<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Pedro -- Here’s a footnote that I did not think of during the discussion of disinformation -- the fairly widespread phenomenon of protective coloration of various species of animals. In some cases this mimics an aspect of the natural world that serves as background for an animal, or it could mimic a dangerous (like poisonous) other animal. This disinformation is built into the ecological adventures of various kinds of animals, from fished to insects.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">STAN </span></p></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 2:53 PM Pedro C. Marijuan <<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>Dear Joseph and FIS colleagues,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks indeed for the work done. It has
been a New Year Lecture that has left a rich sediment of ideas and
reflections that hopefully, as you mention, might find continuity.</div>
<div>In my own view of the theme I was
mostly focused on the biological underpinning and also in some
social-historical aspects. In particular, the historical mixing
(inseparability?) of information and disinformation is
fascinating. I had penned a short paragraph about that (in what
follows).</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0cm;margin-bottom:6pt;margin-left:0cm;text-align:justify;line-height:16pt"><span lang="EN-US">From the most abstract
perspective, it is information the essential concept that
underlies the
revolutionary changes of human societies--perhaps accompanied
by its
inseparable companion: disinformation. For instance, books
ignited the
Scientific Revolution, although it was accompanied by national
states wars and
by religious wars. The outstanding developments of steam
engines, railways, electricity,
telegraph, phones, cars, planes, radio, TVs, electronics,
etc., that propelled
the first, second, and third industrial revolutions, had
attached a string of
deep social conflicts and political upheavals. The continuous
clash of nationalistic
and politic ideologies contributed to create a blanket of
disinformation that
made very difficult the sheer perception of the new conflicts
and the means to
solve them. Nowadays it is computers, Internet, cell phones,
robotics, and
genomics what are propelling the new revolutionary period. But
once more, along
these crucial informational inventions a new wave of discord
and disinformation
is menacing the promising outcomes of the new epoch… It looks
as if the “global
brain” will always be victim of new viruses, more and more
sophisticate ones (sorry--an
unfortunate metaphor in the current times). </span></p>
</div>
<div>Best wishes to everybody and, again,
thanks Joseph.</div>
<div>--Pedro</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>El 30/01/2020 a las 9:11, Joseph
Brenner escribió:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span lang="EN-GB">Dear Friends and
Colleagues,<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">For people
interested in information, the New Year
Lecture on disinformation and its discussion has taken
place against an
unbelievable background. It is nightmarish, <i><span style="font-style:italic">ubu-esque</span></i>,
Orwellian. Literally, the United States Minister of Health
stated last week
that a woman’s <i><span style="font-style:italic">freedom</span></i>
to
have an abortion was <i><span style="font-style:italic">slavery</span></i>.
War
is peace. The greatest short-term menace to humanity is
coming from entities
that consist essentially of information plus a few bits of
protein and RNA. The
not-so-long term menace is global warming whose existence
is considered
disinformation by some people, themselves heavily involved
in disinformation. <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">In spite of
everything, I think the key issues came out well:<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">1.
Disinformation and Misinformation. Intent<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:35.4pt"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">There was
general agreement on the fact of the existence
of disinformation and of misinformation as distinct from
it. Disinformation is
characterized by the anti-social intent of the
disinformer, although questions
remain about the detailed structure of intent as an
operator.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">2.
Countering Disinformation<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">
Faced
with the pernicious phenomenon of disinformation, there
was a substantial
consensus that ‘something should be done about it’. The
need for
tools, perhaps at first computational ones, to identify
disinformation in documents
was mentioned by several contributors. Others suggested
the inherent
limitations of solely computational approaches and the
need to find and authenticate
other criteria or ‘markers’ to identify disinformation. I
think
there should be a working group on disinformation, based
on the willingness of FIS
members to commit time to it. <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">3. The FIS
Group (1)<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">
I
found a certain confusion between different perspectives.
Considering the
diversity of our group, this is not surprising. There has
not been a consensus
about what information and information science are. I
noted here a lack of
consensus about what <i><span style="font-style:italic">foundations</span></i>
or foundational principles are or should be. The result
was that many valid
insights were stated in the form of examples and anecdotal
cases, rather than
as structures or principles. The, for me, basic principle
that information is a
process, an ‘informing’ rather than a datum or data
received little
attention. It should also be obvious that this Lecture
could not cover all
related aspects of communication and <i><span style="font-style:italic">behavioral</span></i>
science. <u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="3" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">4. The FIS
Group (2)<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:35.4pt"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">The above
notwithstanding, I feel that many fascinating
concepts related to information/disinformation, just
touched upon here, are
well worth further development; the following list is
completely open for
additions, including significant points I may have missed.
The order is not
significant:<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-indent:35.4pt"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:53.4pt;text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<font size="1" face="Times New
Roman"><span>
</span></font></span></span></font><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">grounding of
disinformation in cognitive structures/the
genome ;<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:53.4pt;text-align:justify"><font size="3" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<font size="1" face="Times New
Roman"><span>
</span></font></span></span></font><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">hypocrisy
and other recursive disinformation processes</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:53.4pt;text-align:justify"><font size="3" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<font size="1" face="Times New
Roman"><span>
</span></font></span></span></font><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">public
origins of disinformation</span></font><font face="Lucida
Sans Unicode"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:53.4pt;text-align:justify"><font size="3" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<font size="1" face="Times New
Roman"><span>
</span></font></span></span></font><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">the universe
of discourse in informational terms</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:53.4pt;text-align:justify"><font size="3" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><span>-<font size="1" face="Times New
Roman"><span>
</span></font></span></span></font><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">art and its
informational content</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans
Unicode"><span lang="EN-GB"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">Thank you.
It was a pleasure working with you.<u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="2" face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB">Joseph</span></font><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode'" lang="EN-GB"><u></u><u></u></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial" lang="EN-US"><u></u> <u></u></span></font></p>
</div>
<br>
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<p><br>
</p>
<pre cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
<a href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" target="_blank">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/" target="_blank">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
------------------------------------------------- </pre>
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