<div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Dear Colleagues,<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Some say, 2020 can’t be over soon enough. We may agree that
we are indeed living in interesting times. There are several reorganising
processes at work, coping with climate, energy, pandemic, economic, strategic
crises all happening in a supreme interaction. One can compare this phase with
the metamorphosis insects undergo during pupating. Wolfgang shows optimism by
suggesting that there are governing principles – the anthropology of humans –
that guide us towards a new form of complex interdependencies. Loet appears
more sceptical on this point.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In whichever form we exit the chrysalis, we shall hardly be
able to maintain world views based on monotheistic beliefs. The subject of our
current discussion, disinformation, leads one to this insight.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">If disinformation is possible, there must exist several
variants of a message relating to a state of the world, from among which the lying
sender picks one and transmits, causing thereby in the recipient a false
picture of what is the case in the world. At this point one leaves the
orthodoxy and enters uncharted waters, because the whole system depends on the
axiom that logical sentences describe the world as the world is. It is a
grammatical error to arrive at a false picture of the world, according to the catechism
in force. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The problem lies in the fact, that the unknown and the
unrecognised do keep existing, and they do create situations, in which grammatically
correct sentences state something that is not the case. Take, for instance: “It
is evening now”. The truth of this sentence will depend on the time of the day
it having been uttered. Periodic changes allow us to create a vision of the
world, in which it is grammatical to say logical sentences which do not cover
what is actually the case, albeit restricted by a temporal reference. <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">The temporal ordering principle which determines, which
sentences are true at what times, is but one of <i>several </i>ordering principles which together determine our existence.
Food being poisonous or healthy, water being sufficient or scarce, the
biosphere remaining permissive or turning sterile: these influences are
ordering principles. They are related to seasonal changes no question, but they
are sufficiently distinct among each other to deserve to be called ordering
principles or factors on their own merits. Our metamorphosis changes us by
causing us to leave behind the dogmatic age. In a world of emerging multipolarism,
heterocausal explanations and interlinked systems, where even multiple
processors in computers vie routinely for influence, in such a world no basic
explanation of the world by One, unipolar perspective can remain.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">If we had a commonly agreed on reference table of words,
corresponding to mental images within the participants of a discussion, like we
presently have the system of natural numbers, we could find universal language
to transport ideas with. Such an invention is ready and at hand: interested
Learned Friends need only to invest a few days of a senior student’s work and
they can contemplate about which basic worldview-changes are coming their way
if they learn to count <i>a+b=c </i>with
just a few hours of inner interest. They used to say: “Well, it is true that no
one speaks Latin today, but having learnt Latin works marvels to understand how
logic works, what logic is, generally.” Similarly, one may not see the
immediate need for a social scientist, a microbiologist or a mathematician to look
into movement patterns of variants of <i>a+b=c</i>,
but it helps immensely to have a solid grasp of the terms order, hierarchy,
coexistence, priority, predictability and such, in whatever fields of academia
one is practicing. That Mendel was not an outstanding social success with his
numbers is due to the fact that numbers do not sell well. However, the examples
of Galilei and Huyghens give one courage: one can invite Learned Friends to
look through a newly constructed complicated device and perceive there something
quite interesting. In the present case, one may promise little green Ordering
Principles being at work.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In case we come to a rational insight about the Interaction
of Ordering Principles, the underlying, fundamental system of beliefs will be familiar
to followers of polytheistic or animalistic – naturalistic religions, but will be
considered heretical by followers of the Abrahamitic religions. The existence
of secondary or tertiary readings of the same state of the world runs contrary
to the concept of the symbol system being subject to One ordering principle. (In
short: if you want to understand theoretical genetics, you must first convert
to Hinduism or become a willing subject of Zeus.)<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Best to all,<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 8pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Karl<span></span></p>
</div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Am So., 6. Dez. 2020 um 15:02 Uhr schrieb Loet Leydesdorff <<a href="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net">loet@leydesdorff.net</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div>Dear Wolfgang:</div>
<div><br></div><div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923x301e1f45ec1c46a" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><blockquote cite="http://04C8E1E4-9546-49F2-B36E-9EAE4D24A82E@is4si.org" type="cite" class="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923cite2"><div>there is a worldwide trend towards self-interestedness, which needs to be countered by the insight into what is needful globally to govern our world to continue our existence. hope is there because we have the anthropological setting for turning around. </div><div><br></div><div>wolfgang</div><div><br></div></blockquote>Do you happen to know what is "needed globally to govern our world to continue our existence?" How do the "anthropological settings turn us around? Is this a recipe?</div><div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923x301e1f45ec1c46a" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><br></div><div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923x301e1f45ec1c46a" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Best,</div><div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923x301e1f45ec1c46a" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Loet</div><div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923x301e1f45ec1c46a" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><br><blockquote cite="http://04C8E1E4-9546-49F2-B36E-9EAE4D24A82E@is4si.org" type="cite" class="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923cite2"><div><br><div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Am 06.12.2020 um 02:16 schrieb Howard Bloom <<a href="mailto:howlbloom@aol.com" target="_blank">howlbloom@aol.com</a>>:</div><br><div>
<div style="font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:10pt;line-height:normal;font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">
<div>dai,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>as an indication that your idea that disinformation is the norm and consensus the exception,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
look how hard previous ages have worked to impose consensus. spreading roman culture amongst tribal peoples in the days of the roman empire. throwing dissidents to the lions. making sure that everyone's education was the same with the same roughly five books studied and the same alphabet used from roughly 200 bc onward in china. hunting heretics once rome turned christian. the inquisition. the absolute rule of the tsar in russia, with all printing presses used for just one thing: printing the tsar's ukases.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>howard<br>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Dai Griffiths <<a href="mailto:dai.griffiths.1@gmail.com" target="_blank">dai.griffiths.1@gmail.com</a>><br>
To: <a href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es" target="_blank">fis@listas.unizar.es</a><br>
Sent: Sat, Dec 5, 2020 9:41 am<br>
Subject: Re: [Fis] On disinformation<br>
<br>
<div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923yiv3413924224">
<div>
<div>Dear all,</div>
<div>We tend to think of 'surveillance capitalism' and other related
trends as being a disruption of normality. But seen from a longer
perspective, perhaps we are living in an unusual period (or the
possibly the end of it) in which there has been relatively
widespread social agreement about the nature of the world that we
are living in. "Ask the priest" used to be the answer to questions
of eschatology or social propriety (and often still is) but that
doesn't help much in establishing who is giving the orders or why,
and what is going on in the town over the hill. We have relied on
newspapers for that, and, in the UK, the BBC. As a result, flat
earthers haven't much traction recently compared with the conflict
between Galileo and the church, and even McCarthyism was primarily
about economic power and control, not as unhinged as the
witchcraft hysteria that Miller (rightly) compared it to. If it is
true that we have been living in an oasis of relative consensus,
where did that consensus come from? <br clear="none">
</div>
<div>I would argue that it emerged from the inherent limitations in
access to printing technology, and the editorial, commercial,
political and social processes that developed to cope with that
limited access. It is these processes that generated the authority
of some ideas over others, the generalised trust in some media
rather than others, and the ability to identify consistent biases
in those that were trusted.</div>
<div>I suggest that we should recognise that disinformation, fake
news, and plain old gossip, are the default state for human social
interactions. It is evolved and designed social structures and
institutions that overcome this. Our challenge is then to
disentangle the way that that informational authority was
generated in the past, and the (perhaps disfunctional) way that it
is generated at present. My suspicion is that we won't get far in
improving the situation unless we question the central role of the
recommender algorithms that have taken over much of the work of
human editors in determining what is seen heard and read, and by
whom. To have any chance of achieving political traction in the
face of commercial interests and personal preferences, proposals
for change in that area will have to tell and extremely clear
story about how we got to where we are, where we should try to go
next, and how we could get there.</div>
<div>Best<br clear="none">
</div>
<div>Dai<br clear="none">
</div>
<div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923yiv3413924224yqtfd54811">
<div>On 04/12/2020 14:06, Pedro C. Marijuan
wrote:<br clear="none">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
</blockquote></div>
</div>
<div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923yiv3413924224yqtfd46017">
<div>
<div>Dear Terry and FIS colleagues,</div>
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
<div>Thanks for the reflections--I will
try to continue with rather disconnected ideas.</div>
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
<div>The term 'surveillance capitalism'
introduced by Shoshana Zuboff (indeed complemented with a
parallel 'surveillance authoritarianism') is addressed to cover
the new negative aspects of current technological developments.
However, my opinion is that these phenomena are inherent in all
human societies in all epochs, for there is always a tension,
say, between the individual "fitness" and the whole social
"commons", which can be set in quite many different dynamic
equilibrium points, basically maintained via circulating or
communicating info flows. It is easy to see that information,
disinformation, surveillance, persuasion, and coercion travel
together in the socialization-communication pack. Historically,
every new means of communication (then we land on McLuhan)
alters those social equilibria and somehow demands a social or
cultural reaction to re-establish an acceptable collective
situation. The problem now, you mentioned in the previous post,
is the enormous concentration of power, of brute info flows,
around these new media--without appropriate social curation at
the time being. I doubt that these technologies can bring the
solution by themselves . Institutional, social intervention
would be needed... Scholarly analysis might be important,
providing cues on the the influence on individual and collective
moods/personalities, on the possible counteracting institutional
alternatives and on the needed new cultural norms to abide along
these new forms of communication (sort of 'traffic
regulations'), even a personal hygiene of communication... <br clear="none">
</div>
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
<div>The problems are far more serious,
complex, and faster than in McLuhan's time. We have to reinvent
his views... But how can we organize a collective, cumulative
discussion? I was thinking that a feasible first step, apart of
what we can do directly in the list, could be calling for a
Special Issue in some interesting, multidisciplinary Journal.
Well, at the time being, Terry, Joseph, and myself are promoting
a sort of ad hoc group to move things--anyone else would join??</div>
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
<div>Best regards</div>
<div>--Pedro</div>
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
<div>El 01/12/2020 a las 22:54, Terrence
W. DEACON escribió:<br clear="none">
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
</blockquote></div>
</div>
<div>
<div id="gmail-m_-2817650499850623923yiv3413924224yqtfd41836">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr">Dear Pedro,
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
<div>Great suggestions. I like the idea of an ongoing
separate thread addressing disinformation.
<div>Of course I only addressed Western disinformation and
didn't even touch on highly massaged information that is
often disseminated with centralized governmental
control.</div>
<div>This disinforms by selective censorship and
redundancy and is increasingly taking advantage of the
myriad new forms of surveillance that can be used to
shape the information made available to different
targeted audiences.</div>
<div>
<div>And Yes McLuhan is definitely relevant.</div>
<div>I wonder how he would think about the effects of
these new media.</div>
<div>How do they reshape the nature of content?</div>
<div>How they can be understood using his notions of hot
and cool?</div>
<div>What is now in the rear view mirror within the new
media that once was in the foreground?</div>
<div>On these matters Bob Logan might want to weigh in.</div>
</div>
<div><br clear="none">
</div>
-- <br clear="none">
<div dir="ltr">Professor Terrence
W. Deacon<br clear="none">
University of California, Berkeley</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br clear="none">
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<pre>--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
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