<div dir="ltr">Dear all,<div><br></div><div>I am in agreement with Joseph's suggestion that our discussions of the foundations of information could be understood as pre-science. Efforts such as the list of principles proposed by Pedro offer a useful focus of discussion for working toward a more solid "foundation" precisely because it helps elicits responses that exemplify the fault lines in our community. These are not merely points of disagreement but also theoretical boundaries that need to be clearly identified if we want to seriously map this still ambiguous conceptual territory. Claims that this issue has been settled or that there are irresolvable issues involved or that the whole conceptual territory is useless are unhelpful. We just need to get explicit about our differences and what motivates them.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 1:45 AM, Joseph Brenner <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:joe.brenner@bluewin.ch" target="_blank">joe.brenner@bluewin.ch</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Dear Pedro, Dear FISers,<u></u><u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">In the 2 weeks I have been away, an
excellent discussion has self-organized as Pedro noted. Any preliminary comments
and criticisms of Pedro’s 10 Principles I could make now can refer to this.
I would have said first that Pedro is to be thanked for this construction.
Preparing a list of principles involves defining not only the content but also
the number, order and relation between the entries. Zou, Stan and Ted in
particular have recognized the existence of the list as such and the work
involved.<u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">My own view is that we are all currently
involved in reworking the Foundations of Information Science. These
Foundations are not themselves science, but they look forward to the increased
understanding of Information Science as Terry suggests. I propose the term
“Pre-Science” for this process activity, a pun on the word ‘prescience’ whose
normal definition is foreknowledge or foresight. The people who tend to make
mistakes in this effort will be those who claim that any simple concept or set
of concepts can do the job itself, supported by claims to authorities such as
Peirce. Sets of <i>principles</i>, on the
other hand, are tools more difficult to use but they permit directed
consideration of several perspectives at the same
time.<u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Principles are the basis for an
interpretation of what is in the physical and biological processes that are the
proper subjects for non-computational Information Science, without – yet –
providing any explanations. Now this is a lot more philosophical that may have
been expected when the discussion started. However, today, unlike when Pedro and
his colleagues started out, we have the Philosophy of Information of Luciano
Floridi and Wu Kun to work with, as well as my logic. I am surprised that no-one
has yet referred to Floridi or Wu. <u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Going back over the postings to-date, I have
noted a few which seem constitutive of a ‘Pre-Science’ of Information:
Emmanuel’s ‘duality’, Stan’s hierarchies; Michel Godron’s and John Torday’s
bridges to biology, Pedro’s reworking of communication, <em>etc</em>. I will
resist comments that the concepts of Pre-Science are to be thrown out as
part of non-science or ‘just’ philosophy. As Koichiro clearly said on 20.09,
information can, and in my view is already, bringing in something new
empirically to questions of space and time. <span> </span>In the Pre-Science of Information,
ideally, it should be possible to retain mechanism <i>and</i> materialism or realism;
computationalism <i>and </i>non- or natural
computationalism; information as a physical <em>reality</em> and a non-physical
<em>appearance</em>.<u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">I look forward with great interest to the
lines of development of this thread.<u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Best
wishes,<u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><u></u><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><u></u></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN:0cm 0cm 0pt;TEXT-ALIGN:justify"><span style="FONT-WEIGHT:normal;COLOR:black"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Joseph<u></u><u></u></font></font></span></p></font></div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-RIGHT:0px;PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;BORDER-LEFT:#000000 2px solid;MARGIN-RIGHT:0px">
<div style="FONT:10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND:#e4e4e4;FONT:10pt arial"><b>From:</b>
<a title="pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">Pedro C. Marijuan</a> </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>To:</b> <a title="fis@listas.unizar.es" href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank">'fis'</a> </div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>Sent:</b> Friday, September 15, 2017 2:13
PM</div>
<div style="FONT:10pt arial"><b>Subject:</b> [Fis] PRINCIPLES OF IS</div>
<div><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><font face="Arial" size="2"></font><br></div>Dear FIS
Colleagues,<br><br>As promised herewith the "10 principles of information
science". A couple of previous comments may be in order. <br>First, what is in
general the role of principles in science? I was motivated by the unfinished
work of philosopher Ortega y Gasset, "The idea of principle in Leibniz and the
evolution of deductive theory" (posthumously published in 1958). Our tentative
information science seems to be very different from other sciences, rather
multifarious in appearance and concepts, and cavalierly moving from scale to
scale. What could be the specific role of principles herein? Rather than
opening homogeneous realms for conceptual development, these information
principles would appear as a sort of "portals" that connect with essential
topics of other disciplines in the different organization layers, but at the
same time they should try to be consistent with each other and provide a
coherent vision of the information world.<br>And second, about organizing the
present discussion, I bet I was too optimistic with the commentators scheme.
In any case, for having a first glance on the whole scheme, the opinions of
philosophers would be very interesting. In order to warm up the discussion,
may I ask John Collier, Joseph Brenner and Rafael Capurro to send some initial
comments / criticisms? Later on, if the commentators idea flies, Koichiro
Matsuno and Wolfgang Hofkirchner would be very valuable voices to put a
perspectival end to this info principles discussion (both attended the Madrid
bygone FIS 1994 conference)... <br>But this is FIS list, unpredictable in
between the frozen states and the chaotic states! So, everybody is invited to
get ahead at his own, with the only customary limitation of two messages per
week.<br><br>Best wishes, have a good weekend --Pedro<br><br>
<p align="center"><font size="+2"><b>10 </b></font><font size="+2"><b>PRINCIPLES OF
INFORMATION SCIENCE</b></font></p>
<p>1. Information is information, neither matter nor energy.</p>
<p>2. Information is comprehended into structures, patterns, messages, or
flows.</p>
<p>3. Information can be recognized, can be measured, and can be
processed (either computationally or non-computationally).</p>
<p>4. Information flows are essential organizers of life's self-production
processes--anticipating, shaping, and mixing up with the accompanying energy
flows.</p>
<p>5. Communication/information exchanges among adaptive life-cycles underlie
the complexity of biological organizations at all scales.</p>
<p>6. It is symbolic language what conveys the essential communication
exchanges of the human species--and constitutes the core of its "social
nature." </p>
<p>7. Human information may be systematically converted into efficient
knowledge, by following the "knowledge instinct" and further up by applying
rigorous methodologies.</p>
<p>8. Human cognitive limitations on knowledge accumulation are partially
overcome via the social organization of "knowledge ecologies." <br></p>
<p>9. Knowledge circulates and recombines socially, in a continuous
actualization that involves "creative destruction" of fields and disciplines:
the intellectual <i>Ars Magna.</i> <br></p>
<p>10. Information science proposes a new, radical vision on the information
and knowledge flows that support individual lives, with profound consequences
for scientific-philosophical practice and for social governance. <br></p><pre class="m_-6402337386677856722moz-signature" cols="72">--
------------------------------<wbr>-------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. <a href="tel:+34%20976%2071%2035%2026" value="+34976713526" target="_blank">+34 976 71 3526</a> (& 6818)
<a class="m_-6402337386677856722moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="m_-6402337386677856722moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/" target="_blank">http://sites.google.com/site/<wbr>pedrocmarijuan/</a>
------------------------------<wbr>------------------- </pre>
<p>
</p><hr>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Professor Terrence W. Deacon<br>University of California, Berkeley</div>
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