[Fis] 回复： 回复： Hello IS4SI?
钟义信
zyx at bupt.edu.cn
Sun Mar 8 02:32:15 CET 2020
Dear All,
Many thanks for the deep-thoughtful and helpful comments, given by many friends these days, on the concepts of information, from which I learned a lot.
As response to the comments, I try to provide some more explanations on the concepts such as "information", "subject" and "object", and etc., in what follows. You are also very much welcome to give more comments on the explanations.
(1) The Concept of Information
As Krassir pointed out that both the concepts, "ontological information" and "epistemological information", have been given in my eariler message but did not mention the concept "information" itself.
My answer to this point is that ontological information (or object information) is just the information. So, the definition of ontological information is just the definition of information.
It may need mention that ontological information depends only on object in environment and has nothing to do with subject, and thus has only one component - the state of the object and the pattern of state varying - the formal expression.
Only when the ontological (object) information being perceived by subject, can both components of pragmatical and sementic informatio be occured.
Because the epistemological information is the result perceived by subject from ontological information, therefore, the ontological information is the origin while the epistemological information is the outcome of the origin.
Further, syntactic, pragmatic, and semantic information are not in the same level, instead they have the following relationship:
Isem = f (Isyn, Iprag),
where Isem, Iprag, Isyn stands for semantic, pragmatic, syntactic information respectively, and f is an operator mapping the (syntactic, pragmatic) into the spapce of semantic information and then naming the result.
(2) The Concept of Subject
What we should say that any kinds of living things can be regarded as subject, such as humans, animals, plants, and bacteria, and etc., depending on the specific situation discussed. The common feature for all kinds of living things is that they all have desire to be alive and to avoid to be dead. Yet the differences among them is the ability that different kinds of subject have is different. The higher rank subjects (for example human subjects) have, in principle, stronger ability to get, to handle, and to utiliza the information from environment and hence to be alive and to avoid risks whereas the lower rank subjects (for instance bacteria) have weaker ability.
(3) The Concept of Object
The object can either be living things or non-living things depending on the situation concerned.
Whether or not these eaplanations are right? Welcome again for comments and criticism.
All the best,
------------------
Prof. Zhong Y. X.
Center for Intelligence Science Research
Beijing University of Posts & Telecom
钟义信
北京邮电大学/教职工/计算机学院
13701230645
北京
------------------ 原始邮件 ------------------
发件人: "Pedro"<pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>;
发送时间: 2020年3月6日(星期五) 凌晨4:41
收件人: "fis"<fis at listas.unizar.es>;
主题: Re: [Fis] 回复： Hello IS4SI?
Dear Yixin & FIS Colleagues,
My impression is that your approach has merit in connecting the problem of information with the ecology of knowledge and the new directions of artificial intelligence. You have introduced order, but may I say that it is somehow "artificial" and has not cut through the Gordian knot that freezes current approaches to information? Metaphorically speaking, of course... Although far from having any clear solution, I will propose some alternative/complementary directions to explore. Sorry if what follows sounds a little bit confusing.
First. About "ontological information" ( you say "of any object, including the living and non-living thins, is the object’s formal state and the pattern of the state varying that are produced and presented by the objects in the real world"). I think this category is open ended, unassailable except by a lot of intersubjective consensus that has to cut among the multiple processes involved in the apparent stability of that object. I almost remember a fine, classical essay about what's in a dime (although I cannot locate it on the Internet--does anyone reminds it??). So that one can relate dozens and dozens of processes that may be taking part, facultatively, of the multiple info wrappings around that innocent "object". In your terms, I think, we must use our own epistemic information, and make a series of exchanges, in order to abduce some items and agree: this is the concrete piece of information of the object we will focus on. Fortunately we have a social-cognitive instinct that gives us all that fuss almost for free. But, in fact we amalgamate not two but the three kinds of information you mention --for our agreement on the concrete piece of information abduced will be due to previously sharing/discussing some pragmatics.
And second, speaking only on "objects" obscures the many crisscrossed processes that may be intervening. Actually, any object is but a temporal "island of stability" concerning some of those intervening processes, the most generative ones. And depending on the space-time scale of observation, some of these processes will disappear (irrelevant) while others will take relevance. To go beyond, a philosophy of processes is needed that may clarify the necessary coupling of the environmental presences with the subject. But more difficulties appear now, for the subject always seems to be the ineffable scientific observer endowed with the "principle of objectivation" and with unlimited cognitive capability. This point is important for me, as the further components of epistemological information you mention (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) do not match well with this coupling. If we want to consider a non-human observer --eg, my favorite bacterium, E. coli k12 responding to a quorum signal-- we have no clear responses. What matches the environmental presences is always an ADVANCING LIFE CYCLE, always engaged in the procurement of its own advancement. For bacteria or for the microscopist. Further, the particular subject has to look for the consensus (quorum signals, reports & publications) within the community of co-observers. And in the human case, the bodies of knowledge to be exchanged, in order to abduce the info item & obtain its meaning, shouldn't they be scientific disciplines whenever available or possible? It is the classical "methods", "results", "discussion"...
I realize the above "pan-vitalist" views are still primary and difficult to cohere. In any case, rather than trying to cajole the general information problem in communication terms (Shannon) or physicalist terms (Stan will allow me the criticism), it is the other way around. They may be obtained as simplifications--Yixin, already provides clear statements about that. My impression is that the new developments around quantum info and particularly entanglement cosmic role suggest that the new physics is another part of the multidisciplinary convergence on the renewed info problem.
Best wishes--Pedro
El 05/03/2020 a las 7:30, 钟义信 escribió:
Dear Pedro and All,
You are welcome to join in the discussion.
Best regards,
------------------
Prof. Zhong Y. X.
Center for Intelligence Science Research
Beijing University of Posts & Telecom
钟义信
北京邮电大学/教职工/计算机学院
13701230645
北京
------------------ 原始邮件 ------------------
发件人: "Pedro"<pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>;
发送时间: 2020年3月4日(星期三) 晚上7:33
收件人: "fis"<fis at listas.unizar.es>;
主题: [Fis] Hello IS4SI?
Dear List Colleagues,
Let me remind the desirable seasonal contribution of IS4SI Board members to the vitality of this list. It is not so difficult: any comments on relevant papers or books recently read, any discussion on the problems of the own research, or any reflection on the amazing evolution of our societies... does still exist the aspiration of being a thought-collective? Below I reproduce a very interesting message from Yixin, say his "seasonal contribution" to this winter. It passed undiscussed except by Gordana and by Joseph in his Summary. Part of the problem was that it was sent as an attachment. In any case I think it deserves further discussion as it implies a very holistic view on information (that one can share or not) very useful for our common foundational info purposes.
Best wishes
--Pedro
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Joseph, Dear Pedro, Dear All,
The discussions on the topics of information, disinformation and misinformation have been carried on for a couple of weeks from which I learnt a lot. Let me also share some of my views with friends and colleagues within our society, IS4SI.
1, Why Is The Discussion Important?
The current discussion is important simply because of the fact that, together with matter and energy, information is the most valuable resource for human society as well as for the living world. Particularly, in the stage of information age, the role information plays is even more fundamental. As to the members of International Society for the Study of Information, we are bearing on the special responsibility for making as clear as possible the concepts, properties, utilities, risks, and policies related to information.
2, What Is Information On Earth Then?
For making clear the policies related to information, the first thing we should do (and also cannot be avoided) is to precisely understand what information is – the definition of information. It IS, no doubt, the very foundation for distinguishing the concepts of information, disinformation, misinformation, and etc. Shannon, Wiener, Ashby, Bateson and many others have made contributions to the issue, the definition of information. Negative entropy, variety, and difference that make difference are the mutually linked, and yet different, answers.
But, all the ‘definitions’ mentioned above have certain demerits. Firstly, for example, the concept of entropy in Shannon Information Theory and Wiener’s Cybernetics is based on the probability theory whereas information is not limited to statistical category. Secondly, the concept of ‘variety’ seems much too simple and it cannot distinguish two events having same number of elements and different weights associated to each of the elements. Thirdly, the concept of ‘difference that make difference’ is also not perfect because of the fact that ‘no difference’ does not mean ‘no information’. As a matter of fact, ‘no difference’ itself does give information. To my understanding, there have been two categories of information, rather than one, existed and related to each other in the real world.
The first category of information is the one produced and presented from all things in the real world, which may suitably be termed ontological information(or object information) and the second category is the one perceived and utilized by humans, which may accordingly be termed epistemological information(or subject information). Detailed explanations concerning these concepts can be found below in section 3, or from the book <Principles of Information Science> (Yixin Zhong, BUPT Press, 1988, 1st edition; 1996, 2nd edition; 2002, 3rd edition; 2005, 4th edition; and 2013, 5th edition; all in Chinese). Up to now, unfortunately, people have paid little attentions to the understanding of the two categories of information and the mutual relation between them. Some concerned only with the first category while some others with the second. More often, people just use the same term of ‘information’ to referred to the two. This makes the concept of information extremely chaotic. This is really the root producing variety of the misconceptions related to information.
3, How To Define Different Categories of Information?
The definitions of the two category of information can briefly be given as follows.
The ontological information of any object(including the living and non-living thins)is the object’s formal state and the pattern of the state varying that are produced and presented by the objects in the real world.
The epistemological information perceived by any subject about any object consists of three components: (1)the syntactic information which is the one perceived by the subject directly from the object’s ontological information, (2) the pragmatic information which is the utility of the object’s ontological information towards the subject’s goal, and (3) the semantic information which is the meaning that the subject understand about the object and which is jointly defined by (1) and (2) through the mapping of the Cartesian product of syntactic and pragmatic information into the space of semantic information and then naming it.
The key words in the definition of ontological information are “the formal state and the pattern of the state varying”, neither “negative entropy”, “variety”, nor “difference that make difference”. In fact, when someone received a piece of (ontological) information about a thing, this means that the person knew the thing’s formal state and the pattern of the state varying. It is very clear that the concept of information in Shannon Theory is a special case of epistemological information having only the syntactic information and completely ignoring both the pragmatic and the semantic information. Yet, Shannon information is practically useful because it meets the needs of communication engineering – whenever there is message appeared at the sending terminal of the communication system, just transmit it without asking what meaning and value embedded in the message, as long as there is sufficient channel capacity.
4, How To Classify and Handle the Various Kinds of Information?
According to the definitions of ontological information, epistemological information and the information in Shannon Theory stated above, it is reasonable to have the following points.
(1) Ontological Information: If the term of information is referred to the one only related to objects themselves, either living things or non-living things, without touching the processes of human perception and any processing, it is the concept of ontological information.
(2) Epistemological Information: If the term of information is referred to the one only related to the results of perception and processing, either by humans, living things or machines, it is the epistemological information.
(3) Shannon Information: If the term of information is referred to the one only related to communication process, it is then the Shannon information.
(4) Disinformation: It is a kind of epistemological information produced by someone who is with immoral goal (its pragmatic information is negative to human society).
(5) Misinformation: It is also a kind of epistemological information produced by someone who may not be with immoral goal but have made mistakes in operation.
(6) It is almost impossible to classify the various kinds of information mentioned above merely by analyzing their formal structures (syntactic information). As mentioned above, the major differences among normal epistemological information, disinformation, and misinformation lie on the pragmatic information.
(7) The technology most suitable for handling the disinformation and misinformation is artificial intelligence (AI) based on the natural language understanding (NLU). However, the current state of the art of NLU in AI is still in its stage of infancy due to the fact that the ‘information concept’ applied in AI is limited to Shannon Theory.
(8) The Better solution for dealing with disinformation must rely on the power of advanced artificial intelligence that we have been dealing with for many years and have made good progress (See <Principles of Advanced Artificial Intelligence> by Yixin Zhong, Science Press, 2014, in Chinese)
(9) The Ultimate Solution for successfully dealing with such kind of problem like disinformation would rely heavily on the collectively human efforts worldwide in the fields of honesty, responsibility, ethics, and morality.
Best wishes,
Yixin Zhong, 2020-01-24, Beijing, China
-- ------------------------------------------------- Pedro C. Marijuán Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/ -------------------------------------------------
Libre de virus. www.avast.com
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