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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=ZH-CN link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='text-justify-trim:punctuation'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Dear FIS Colleagues,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:21.0pt;line-height:normal'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>A few days ago, among some of active IS4SI Board members, we have a very constructive discussion about Mark Burgin’s General Theory of Information (GTI, based on his book <i>Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification</i>, 2010), the discussion was in progress mainly between Joseph and Mark and focused on the following three points:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;mso-para-margin-bottom:.5gd;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:normal'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>1. Is information a phenomena or a reality?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;mso-para-margin-bottom:.5gd;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:normal'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>2. Are the mathematical methods Mark developed useful?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:6.0pt;mso-para-margin-bottom:.5gd;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:normal'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>3. Where is the position of a GTI?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:24.0pt;line-height:normal'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>I have made a commitment that I will summarize the main arguments of the discussion then. The following are the gist of them and please give enough attention to.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal;layout-grid-mode:char'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:3.6pt;mso-para-margin-top:.3gd;text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal;layout-grid-mode:char'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Xueshan<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:3.6pt;mso-para-margin-top:.3gd;text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal;layout-grid-mode:char'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:3.6pt;mso-para-margin-top:.3gd;text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal;layout-grid-mode:char'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt'> </span><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Century",serif'>The main points of the arguments<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:3.6pt;mso-para-margin-top:.3gd;text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal;layout-grid-mode:char'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"Century",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><table class=32593 border=1 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0 style='margin-left:63.55pt;border-collapse:collapse;border:none'><tr><td width=150 valign=top style='width:213.9pt;border:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:0cm'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Mark’s gist</span><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:3.6pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:12.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-margin-top-alt:.3gd;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:0cm;mso-para-margin-left:12.0pt;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>1. (My) GTI consists of two parts - ontology of information and axiology of information. The mathematical component of this theory is mainly ontological based on mathematical models of information as operators and functors. The system of ontological and axiological principles of the GTI provides unified foundations for information studies, though it is difficult to understand.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>2. Information is a phenomenon. It's neither quantitative nor qualitative. It's people (and sometimes machines) who ascribe qualitative or quantitative measures to information. My GTI does acknowledge qualitative information but only existence of qualitative and quantitative measures.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>3. My GTI does not define Information in term of bit, bit is a unit of a particular measure of information only in some special information theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>4. My GTI defines information as a real essence. Although many think that there are only one reality – physical things, actually there are different realities.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>5. My GTI allows specification to all existing information theories. It provides constructive tools for doing such specifications and building special information theories without including these theories into its scope.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>6. <span style='color:black'>The theories of Shannon, Fisher or Bar-Hillel, etc. are the varieties of GTI, </span>together all these theories form information science.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>7. My GTI forms a unified foundation of information science and can be used for studies of actually any kind of information including<span style='color:black'> ethical</span> information or semantic information, for which<span style='color:black'> meaning i</span>s the defining feature.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td><td width=169 valign=top style='width:207.4pt;border:solid windowtext 1.0pt;border-left:none;padding:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt'><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center;text-indent:0cm'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Joseph’s gist<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:3.6pt;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:0cm;margin-left:12.0pt;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-margin-top-alt:.3gd;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:0cm;mso-para-margin-left:12.0pt;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>1. There is no role for the information what Mark stated, including qualitative, non-measurable and/or non-quantitative one. It is a lower ontological level.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>2. A GTI should not define information in terms of bit.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>3. The question of “What information is” implies a substance rather than dynamic process ontology.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>4. If information is only a phenomenon, I cannot imagine a ‘measure’ operating on an appearance.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>5. Mark’s GTI tries to explain “<b>What Information Is”</b> but without a discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>6. If information by Mark’s GTI consideration cannot be a process or have processual characteristics, it cannot be ‘general’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>7. What Mark have defined is a THEORY OF GENERAL INFORMATION but not a GENERAL THEORY OF INFORMATION.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>8. Mark’s GTI extracts the general characteristics of information processes independently of their substratum of physical (energetic) properties, all of the mathematical aspects of what he has called a GTI then apply to that abstraction, and a ‘meaning’ of those aspects exists, it is tautological.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>9. What is ontologically primary, then, are the phenomena that have meaning – the information necessary for the survival of living beings and for their reproduction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>10. According to Mark, Meaning will be the foundation of all theories of information.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:12.0pt;text-indent:-12.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>11. And Mark’s GTI will become a Meta-Theory of Information, a theory of Theories of Information.<o:p></o:p></span></p></td></tr></table><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-top:3.6pt;mso-para-margin-top:.3gd;text-indent:0cm;line-height:normal;layout-grid-mode:char'><b><span lang=EN-US style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Century",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-indent:21.0pt'><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:DengXian'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>