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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Yixin & FIS Colleagues,</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">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.<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">First. About "ontological information"
(<span style=" ; " lang="EN-US"> you say "of any object, including
the living and non-living thins, is the object’s <u>formal
state and the pattern of the state varying</u> that are
produced and presented by the objects in the real world").</span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US"> I think this category is open ended, </span></span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">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". </span></span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">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. <br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US"><br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">And second, speaking </span></span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">only </span></span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">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 </span></span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">always </span></span><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">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. <u>What
matches the environmental presences is always an ADVANCING
LIFE CYCLE, always engaged in the procurement of its own
advancement.</u> 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"...<br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US"><br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">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.
<br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US"><br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><span
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">Best wishes--Pedro<br>
</span></span></div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">El 05/03/2020 a las 7:30, 钟义信 escribió:<br>
</div>
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<div>Dear Pedro and All,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>You are welcome to join in the discussion.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
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<div class="logo" style="max-height: 150px;overflow:
hidden;margin:35px 0 0 0;float:left;">
<div><b>Prof. Zhong Y. X.</b></div>
<div>Center for Intelligence Science Research</div>
<div>Beijing University of Posts & Telecom</div>
<div><br>
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<h4 class="name"
style="margin:0;font-size:14px;font-weight:bold;line-height:28px;color:#000;zoom:1;">钟义信<br>
</h4>
<p class="department" style="margin:0;">北京邮电大学/教职工/计算机学院</p>
<p class="mobile" style="margin:0;">13701230645</p>
<p class="addr"
style="margin:0;line-height:22px;color:#a0a0a0;">北京</p>
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<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12px;FONT-FAMILY: Arial
Narrow;padding:2px 0 2px 0;">------------------ 原始邮件 ------------------</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE:
12px;background:#efefef;padding:8px;">
<div id="menu_sender"><b>发件人:</b> "Pedro"<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es"><pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es></a>;</div>
<div><b>发送时间:</b> 2020年3月4日(星期三) 晚上7:33</div>
<div><b>收件人:</b> "fis"<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es"><fis@listas.unizar.es></a>; <wbr></div>
<div><b>主题:</b> [Fis] Hello IS4SI?</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly">Dear
List Colleagues,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly">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. <br>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly">Best
wishes</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly">--Pedro
<span style=" ; " lang="EN-US"><br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">Dear Joseph, Dear Pedro,
Dear All,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ;
" lang="EN-US">1, Why Is The Discussion Important?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ;
" lang="EN-US">2, What Is Information On Earth
Then?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">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.</span><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US"> 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.</span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">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.</span><span style=" ;
" lang="EN-US"> To my understanding, there have been
two categories of information, rather than one,
existed and related to each other in the real world.</span>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">The first category of
information is the one produced and presented from
all things in the real world, which may suitably be
termed <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">ontological
information</b>(or <b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">object
information</b>) and the second category is the
one perceived and utilized by humans, which may
accordingly be termed <b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">epistemological
information</b>(or <b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">subject
information</b>). 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, 1<sup>st</sup>
edition; 1996, 2<sup>nd</sup> edition; 2002, 3<sup>rd</sup>
edition; 2005, 4<sup>th</sup> edition; and 2013, 5<sup>th</sup>
edition; all in Chinese).</span><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US"> 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.</span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ;
" lang="EN-US">3, How To Define Different
Categories of Information?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">The definitions of the two
category of information can briefly be given as
follows.</span></p>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US">The ontological information</span></b><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US"> of any object(including the
living and non-living thins)is the object’s <u>formal
state and the pattern of the state varying</u> that
are produced and presented by the objects in the real
world.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US"><br>
</span></b>
<p><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style="
; " lang="EN-US">The epistemological information</span></b><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US"> perceived by any subject
about any object consists of three components: (1)<u>the
syntactic information</u> which is the one
perceived by the subject directly from the object’s
ontological information, (2) <u>the pragmatic
information</u> which is the utility of the
object’s ontological information towards the
subject’s goal, and (3) <u>the semantic information</u>
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.</span><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US"></span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US">The key words in the
definition of ontological information are “<u>the
formal state and the pattern of the state varying</u>”,
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 t<u>he thing’s formal state and the
pattern of the state varying</u>.</span><span
style=" ; " lang="EN-US"> It is very clear that <u>the
concept of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">information
in Shannon Theory</b> is a special case of
epistemological information having only the
syntactic information and completely ignoring both
the pragmatic and the semantic information</u>.
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.</span><span style=" ; "
lang="EN-US"> </span> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"
style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-line-height-rule:exactly"><b
style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span style=" ;
" lang="EN-US">4, How To Classify and Handle the
Various Kinds of Information?</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(1)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Ontological
Information: </b>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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(2)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Epistemological
Information: </b>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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(3)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Shannon
Information:</b> If the term of information is
referred to the one only related to communication
process, it is then the Shannon information.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(4)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Disinformation:</b>
It is a kind of epistemological information produced
by someone who is with immoral goal (its pragmatic
information is negative to human society).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(5)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">Misinformation:</b>
It is also a kind of epistemological information
produced by someone who may not be with immoral goal
but have made mistakes in operation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(6)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">It is almost
impossible</b> 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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(7)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">The
technology</b> 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.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(8)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">The Better
solution</b> 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)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">(9)
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal">The Ultimate
Solution</b> 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. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">Best
wishes,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style=" ; " lang="EN-US">Yixin
Zhong, 2020-01-24, Beijing, China</span></p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" moz-do-not-send="true">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/" moz-do-not-send="true">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
------------------------------------------------- </pre>
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</pre>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/">http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/</a>
------------------------------------------------- </pre>
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