[Fis] On disinformation. Wittgenstein's Resposnibility: Games
Karl Javorszky
karl.javorszky at gmail.com
Mon Dec 14 16:40:48 CET 2020
Along the road to rational thinking
*Wittgenstein* has cleared the workbench, established tools and procedures
for the work of communicating messages that are of a technical nature. In
fact, the whole of the present-day software industry is based on his
systematisation of what a logical sentence is, what it refers to and how we
can determine whether it is grammatically correct.
We have to make a step back and consider the *socio-cultural context* in
which what Wittgenstein said made news. Why was it necessary to explicate
such banalities that a correct sentence is correct? Why was it picked up so
much? What was the news?
The ability to *speak in a comprehensible manner* is called in the trade
the *second organisator*. Its definition is in the mnemonic: On his first
birthday, the child charms his parents by his first steps, on the second
birthday with two-word sentences.” The second organisator appears at a
relatively late stage, there were advances in self-consciousness in
previous discrete steps. We call *first organisator *the passagere symptom
of being distressed if the caregiving person is not the mother. One can be
certain that the evocation from the memory works, the perception works, and
the distinguishing mechanism works too, evaluating correctly that something
out of the usual is taking place. Previously, the infant was not able to
remember differences, after the crisis, she will be used to it.
In sociocultural milestones, *Descartes *raises the point of recognising
one’s own existence. As the child understands the term “I”, what is called
the inner self is created. Descartes was a social success, because he gave
intelligible, transportable words to the feeling: I can think for myself!
This experience is hidden in each of us. Descartes stood up and said: “No
other person can make me think my own thoughts! There is something which
belongs only to me and it is decidedly separate to that what God, Parents,
Teachers, Friends, etc. say”.
The next step was *Newton*. His big news was that things do not jump up and
pursue one. There is neither telekinesis nor are Satanic influences there
that move things around! In the perception of the child, it is a sea change
to discover that changes are not always and there are different things that
do not change. The environment differentiates out successively in the
development of a new-born till kindergarten: at first, everything happens
by outside forces and circumstances. Out of this melange the infant learns
the distinction me – not me (predictably enough, the idea of a thing is the
contrast to that what is me, and this are the mammae of the mother, which
experience is the proto-object for all later diversifications.) The infant
exercising with her rattle familiarises her brain to the concept of mass
and also to the abstract idea of taking one’s own destiny in one’s own
hand. Newton said, in effect, look here, I can master things, the things no
more master me!, which is a very fine step in the development of the
child’s faculties.
Now comes *Wittgenstein *and says – in many, artfully crafted words! –
listen, I can speak. I can even speak reasonably. Then he digresses into
the rules of speaking reasonably and ends with stating that the ability to
speak makes one maybe clever, but not wise. Anyone can create complicated
truth tables, syntax rules, decision trees and the like, because the
*generative
grammar *(Piaget, Chomsky) is based on rules. Once you know the rules and
have a vocabulary, you can speak. The fact that a logical sentence is
constructed formally correct does not say anything about its semantic
truth, wisdom, usefulness or ethical value. Why was this statement so much
useful?
Each of these *trendsetters and influencers* fought the demons of the
general public and had slain the dragon of the time. In Descartes’ time,
auto-determination as a philosophical concept was not yet present. One was
a property of the Supreme Being, of its representants, kings, lords,
bishops, sires, in many varieties. The ability to think with one’s own head
had to be discovered and proclaimed, in words of the ruling class.
Descartes said: of the many voices which I hear, I can distinguish my own
inner voice. He cleared up superstition and stated that he is able to
create, formulate and use his own thoughts.
Newton had to delineate one’s relation to *inanimate objects*. For a small
child, nothing is inanimate, and the objective world, as the child
experiences it (the first time!) carries many surprises. To be able to
state, that things do not have any soul or volition of their own and that
they cannot be possessed, required courage. The child experiences a phase
of empowerment as it throws the doll around. The de-totemisation of
previously mighty totems, like spoons one was fed with, is a step towards
mastery of the known world. It is no more the ball which carries the
action, but the child who can aim the ball. The ultimate victory is in the
reification of the object, in which ultimately it is its mass what counts,
whatever that is. Newton has liberated us from a magic-mythical world.
He who is proudly announcing that he can speak errorfree, concise and
comprehensibly, he had his new invention to sell into an *overcrowded
market*, in which many statements were present and no one knew what to
believe. There were the teachings of the Church, of the Emperor, the
Dadaists, the ideologues and the revolutionaries. The cacophony of the last
years of the Monarchy is legendary. As opposed to this multi-layered
conflict of value weighted discourses a calm voice outlining what is a
reasonable speaking style, with all its limitations, was a refreshing
novelty. It is important that someone stands up and says: we can also talk
in a rational fashion. Wittgenstein was the Miss Manners of scientific
discourse on abstract subjects. This is in itself not much, but it
generally helps to observe the rules of speaking clearly. The joy parents
experience as the child says its first grammatically correct complex
sentence is not *what *the child has pointed at verbally, but *that *the
child has understood generative grammatic. This joy is thematised by
Wittgenstein, *that *we can form complex sentences which can be understood
interpersonally. We can speak to each other and we can understand each
other. The more we observe the formal correctness of the sentence, the less
meaning it contains, until we arrive at *a=a*, which says absolutely
nothing, but is correct to the extreme. The grammar rules have been found
practical for design and engineering input in the construction of
computers, but in a semantic understanding, Miss Manners does not
contribute to any factual discussions. Important is that one is happy that
the child says: *I can speak*.
The next message of the child is: *look what I play with*. It needs a
friendly attitude, and it helps if one has had children of one’s own, that
one gives the child the time it needs to show what he has come up with. If
the child says: look, I have understood order! one should maybe take a
little time to be interested in what the child says. The brat has got hold
of a few dozen of tin soldiers and keeps reordering them. Out of the mouth
of drunks and of children come surprisingly innovative perspectives. The
brat has built an *order-detecting and order-producing toy* and is asking
for an opportunity to demonstrate it. Maybe we do live in a world, in a
time, when order is a trendy idea, like own thoughts, things not jumping
around and ability to communicate had in their times been an answer to
their respective Zeitgeist questions. It could well be, that a discussion
of what is order is unavoidable. The subject is looming on the horizon. The
disinformation is, after all, an unusual aberration, or is it a part of the
package, like mimicry? Order touches very much on value judgments. A
neutral look at what order actually is, and how it relates to patterns,
predictability, periodicity and the like could give us a boost.
Am Do., 10. Dez. 2020 um 13:30 Uhr schrieb Joseph Brenner <
joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>:
> Dear Wolfgang and All,
>
>
>
> The current situation, in the U.S. and elsewhere, reminded me of
> Wittgenstein’s characterization of language ‘games’. Many people seem to
> like to repeat this concept as conveying some kind of wisdom, knowledge,
> science - whatever. I am sure you have all seen references to information
> ‘games’.
>
>
>
> I think this is a deadly *anti-social *concept that detracts from the
> building and credibility of a needed new synergy. If all things are
> ‘games’, and games are about winning and losing, everything is about
> winning and losing and Trumpism has found its theoretical foundation.
>
>
>
> As a tiny, minimum effort toward remediation, a word in use in the
> Covid-19 context, I propose avoiding reference to Wittgenstein in the
> discussion of serious issues. Wittgenstein’s doctrine has been called
> ‘anti-philosophy’; in my opinion, this still gives it far too much value.
>
>
>
> If someone sees a way of using Wittgenstein to further the common good, I
> would gladly change my view on this point.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Joseph
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Fis [mailto:fis-bounces en listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Wolfgang
> Hofkirchner
> *Sent:* jeudi, 10 décembre 2020 09:15
> *To:* Loet Leydesdorff
> *Cc:* fis; Joseph Brenner
> *Subject:* Re: [Fis] On disinformation. Why disinformation survives
>
>
>
> dear all,
>
>
>
> so much discussion, so difficult to enter for me. let me just point to a
> few issues only:
>
>
>
> @loet: your first question to me: how we can know what is the solution? my
> answer: there are many hints, in particular, from sciences (as in
> corona-crisis) but also from ancient wisdom – especially the chinese
> tianxua with which i got acquainted since the work of tingyang zhao was
> published in german this year – on what could be done globally and locally.
> but it needs an effort by a collective intelligence making up a quorum for
> effectuating change, and we don’t know how many people are needed and when
> it would work.
>
> your second question concerning the anthropological setting. my answer:
> that’s just the disposition with which we are endowed by phylogenesis and
> which we can cultivate. it’s just the possibility but it does not determine
> when and if adaption to it wil be actualised.
>
>
>
> then an additional point @all of you: a) we can make a comparison: today,
> it is up to us to make a choice whether or not we grasp the new task before
> us – to build up global humanity on a metalevel. our ancestors were good in
> making the choice to make the first steps toward humanity by detecting
> their new kind of co-operation. b) what is good has to do with systems.
> systems are after peter corning’s synergism hypotheis synergetic –
> otherwise they would not be systems. if a system can’t provide synergy any
> more, it will decay. our current situation can be analysed that we don’t
> have an overall system providing synergy while all factions of mankind
> compete for synergies for their own at the cost of synergy for the other
> parts, which is the cuse for all the global challenges.
>
>
>
> finally, again @loet and joseph and others: as to binarism. i made an
> attempt to categorise disinformation as failed information, using, like
> luhmann his codes, opposites, but on a scale, to measure the quality of
> certain manifestations of information types. you find the table and its
> description here on the right side:
> https://gsis.at/projects/#InformationEthicsRS
>
>
>
> thank you,
>
>
>
> w.
>
>
>
> Am 09.12.2020 um 14:34 schrieb Loet Leydesdorff <loet en leydesdorff.net>:
>
>
>
> Dear Joseph and colleagues,
>
>
>
> I am not sure that I correctly understand you, but I agree that one should
> not stay with binary distinctions. Dichotomous variables provide a low
> scale for the measurement. Both Luhmann and Spencer-Brown emphasize binary
> distinctions. Binary distinctions may have a function at the
> epistemological level in order to discuss and hypothesize relevant
> dimensions. In most cases, however, one can move forward, for example to
> probabilities (0 < p < 1)
>
>
>
> For example, in empirical studies it is not so fruitful to distinguish in
> a binary mode between true and false, or payment/non-payment. Grey-shades
> are important. Some statements are more true than others. One may have
> paid 10% of a bill.
>
>
>
> In addition to these methodological advantages of moving to more precise
> measurement scales, the relation between probability and Shannon's
> information theory is straightforward. Zeros and ones do not provide
> information. p = 0.5 and 1 - p = 0.5 leads precisely to 1 bit of
> information (H = - 0.5 log(0.5) - (l - 0.5) log(1 - 0.5) = 1/2 + 1/2 = 1.
> This is the definition of the bit. 50/50 contains a maximum of
> information.
>
>
>
> The issue is the specification of uncertainty. However, 0 log (0) and 1
> log(1) are both zero. A binary approach does therefore tend to distract
> from an empirical and numerical approach.
>
>
>
> Best,
>
> Loet
>
>
>
>
>
> * <https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508>**Loet Leydesdorff*
>
> *________________________________*
>
> Professor emeritus, University of Amsterdam
> Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
>
> loet en leydesdorff.net <loet en leydesdorff.net>; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
>
>
> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
>
> ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7835-3098;
>
>
>
> "The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge" at
>
>
>
> https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508
>
>
>
> ------ Original Message ------
>
> From: "Joseph Brenner" <joe.brenner en bluewin.ch>
>
> To: "Mark Johnson" <johnsonmwj1 en gmail.com>; "fis" <fis en listas.unizar.es>
>
> Cc: loet en leydesdorff.net
>
> Sent: 12/9/2020 10:10:38 AM
>
> Subject: RE: [Fis] FW: On disinformation. Why disinformation survives
>
>
>
> 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 en 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
> control of intransparency - Luhmann - 1997 - Systems Research and
> Behavioral Science - Wiley Online Library
> <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/%28SICI%291099-1743%28199711/12%2914%3A6%3C359%3A%3AAID-SRES160%3E3.0.CO%3B2-R>) 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 en 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 en leydesdorff.net <loet en leydesdorff.net>; http://www.leydesdorff.net/
>
>
> http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en
>
> ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7835-3098;
>
>
>
> "The Evolutionary Dynamics of Discursive Knowledge" at
>
> https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030599508
>
>
>
> ------ Original Message ------
>
> From: "Mark Johnson" <johnsonmwj1 en gmail.com>
>
> To: "fis" <fis en 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 en 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 en listas.unizar.es] *On Behalf Of *Howard
> Bloom
> *Sent:* mardi, 8 décembre 2020 02:39
> *To:* dai.griffiths.1 en gmail.com; fis en 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 en gmail.com>
> To: fis en listas.unizar.es <fis en 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 <dai.griffiths.1 en gmail.com>
> <dai.griffiths.1 en gmail.com>
> To: fis en 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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> --
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> Pedro C. Marijuán
>
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
>
>
>
> pcmarijuan.iacs en aragon.es
>
> http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
>
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> Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
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