rome turned christian. the inquisition. the absolute rule of the tsar in russia, with all printing presses used for just one thing: printing the tsar's ukases.
howard
-----Original Message-----
From: Dai Griffiths <mailto:dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com> <dai.griffiths.1 at gmail.com>
To: <mailto:fis at listas.unizar.es> fis at listas.unizar.es
Sent: Sat, Dec 5, 2020 9:41 am
Subject: Re: [Fis] On disinformation
Dear all,
We tend to think of 'surveillance capitalism' and other related trends as being a disruption of normality. But seen from a longer perspective, perhaps we are living in an unusual period (or the possibly the end of it) in which there has been relatively widespread social agreement about the nature of the world that we are living in. "Ask the priest" used to be the answer to questions of eschatology or social propriety (and often still is) but that doesn't help much in establishing who is giving the orders or why, and what is going on in the town over the hill. We have relied on newspapers for that, and, in the UK, the BBC. As a result, flat earthers haven't much traction recently compared with the conflict between Galileo and the church, and even McCarthyism was primarily about economic power and control, not as unhinged as the witchcraft hysteria that Miller (rightly) compared it to. If it is true that we have been living in an oasis of relative consensus, where did that consensus come from?
I would argue that it emerged from the inherent limitations in access to printing technology, and the editorial, commercial, political and social processes that developed to cope with that limited access. It is these processes that generated the authority of some ideas over others, the generalised trust in some media rather than others, and the ability to identify consistent biases in those that were trusted.
I suggest that we should recognise that disinformation, fake news, and plain old gossip, are the default state for human social interactions. It is evolved and designed social structures and institutions that overcome this. Our challenge is then to disentangle the way that that informational authority was generated in the past, and the (perhaps disfunctional) way that it is generated at present. My suspicion is that we won't get far in improving the situation unless we question the central role of the recommender algorithms that have taken over much of the work of human editors in determining what is seen heard and read, and by whom. To have any chance of achieving political traction in the face of commercial interests and personal preferences, proposals for change in that area will have to tell and extremely clear story about how we got to where we are, where we should try to go next, and how we could get there.
Best
Dai
On 04/12/2020 14:06, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote:
Dear Terry and FIS colleagues,
Thanks for the reflections--I will try to continue with rather disconnected ideas.
The term 'surveillance capitalism' introduced by Shoshana Zuboff (indeed complemented with a parallel 'surveillance authoritarianism') is addressed to cover the new negative aspects of current technological developments. However, my opinion is that these phenomena are inherent in all human societies in all epochs, for there is always a tension, say, between the individual "fitness" and the whole social "commons", which can be set in quite many different dynamic equilibrium points, basically maintained via circulating or communicating info flows. It is easy to see that information, disinformation, surveillance, persuasion, and coercion travel together in the socialization-communication pack. Historically, every new means of communication (then we land on McLuhan) alters those social equilibria and somehow demands a social or cultural reaction to re-establish an acceptable collective situation. The problem now, you mentioned in the previous post, is the enormous concentration of power, of brute info flows, around these new media--without appropriate social curation at the time being. I doubt that these technologies can bring the solution by themselves . Institutional, social intervention would be needed... Scholarly analysis might be important, providing cues on the the influence on individual and collective moods/personalities, on the possible counteracting institutional alternatives and on the needed new cultural norms to abide along these new forms of communication (sort of 'traffic regulations'), even a personal hygiene of communication...
The problems are far more serious, complex, and faster than in McLuhan's time. We have to reinvent his views... But how can we organize a collective, cumulative discussion? I was thinking that a feasible first step, apart of what we can do directly in the list, could be calling for a Special Issue in some interesting, multidisciplinary Journal. Well, at the time being, Terry, Joseph, and myself are promoting a sort of ad hoc group to move things--anyone else would join??
Best regards
--Pedro
El 01/12/2020 a las 22:54, Terrence W. DEACON escribió:
Dear Pedro,
Great suggestions. I like the idea of an ongoing separate thread addressing disinformation.
Of course I only addressed Western disinformation and didn't even touch on highly massaged information that is often disseminated with centralized governmental control.
This disinforms by selective censorship and redundancy and is increasingly taking advantage of the myriad new forms of surveillance that can be used to shape the information made available to different targeted audiences.
And Yes McLuhan is definitely relevant.
I wonder how he would think about the effects of these new media.
How do they reshape the nature of content?
How they can be understood using his notions of hot and cool?
What is now in the rear view mirror within the new media that once was in the foreground?
On these matters Bob Logan might want to weigh in.
--
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley
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