J.M.Diaz & RainerZimmermann

Interviewer: José María Díaz Nafría

Interviewee: Rainer Zimmermann

Date: 09/11/2011

On the occasion of Rainer Zimmemann’s 60^th birthday on November 9^th, I met him in Vienna while attending a whorkshop on system science chaired by Wolfgang Hofkirchner. Nearby the Burg Theatre, we met in the pleasant atmosphere of the Viennese café Landtmann, where he first sketched out to me his forthcoming book on Schelling which I am now looking forward to hold in my hands. Before bringing up the matter for discussion, let me give a short review of his scientific carrier:

Rainer Zimmermann, born in Berlin in 1951, studied mathematics and physics in Germany and England not far from those who have formulated some of the best candidates to provide a unified understanding of the physical world, then he arrived to philosophy after having deepened into the core knowledge of our natural sciences. Thus his philosophy has been a “philosophia ultima” in the first place, as he advocates that it properly should be. His academic itinerary shows an earnest dedication to both the updated knowledge about the world and a philosophical speculation driven to find a more adequate conception towards human life in its social praxis.  As professor of philosophy, he has taught and developed extensive interdisciplinary research in Berlin, Kassel and Munich, also in Cambridge (UK),Bologna and Salzburg.

In the territory of philosophy he has dug into the work of Sartre, Bloch, Schelling and Spinoza –among others – finding out that among them there is an underground thinking line which goes back to both Averroism and Stoicism. His inquiry into the work of these philosophers – as we can see in his recent “New ethics proved in geometrical order”– has not been a sort of mere archaeology of thinking or apologetic reflexion, but a sort of heuristic approach to current problems of our knowledge and praxis and particularly in the understanding of complex evolutionary systems. To this end he has respectfully followed the path pointed out by these authors though using the horizon of our current knowledge.

His approach can be better branded as transcendental materialism as he names it since 1990. He has authored about 350 publications including some 24 books and monographies, scientific articles in a broad spectrum of topics (from mathematics to ethics, from physics to political systems…).

J.M.: In your writings, you often refer to the necessity to reorient philosophy as it has been conceived in the 20th century in order to properly reflecting the world. You mention that it should be “visualized as a science of totality” following the works of Hans Heinz Holz, and you also consider the task of your own philosophy, the “transcendental materialism” as an “ultima philosophia” rather than a “prima philosophia” in the Aristotelian sense (referring to an expression introduced by Theunissen for the first time). As I understand, both things are closed related. Can you explain in some detail the requirements of this reorientation, as well as its alleged benefits?

R.Z.: The basic idea is that we cannot conceive a theoretical nucleus of what is traditionally called “metaphysics” as something which can be derived from first thoughts entailing then a picture of the world which prescribes so to speak the latter’s evolution and structure. Instead, we have to look first for what the sciences (and the arts as to that) are offering us in terms of insight. This present state of knowledge is our raw material for constructing then the desired picture of the world such that philosophy can be visualized as one which follows up the scientific and artistic modeling of fragments of the world rather than laying the grounds for them (this is Theunissen’s 1989 aspect of ultima philosophia) and, by doing so, drafts out an overarching “theory of everything” whilst composing a meta-theory telling us about what is common to the worldly fragments in structural terms, but also about what we actually do or have to do when developing theories about the world in the first place (this being Holzen’s aspect of philosophy as science of totality). The important point is here that within this approach, philosophy gains an explicitly empirical character: It is thus possible to speak not only of theoretical and practical philosophy, but also of experimental philosophy, namely by exploring possible worlds whilst exploring possible implications of scientific and artistic results and viewpoints. Thanks to recent developments in computer technology, these somehow “artificial worlds” can be modeled much more easily nowadays. (I have discussed these aspects in detail in my book on transcendental materialism and within the framework of the INTAS cooperation, led from 2000 through 2005 by Wolfgang Hofkirchner.) Obviously, this type of philosophy is achieving nothing else than what philosophy is always achieving: i.e. an improved orientation within the world in order to eventually draft adequate principles for an appropriate ethics.

J.M.: This implies –to my understanding– a significantly different conception of interdisciplinarity as it is usually claimed. Could you give some insight on the methodological requirements of a proper interdisciplinarity?

R.Z.: There are essentially two important tasks: First of all, in order to comprehend what the present insight of the sciences and arts actually is, one has to refer to all what is known at a given time. This is what Jean-Paul Sartre once called “method of totalization”. Obviously, this cannot mean that philosophers have to repeat the work of scientists or artists by themselves: Instead, it means that they have to look for what is structurally stable and meaningful in an evolutionary sense within all these different fields.

Second, for being able to do so, it is necessary to utilize the terminology and the conventions established in the various fields on the one hand, and to attempt for this purpose the explicit development of a unified language on the other. The idea is here to speak about the world in terms of a unified approach in the first place in order to eventually facilitate the understanding for as many colleagues as possible. In fact, this is the true meaning of “interdisciplinarity”: to look for what is common to all disciplines and thus shared by them within a space which is literally “between” them.

J.M.: What should be the task of a philosophy of information within this framework?

R.Z.: As within the approach of transcendental materialism the worldly (i.e. physical) ground of the world can be visualized as constituted by its two fundamental aspects, namely energy-matter on the one hand, and information-structure on the other, the philosophy of information shows up as that part of philosophy that deals with the second half of these aspects. But by doing so, it also shows up as part of the philosophy of physics in so far as we hold that information is physical. Hence, the information part of this theory deals with the first basic differentiation of what there is in the physical world when talking about it in terms of a physical theory of everything.

J.M.: As we can see in your work, your criteria of what philosophy should be is closely related to ethics – as it was for Spinoza, for instance –. Can you explain this relationship?

R.Z.:  The point is that all of this knowledge which is being achieved in the sense explained above does exclusively serve the purpose of being capable eventually to derive a reasonable framework for an adequate ethics. This is what we learn from Spinoza. And the first one to show this in detail was actually Deleuze. In other words: Ethics itself shows up as a kind of science, and it does not really deal with values at all. The latter are reserved for moral judgement, but this has nothing to do with ethics. At most it is a bad form of approximation to ethics. On the contrary, ethics asks what kind of behaviour is adequate within a given situation. And more than that: If the ethical analysis finds that some behaviour was non-adequate, then it is the further task to clarify how the conditions for the given situation should be changed such that non-adequate behaviour is not necessary anymore. In other words: Ethics is formulating then explicit proposals which have to be discussed in the proper institutions. But in order to find out about adequacy, the relevant criterion for this is knowledge at a given time about a given situation in the first place. Hence, it is already the choice of the method which is always an ethical choice.

J.M.: In some of your works, for instance in “Die Kreativität der Materie” (The creativity of matter, 2007), you show and refer to the line of thinking which links the Stoicism, Averroism, Spinoza, Schelling, Bloch and Sartre (just to mention those you deal more often with). Reading your texts, this connection – alongside their alleged “systematic” character from Spinoza on – is clearly argued. However, talking about this connection with many philosophers, I have found out they often consider it bizarre at the first place. Can you briefly clarify this connection as well as the frequent astonishment about it?

R.Z.: The point is simply that most colleagues are educated within a specialized field which they hardly leave for the rest of their career, unless they change their field according to job conditions. Especially in Germany, it is the custom to concentrate on historical aspects of philosophy first. But instead of continuing the historical taking in sight of philosophical thought by applying it afterwards, most of them are not able to eventually leave history and come forward to philosophy proper. Once they have acquired detailed knowledge of a philosopher and his works they argue the sorting out of these would consume most of their time. This is the reason why in Germany, there are very few active philosophers by now. Exceptions are Habermas e.g. or Manfred Frank, but most of them keep to the history of one philosopher only. Hence, in the long run, the individuality of philosophers of the past is being stressed, not what is common to their thoughts. Because, generically, one would expect that if the same thought is showing up in different philosophers, this fact would add to its relevance and consistency. I myself did not have this sort of problems, because I came from the sciences, where the strategy as to acquiring knowledge is quite different. This is especially so because in the sciences, the state of knowledge is changing very quickly, and one is asked to keep pace by permanently extending systems, frameworks, and methods. So what I did was to apply scientific rather than literary methods to discussing philosophical problems in the first place, rather than discussing philosophers and their work as prime objective. Hence, after a while, I recognized generic lines of thought, and by trying to reduce their complexity, I tried to find structural morphisms among them in order to derive general results. This is why I can say that I am actually working on a line of thought (ranging from the ancient Stoa via Spinoza and German Idealism, especially in the version of Schelling’s, up to French existentialism in the sense of Sartre’s and to Ernst Bloch). Bloch himself used this viewpoint of visualizing lines of thought as did in fact the disciples of Hegel. It was Bloch who introduced the expression “Aristotelian Left” for the line he chose to be a member of, parallel to what is commonly called “Hegelian Left”. I would like to locate myself very much on this first line made explicit by Bloch.

J.M.: According to your “transcendental materialism” – correct me, please, if I’m mistaken –, matter has to be understood in a much broader and dynamic sense as it is commonly thought. It represents not only a potentiality in the Aristotelian sense, but also the foundation for its own dynamics, which allows it to create new properties, new structures, new causalities… . i.e. new beings. What are the foundations for this vision?

R.Z.: I started from re-phrasing Spinoza’s system in a modernized language (as he did himself once when re-phrasing Aristotle). The fine structure of this approach comprising of substance including its modes and attributes has been developed further by Schelling then. In fact, there is not much choice than to visualize matter as what in the Aristotelian terminology would show up as “hypokeimenon”, i.e. subject, different from substance: Matter (in the philosophical sense) turns out to be prime material of modality. But it is observed in the fourfold shape of energy-mass (or conventionally: matter) on the one hand, and as information-structure on the other. Both of these are physical aspects of the underlying prime material (Urstoff). The latter itself is physical ground of the former, while substance itself is speculative ground of this physical ground. This leads straightforward into the systematic differentiation of being, non-being, and speakable as well as unspeakable nothingness for which Schelling has done important preparatory work. These concepts are being discussed within current international research.

J.M.: To the concept of information in its broad diversity – from physical systems to cognitive or social ones – this understanding of matter might have significant repercussions. What is the role of information in the – so to say – architecture of reality from the point of view of the transcendental materialism?

R.Z.: The side of information (comprising of information-structure, where the first part refers to both potential and actualized states of information, and the second to actualized states of information only) is serving the purpose of defining the organizational structure of systems: In order to evolve their characteristic shapes, systems have to utilize energy, while information is telling them how to actually utilize it. The idea goes back to Penrose, Smolin and others: The universe has to be visualized as a self-organizing system. If this is so, then information must be present from the beginning on in order to define the possibility for the system to organize itself. This is also why this information is meaningful from the beginning on, because, following a definition of Wittgenstein’s here, its meaning is in the function which it triggers. Hence, the constituents of the universe themselves act as autonomous agents from the beginning on, as Stuart Kauffman would say.

J.M.: Now that you mention meaning, its foundation is probably a key issue to bridge the understanding of information between the natural sciences – particularly in physics and chemistry – and the social sciences and humanities. This concern is often referred to as the “grounding symbol problem” – by Floridi for instance –. Which is your insight into this fundamental and open problem – as Floridi states in his “Philosophy of Information” –?

R.Z.: I think this problem is clarified best in terms of the physical perspective as explained above. If it is feasible, on a very fundamental level, to implement a task for agents which is essentially defined in terms of a thermodynamic law (Kauffman calls this 4^th law which tells us that an actualized state of a system evolves exclusively to those possible states which are just one reaction step away in phase space – he calls this principle of the adjacent possible), then there is an overall meaning for models of evolutionary processes, i.e. the tendency to internally reduce complexity while externally maximizing it. Obviously, this can be interpreted as a dialectical version of the competition between order and disorder as expressed in terms of the 2^nd law of thermodynamics valid for the entropy balance. Therefore, there is always already meaning from the beginning on. Once, a theory of this is constructed by human beings when performing their research, the symbolic language utilized entails an adequate mapping of this meaning from the beginning on.

J.M.: We started talking about the need to reorient philosophy as to become an “ultima philosophia”, and we have also deal with the requirements of a proper interdisciplinarity. I understand both are closely related to the role mathematics should play in our reflexion about the world. Nevertheless, I notice many people disqualify the role of mathematical models as a means to avoid facing open problems of a substantial kind. To what extent does modern mathematics actually change the landscape of reflexion in comparison with classical mathematics – as available to Spinoza for instance, or even to 19th century scientists –, as well as in relation to what we know about the world?

R.Z.: The first significant difference is in the concept of discontinuity: Nowadays, we deal with a mathematics which is capable of modeling discrete rather than continuous processes, because we believe that the majority of processes in nature are of the former kind. On the other hand, mathematics has become qualitative rather than quantitative: In other words, the objective is not simply to compute things (although even computation alone also entails organization and interpretation of data after all), but to actually model systems. Hence, the mathematical language has not only become more and more qualitative (and thus amenable to hermeneutic methods), but it has also gained more and more the structure of a meta-language such that mathematical expressions (as we find them in category theory or topos theory) do not only map structural patterns of underlying processes, but also the logical choice for this mapping in the first place. As far as I can see, the enormous potential of topos theory for the modeling of actual everyday life processes is far from being fully recognized yet. For the first time, we have the chance to include the epistemology in the ontology of a problem whilst modeling its underlying system. Or to re-phrase it in ethical terms: The choice of methods as derived from topos theory suggests itself as an adequate choice of our days.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF INFORMATION

Oxford, UK, Oxford Univesity Press, 2011 (Hardback, 360 pp. $55.00)

As the author declares at the beginning of his book, it “brings together the outcome of ten years of research”. A project arisen by the intention of “looking for a philosophy that could be free from the anthropocentric obsession with the knowing subject, and from commonsensical introspection.” The result is a Philosophy of information (PI) that can be articulated in three fundamental questions: What is really information? How is it understood, investigated and manipulated? How can information be used to cope with philosophical problems? Though obviously not all these broad and open questions can be fully answered –and particularly not in the extent of a book– this work can be regarded as a first serious attempt of laying down the principles and conceptual foundations of this new area of research, named Philosophy of information. Following Floridi, PI can be “defined as the new philosophical field concerned with (a) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation and sciences; and (b) the elaboration and application of information-theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems.”

In order to settle the principles of PI, Floridi pursues three goals, which are metatheoretical, introductory and analytic. Its metatheoretical goal is to describe what the philosophy of information is, its problems, approaches, and methods. Its introductory goal is to help the reader to gain a better grasp of the complex and multifarious nature of the various concepts and phenomena related to information. Its analytic goal is to answer several key theoretical questions of great philosophical interest, arising from the investigation of semantic information. However, it is in the analysis of meaning and his proposed General Definition of Information (GDI) where we found unnecessary the requirements of meaningfulness (as well as truthfulness for semantic information) as proposed by Floridi, if the final intention is to grasp the universality of information; though it might be of course relevant in human contexts. In other words, we consider unsatisfactory the given approach to “the symbol grounding problem”, i.e. “how can data, constituting semantic information, acquire meaning in the first place?” To this respect we have elaborated a “GDI revisiting programme”. (See: Emergence and evolution of meaning).

Contents: 1) What is philosophy of information; 2) Open Problems in the Philosophy of Information; 3) The Methods of Levels of Abstraction; 4) Semantic Information and the Veridicality Thesis; 5) Outline of a Theory of Strongly Semantic Information; 6) The Symbol Grounding Problem; 7) Action-Based Semantics; 8- Semantic Information and the Correctness Theory of Truth; 9) The Logical Unsolvability of the Gettier Problem; 10) The Logic of Being Informed; 11) Understanding Epistemic Relevance; 12) Semantic Information and the Network Theory of Account; 13) Consciousness, Agents and the Knowledge Game; 14) Against Digital Ontology; 15) A Defence of Informational Structural Realism.

A small selection of fragments to provide a taste of the work:

“Despite its length, the essential point of the book is quite simple. Semantic information is well-formed, meaningful and truthful data, knowledge is relevant semantic information properly accounted for, humans are the only semantic engines and conscious inforgs (informational organisms) in the universe, and the universe is the totality of information.” (preface)

“Among our mundane and technical concepts, information is currently one of the most important, widely used and least understood. So far, philosophers have done comparatively little work about it and its cognate concepts and this paradoxical situation counts as one more “scandal of philosophy”. […] I am using this expression to refer to the phenomenon of scholastic canonization of problems, which, by rigidly fixing the scope of issues that are supposed to be philosophically relevant, fails to keep the philosophical discourse open to new problems, thus preparing the ground for its own overcoming.” (ch.1, §6)

“PI can be introduced as a philosophia prima, both in the Aristotelian sense of the primacy of its object, information, which PI claims to be a fundamental component in any environment, and in the Cartesian-Kantian sense of the primacy of its methodology and problems, since PI aspires to provide a most valuable, comprehensive approach to philosophical investigations.” (ch.1, §8)

“P1) The elementary problem: what is information?

This is the hardest and most central problem in PI and this book could be read as a long answer to it. Information is still an elusive concept. […]” (ch.2, §3)

“Definition: the behaviour of a system, at a given LoA, is defined to consist of a predicate whose free variables are observables at that LoA. The substitutions of values for observables that make the predicate true are called the system behaviours. A moderated LoA is defined to consist of a LoA together with a behaviour at that LoA.” (ch.3, §2.5)

“GDI) σ (an infon) is an instance of semantic information if and only if:

GDI.1) σ consists of n data (d), for n 1;

GDI.2) the data are well-formed (wfd);

GDI.3) the wfd are meaningful (mwfd = d).” (ch.4, §3) 110

“The first step in the construction of [a Theory of Strong Semantic Information] is to define the concept of ―informative content‖ or intrinsic informativeness of extensionally and a priori in an ideal context, as a function of the positive or negative degree of ―semantic distance‖ or deviation of from a fixed point or origin, represented by the given situation w, to which is supposed to refer.” (ch.5, §5)

“How can the data, constituting semantic information, acquire their meaning in the first place? The question poses a radical and deceptively simple challenge. […]” (ch.6, §1)

“The basic idea of an action-based semantics is simple: in the beginning, the proto-meanings of the symbols generated by an Artificial Agent (AA) are the internal states of that AA, which in turn are directly correlated to the actions performed by the same AA.”(ch.7, §2)

“To summarise, both internal and external semantic paradoxes are faulty artefacts that fail to qualify as semantic information because they fail to pass the verification stage. This does not mean that they are useless informationally.” (ch.8, §7.5)

“Each piece of semantic information is an answer to a question, which, as a whole, poses further questions about itself that require the right sort of information flow in order to be answered correctly, through an appropriate network of relations with some informational source. Until recently, it would have been difficult to transform this general intuition about the nature of epistemic account into a detailed model, which could then be carefully examined and assessed. Fortunately, new developments in an area of applied mathematics and computational algorithms known as network theory have provided all the technical and conceptual resources needed for our task.” (ch.12, §3)

“Paraphrasing Kant, it states that (A 434-5/B 462-3):

(Digital) Thesis: the world is discrete; everything in the world consists of elements that are ultimately simple and hence indivisible.

(Analogue) Antithesis: the world is continuous; nothing in the world is simple, but everything is composite and hence infinitely divisible.

As Kant argues, the conflict is not between empirical experience and logical analysis. Rather, the antinomies, ours included, are generated by an unconstrained demand for unconditioned answers to fundamental problems concerning (1) time and space, (2) complexity/granularity, (3) causality and freedom or (4) modality.” (ch.14, §3.4)

“We are now ready for a definition:

Informational Structural Realismus (ISR) Explanatorily, instrumentally and predictively successful models (especially, but not only, those propounded by scientific theories) at a given LoA can be, in the best circumstances, increasingly informative about the relations that obtain between the (possibly sub-observable) informational objects that constitute the system under investigation (through the observable phenomena).” (ch.15, §5)

NEW ETHICS PROVED IN GEOMETRICAL ORDER: SPINOZIST REFLEXIONS ON EVOLUTIONARY SYSTEMS

“The order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things.” states Spinoza in the 7^th proposition of the second part of his Ethic, and we might consider this principle as a backbone of his entire work. It helps us to understand why Spinoza’s main work was an Ethic proved in geometrical order instead of having writing, for instance, a Physics proved such way… “If Spinoza had at hand the conceptual methods developed today in mathematics and physics, he would for sure take advantage of them and he could arrive to a much better end of his intention”, Rainer Zimmermann explained to me once talking about the possibilities of contemporary mathematics in relation to the understanding of complex systems. This thought also helped me to understand why Professor Zimmermann, mathematician, physicist and philosopher himself –author of the so called “transcendental materialismus”–  have also devoted part of his extensive work to ethical problems recruiting conceptualizations that takes explicit account of current physics and mathematics. His philosophy does not pretend to be a “prima philosphia in the Aristotelian sense” but rather a “suitable ultima philosophia of considerable heuristic value” as –he considers- to be offered by the line of “systematic philosophy” represented by Schelling, Bloch and Sartre.

This book of Prof. Zimmermann explicitly shows the potentiality referred to in his comment concerning Spinoza’s intention and brings to the fore a contemporary mathematical machinery (based on a strict logical structure for a progressive perspective, as well as on a not so strict hermeneutic structure for a regressive perspective) in the solution to the ancient problem of the relationship between human beings and the rest of nature. Zimmermann’s book recontextualise Spinoza’s approach and proves how the theory of evolutionary systems is a prime candidate for a conceptualization that might be useful in order to concretely develop this new insight.

Concerning the interdisciplinary methodology as proposed by the author and needed for a proper investigation of information in its broad variety of mathematical, natural, social, technical and humanistic aspects, Zimmermann’s approach offers a promissory path that is worth to be considered by those trying to find proper foundations for an interdisciplinary Science of Information.

CONTENTS: 1. Introduction—Spinoza Today; 2. Spinozist Traces in the Theory of Evolutionary Systems; 3. The First Conceptual Triad (Concerning the Nature and Origin of the Mind I); 4. The Second Conceptual Triad (Concerning The Nature And Origin Of The Mind II); 5. A Game-Theoretical Viewpoint (On Human Servitude, Or The Strength Of The Emotions); 6. Artificial Life Revisited; 7. Ethics And Design (Concerning The Power Of The Intellect, Or, On Human Freedom); 8. Conclusions; Appendix I: A Very Short Introduction to Categories; Appendix II: A Not So Very Short Introduction To Evolutionary Game Theory.

A small selection of fragments to provide a taste of the work:

“So, human reflexion means nothing else but explicating the symbolic traces in existence which intrinsically point to the true mediation of what there is with substance, visualized in terms of the latter’s attributes. Modeling the world in human terms means thus modeling the configuration of worldly attributes. The latter however cannot be modeled without modeling its foundation (substance) at the same time.” (p. 19)

“Due to the properties of topos theory we can rewrite algebraic expressions as logic expressions such that diagrams commute, e.g., for the case of negation we have:

When passing over from Boolean to intuitionistic logic, then we have to take into account that the former is governed by Boolean algebras and the latter by Heyting algebras.” (p. 37)

We can give a number of conclusions now which follow from what we have said so far:

1. Self-Reference of Systems: There is an Itself as organizing centre of what becomes Self.

2. Difference of System & Environment: There is a hierarchical organizational structure of a system.

3. Graphic Mediation of Modeling: The cognitive aspect of process mediation secures the recognizability of graphical representations of systems.” (p. 61)

“Starting from the totalizing conception of Spinoza, we are ready to develop a similar attitude for the rest of philosophy and the humanities in order to actually include all relevant fields of human creativity. This is what ethics in Spinoza’s sense is all about in the end: to ask for adequate behavior according to present knowledge.” (p. 91)

Messages and Messengers /

Von Boten und Botschaften

Angeletics as an Approach to the Phenomenology of Communication /

Die Angeletik als Weg zur Phänomenologie der Kommunikation

Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2011, 351 pp.

As we can read in the Glossarium BITri, “’angeletics’ derives from Greek angelia, meaning message”. But this approach, proposed by our colleague Rafael Capurro since the 1990s, does not refer to angels or divine messengers –as in the angelology–, it aims instead at studying “the social phenomenon of messages and messengers”, which “is a vast, old and complex phenomenon”. In our digital age, the question is “to what extent the internet creates a new angeletic space giving rise to new synergies of messages and messengers beyond the hierarchical structure of mass media” (p.13). Or considering the global transformation of our communicational means and our cultures as a whole, we may even ask more dramatically: Are we moving towards an “angelical” world or rather towards a “dysangelical” one (i.e., “a time of empty angels” using Sloterdijk’s expression)? (p.13, 195)… Although these questions undoubtedly move in the territory of the very complex human systems, the analysis of messages –as we can see in the book– also reaches the field of natural sciences and technology (for instance, the physical constraints of messages and the rise of meaning through the growing complexity of biological systems). This book –the first one entirely dedicated to angeletics– is structured in two parts: fundaments, where former and new texts stating the principles of Angeletics are compiled, and applications, where the analysis of messages and messengers is extended to different fields.

CONTENTS: Foreword (R. Capurro); Introduction (J. Holgate, R. Capurro);  I. FOUNDATIONS: Angeletics — A Message Theory (R. Capurro); Theorie der Botschaft (R. Capurro); A Dialogue on Intercultural Angeletics (R. Capurro, M. Nakada); The Hermesian Paradigm (J. Holgate); Circulating Messages to Every Body and No Body (M. Eldred); Plotinus’ Angeletics: A Neoplatonic Message Theory (G. Stamatellos); Anmerkungen zu einer Theorie der Botschaft (M. Knödler-Pasch); Political Economy and the Double Dialectic of Information (R.E. BABE); Beyond Humanisms (R. Capurro); II. APPLICATIONS: Botschaften ohne Botschafter — Botschafter ohne Botschaften (K. Wiegerling); Messages in an Open Universe (J.M. Díaz Nafría); Systemtheorie — Von der Hermeneutik zum Konstruktivismus (H.H. Diebner); Communities of Action and the Message Society (W. Hofkirchner); Orts-Botschaften. Orte in Jordanien und Syrien (G. Grossklaus); Marginalien zur Angeletik (C. Coenen); Angeletics and Epistemology — Angeletics as Epistemology (P.-H. Wong); Carbon Atoms as Prime Messengers for the Origins of Life (K. Matsuno); On the Relevance of Angeletics and Hermeneutics for Information Technology (R. Capurro, T. Takenouchi, L.M. Tkach-Kawasaki, T. Iitaka).

A small selection of fragments to provide a taste of the work:

“How do we distinguish messages at the human level from messages, say, at the DNA-level? I call the view of natural processes as angeletic processes the postal paradigm. Taking into consideration the original twofold meaning of the term ‘information’ as ‘moulding matter’ and as ‘knowledge communicated’  we can say that a cell or, more generally, a living system, is in-formed on the basis of message selection in order to satisfy its constraints.” (Capurro: Angeletics-A message theory, p.37)

“If Narcissus represents the world of fame and the beautiful people, Dionysus the world of sex drugs and rock and roll and Nike the realm of sporting competition then Hermes is the god of art language and creativity. To adopt the Hermesian Paradigm opens up creative perspectives for ICT.” (Holgate: The hemesian paradigm, p.109)

“On both a deeper and a more superficial level, therefore, there is always an ongoing struggle to disseminate one’s message and to get it across. The truth of the world at all levels is a power struggle.” (Eldred: Circulating messages to everybody and no body, p.114)

“Extreme inequality (i.e., concentration of control) in the capacity to communicate is incompatible with democracy. Literally, democracy means the people govern. To the extent that a small minority controls the means of communication and successfully uses those means primarily to further its own ends, democracy is reduced. Democracy requires both an informed public and ways for making its wishes known.” (Babe: Political Economy and the Double Dialectic of Information, p.147)

“In 1947, Kotelnikov found out – in his mathematical inquiry to improve reception – the optimal way to get rid of noise given a known set of possible messages. The current architecture of optimal receptors follows the path depicted by Kotelnikov, which does not deviate from the course pointed out by Plato in his theory of ideas and the later idealist tradition.” (Díaz Nafría: Messages in an Open Universe, p.195)

“…new ICTs can become meaningful technologies that foster communities of action that are needful for the preservation and improvement of the human condition.” (Hofkirchner: Communities of Action and the Message Society, p.256)

“Messengers are ubiquitous in the biological world. Typical examples are messenger RNA molecules or mRNA mediating between DNA molecules residing on chromosomes in the nucleus of a cell and a ribosomal synthesis of protein molecules in the cytoplasm. Messenger RNA molecules are busy in shuttling between the nucleus and the cytoplasm for synthesizing the proteins according to the instructions coded on DNA molecules.” (Matsuno: Carbon Atoms as Prime Messengers For the Originis of Life, p.305)

Beijin, August, 2010

At the beginning of 2010, Professor Zong-Rong Li (from the Social Information Science Institute, SISI, at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, HUST, China) proposed to our colleague Wolfgang Hofkirchner the organization in China of an international scientific gathering aimed at laying the foundations of a science of information being integrative with respect to scientific domain- and geographical gaps. That is, in the line of the conferences on the Foundations of Information Science, but including now a scientific community which was previously absent. Hence, it was decided the convening of a 4th edition of this conference series (Madrid 1994, Vienna 1996, Paris 2005) under the motto: “towards a new science of information”, which was happily being held in Beijin on past August 21 to 24.

From left to right: Hucan He, Konstantin Kolin, Pedro Marijuán, Yi-Xin Zhong, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Kang Ouyang

The conference, co-chaired by Kang Ouyang (Director of the SISI), Wolfgang Hofkirchner and Pedro Marijuán, was held under the sponsorship of the Chinese Association for Artificial Inteligence (CAAI) and the SISI. It was part of the Multi-Conference on Advanced Intelligence (MCAI-2010) which also included: the second international conference in advance intelligence (ICAI-2010) and the IEEE Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Engineering (NLP-KE’10). It was clearly proven the amount and relevancy of the eastern scientific activity in interdisciplinary informational studies with a notorious prevalence of Chinese contributions (59 %) as well as a significant Japanese participation (10 %). Nevertheless, the global character of the call was preserved with a participation of 4 continents, especially North America and Europe. Thus, the objective of founding a scientific international association responsible for promoting a global- and integrative science of information was supported by a sufficient representation of the required parties.

Access to: Programme and abstracts, including links to preliminary texts (PDF)

Report contents

1. Gaps and Bridges
2. In historical Perspective
3. Informational Babel
4. Science of Information Institute (SciI) participation
5. Foundation of the International Society for Information Studies (ISIS)
6. Conclusions

1. Gaps and Bridges

On the other hand, it is here worth mentioning that whereas in the West the confrontation objective-subjective constitutes a keystone for divergence, such issue appears significantly diminished in the Chinese philosophical approaches, though these could offer –from some western viewpoints- a clear problem within the frame of such confrontation (as it might be the case in the comparison of human and artificial intelligence, which thematic appeared frequently in the congress). Perhaps the fact that Western culture has gone through a modernity clouded by the subject has caused Western thinkers to be especially sensible to this controversy, at the same time that they are almost insensible to some social issues which are evident to Eastern thinkers. This could be observed in the relative weights of the contributions (more than a third of the themes discussed by Chinese speakers had a sociological ground).

2. In historical Perspective

From an historical point of view, the Eastern thought (in both the Chinese and Indian traditions) has shown a deeper sensibility to the dialectic relation between being and not-being instead of the mentioned controversy of subject and object. From this existential dialectics, the modalities of potential-being, not-being-yet, must-being, cease-of-being, etc. arise, which pervade the great Eastern philosophical figures (e.g., Kong Qiu, Mo Di, Meng Ke, Xun Luang, Yang Zhu, Zhuang Zhou, Buddha or Gaudapāta). Probably these distinctions and the traditional sensibility to emergency and articulation of existences may constitute a toehold for a better understanding of information phenomena and its relation to life, knowledge, communication, social organization, as well as for a reception of the epistemology and ontology of contemporary physics –as it has been often pointed out-. Perhaps these groundings might offer a strong toehold for the constitution of a new science of information.

To illustrate this potential impact of the Eastern philosophical tradition in our current comprehension of information, let us consider some great Chinese philosophical figures. For instance in Zhuang Zhou (369 b.C. – 286 b.C.), we find themes which could easily fit into the contemporary viewpoints on the naturalization of information:

“In the peaceful time before anything was created, there was nothing and namelessness. Out of that arose a One, but this One had no form. Then things sprouted up and each of them was given what is called a virtue.” (Zhuāngzĭ, §12)

That is, emerging new things from its natural background is understood as –we might say nowadays- a continuous process of information.

Well, this treatment of emergency and evolutionary themes, which is –as well known– in the very core of many western contemporary visions on information, e.g., in Hofkirchner, Collier, Kirby, can also be clearly identified in a significant amount of original works of Chinese authors. For instance, if constitutes one of the core topics developed in the philosophy of Kun Wu since the 1980 (which was presented in several contributions, though it would be worth providing a better translation in order to achieve a proper receipt in the West), as well as in the “theoretical informatics” of Zong-Rong Li (compiled in a dense volume which English edition –just out of the presses– was kindly given as a present); in the work of Xin-Zheng Jin, and many other participants.

But another recurrent topic in the Chinese thought –exhibiting to some extent an opposite orientation to the Daoism to which the former quote belongs- is the nature of hierarchy and social relations, or the role of semantics in social systems; themes historically appearing much later in the West. In the case of Chinese classical thinkers (e.g., Kong Qiu, Mo Di, Meng Ke, Xun Luang), these topics are developed offering a whole spectrum of theoretical stances and a significant richness of nuances. For instance, we find in Kong Qiu (Confucius using the Latinized name, 551 b.C. – 479 b.C.) reflections in which current semantic and pragmatic information issues appear:

“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success… and the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore a superior man considers it necessary that the names he uses may be spoken appropriately, and also that what he speaks may be carried out appropriately…”  (Lúnyŭ, §13, 3)

3. Informational Babel

As it has been observed in other occasions, the homonymies pointing to different realities represent a difficult pitfall for a genuine inter- or trans-disciplinary approach unless the respective references are clarified. To this respect, it is for instance interesting to recall how the terms “intelligence” or “intentionality” were used throughout the conference without any circumspection, despite the obvious differences among different accounts which address to distinct realities (machines, unicellular organism, animals, humans, societies, etc).

In the same line, “subject” clearly represents different realities depending on the role that intentionality or the social group might play in its constitution. This obviously reflects in the meanings of the aforementioned subjective-objective gaps.

But not less variability were to be expected in the use of “information”. However it would have been appreciated that the particular uses (and not only those openly dealing with the nature of information –about 15% of the whole) were made explicit. Obviously, the clarification of such nature cannot constitute but a central objective for the foundation of a transdisciplinary “science of information”.

Similarly, diverse uses of ambiguous and non-explicit fundamental terms can be pointed out in unifying schemes of information, as it is the case of “system” and “flock”, though for the latter Niizato, Gunji et al. offered an interesting approach, which could also be useful for clarifying the formation or emergence of systems and its dynamics.

The “measure”, the “value” and the “context”, especially with respect to information, were also among many other concepts used without clarification and potentially leading to misunderstandings. A joint treatment of these three elements –as it could be observed in the works of Kun Wu, Mark Burgin and Carlos Aguilar– might represent a promissory course to deal with its role in the study of information in systems of diverse complexity.

Concerning disciplinary terms, we observed, for example, a diverse use of “logic” including some accounts which –in the worst case- might hinder a fruitful contribution from professional logicians who would not feel identify with the purpose to be achieved whereas they might agree with the ontological background, e.g. the dynamic of “contrary” or “contradictory” realities (I mention “contrary” realities since the senses to which the dialectical vision more usually points to belong to this type rather than to contradictory realities). Giving an example, Joseph Brenner –on the one side–, and Kamiura or Gunji –on the other side– use “logic” in clearly different senses. Though all face problems of dynamic inference, the former considers logics in a metaphysical sense, whereas the others just as theory of deduction. As the work of Gunji shows, recurring to alternative logics –not in a metaphysical sense but as deductive theory or calculus– may render approaches of significant added value to the understanding of the dynamical reality underlying information processes. There are also good reasons to think that the “universal logics” proposed by Huacan He, the “logical dynamics” of van Benthem, or the “paraconsistent logics” of our colleagues José Méndez and Gemma Robles might achieve a relevant contribution to this respect.

With respect to consolidated or developing disciplines (e.g. “informatics” –Western vs Eastern-, or “unified theory of information” –Hofkirchner vs Hashimoto), they exhibited multifarious accounts, though in this case more or less explicit. But what is more embarrassing  to the purpose of furthering an international and transversal framework for the understanding of information, there was a clearly miscellaneous way to understand what multi- inter- and trans-disciplinary is –including the case of not distinguishing them at all. Once again, clarifying what is really understood by each of the methodological proposal means to unveil fundamental assumptions; and it would also represent bringing into stage the tools allowing an effective cooperative framework to achieve a more unified account on information in its very different manifestations.

In sum, the mentioned misunderstandings (and many others which can be found in the set of contributions) justify that the clarification of the diverse points of view aimed at promoting a participatory and cooperative scientific framework requires making clear what each other understand by the used terms and the problems we are intending to tackle. These are reasons definitively encouraging for furthering the development of domusBITae initiative.

4. Science of Information Institute (SciI) participation

There was a significant presence of the Science of Information Institute, as well as individual participation of members, and as institutional contribution -playing the roll of co-organiser and co-sponsor of the event. Besides the already mentioned chairing role of Wolfgang, Zong-Rong and Pedro, also Dail Doucette, Mary Jo Deering, John Collier, and José María Díaz took part in the Congress. To this participation is also to be added: those contributing as authors: Mark Burgin, Francisco Salto; and Elisabeth Buchanan (on behalf of the CIPR at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, co-sponsor of the event), represented by Tony Hoffmann. The latter, who also collaborates with the management of this site, will co-edit an special issue of TripleC devoted to the Congress, compiling the reviewed versions of the works presented in Beijin.

Jointly, the contributions to FIS2010 from SciI members include methodological proposals and approaches in the fields of: philosophy, mathematics, physics, biology, ecology, informatics, helth-care, and sociology. The following list of contributions (including authors, titles and links to texts –in preliminary versions, which after review will be compiled in the aforementioned special issue of TripleC) provides an idea of the richness of the viewpoints offered by members of the Science of Information Institute to the understanding of information phenomena:

• W. Hofkirchner, Four ways of thinking in information, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/339
• P. Marijuán, How a Bacillus “Sees” the World Information Needs and Signaling Resources of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/351
• Zong-Rong Li, “1+4+3”: A Framework of New Science of Information,  http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/329
• D. Doucette, Challenges for Those Constructing a Science of Information as an Evolving Unique Discipline, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/367
• M.J. Deering, Health Information Technology: a Critical Means to an Even More Critical End, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/368
• J. Collier, Kinds of Information in Science Use, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/322
• J.M. Díaz Nafría and M. Pérez-Montoro, Is information a sufficient basis for cognition? (Part 1: Critique on Dretske’s vision), http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/365
• ibidem (Part 2: Physical foundations), http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/364
• J.M. Díaz Nafría and F. Salto, Towards a transdisciplinary frame: Bridging domains, a multidimensional approach to information, http://www.sciforum.net/presentation/278
• Mark Burgin, Information: Concept Clarification, (extended abstract)

5. Foundation of the International Society for Information Studies (ISIS)

One of the central objectives of the Congress was the foundation of a inter-disciplinary scientific union in information studies which unlike “information science” integrates not only social, humanistic and technical sciences but also natural, formal and philosophical. During several Months previous to the meeting in Beijin, its objectives, structure, functions, gatherings, etc. was discussed. Particularly, it is worth mentioning the active and admirable work of Professor Zong-Rong Li substantiated in several proposals for discussion, as well as the contributions from Wolfgang and Dail Doucette from the Science of Information Institute.

Besides methodological and organizational suggestions, the SciI offered -with other partners- what we consider a toeholds for the future international: the initiative domusBITae as electronic-infrastructure to facilitate the articulation of the involved community (for communicating, sharing resources and results, cooperation, etc.) and as space for disambiguation and clarification of each other viewpoint.

Although before the congress specific aims, methods and organisation were not agreed, it seemed to be a tacit accord with respect to some essential elements, for instance, the general purpose of bringing together endeavours for constituting a wide disciplinary domain at the international level in which the multifaceted aspects of information (formal, physical, chemical, biological, cognitive, ethical, social, technological and philosophical) were integrated. But besides this tacit agreement, the following points –among others- hung in the air: (i) methodological aspects, e.g., if the approach among scientific domains was intended to be inter- or trans-disciplinary; (ii) if the new domain would recognize itself as “science of information” to evade confusion with the traditional field of “information science”, which academic weight has hindered in several occasions a more positive evaluation of  widely inter- or trans-disciplinary proposals, (iii) managing aspects related to the compositions of teams, functions, tenures, rotation or elective character of some roles; etc.

It is worth pointing out the amount of methodological proposals presented in the congress aimed at building a new science of information with the aforementioned features (about one-fourth of the contributions), which denotes the undoubtedly relevant interest for promoting a new scientific discipline for the study of information in its polyhedral reality.

Nevertheless, once the interested partakers were gathered after the last session of the first congress day, pitifully some particular objectives –not representing the general interest previously expressed in the preliminary discussions– were confronted instead of progressively adopting fundamental agreements –more easily reachable-.

Fortunately, the existence of a wide interest for consolidating a discipline for the study of information including the aforementioned aspects offered a sufficient basis to enable that a committee (including Kang Ouyang and Yi-Xin Zhong as well as Wolfgang Hofkirchner and Pedro Marijuán) would decide the specific constitution of the international society. It was for instance agreed to call the new founded society as: “International Society for Information Studies”. Its acronym ISIS –as our colleague Rainer Zimmerman pointed out- corresponds to the name of the ancient Egyptian goddess who reconstructs her husband Osiris after he was cut up and disseminated by his jealous brother Seth. Allegorically, this represents an obvious correlate with the role of information. On the other hand, if the required support for developing the electronic infrastructure proposed by the initiative domusBITae is achieved, the new society would use it as a tool for communicating, disseminating, sharing resources, organizing and cooperating.

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6. Conclusions

Regarding the objective of building a new scientific discipline, it can be concluded that some decisive steps were given in FIS2010: (i) two independently rich traditions were neared which joint baggage cannot but strengthen a embracing understanding of information; (ii) a first international scientific association was constituted convening naturalistic, social, humanistic, philosophical, formal and technical viewpoints on information; (iii) some methodological and theoretical alternative frameworks has been shown which would allow the constitution of several research programmes within the general objectives; (iv) unifying proposals has been offered which would allow a systematic articulation and mutual understanding between diverse theoretical frameworks; (v) once again, it has been observed that a conceptual, terminological and theoretical clarification constitutes a keystone for the erection of frameworks effectively being interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary.

With respect to these achievements we ought to be deeply thankful to all organizers, and particularly to our hosts: the Social Information Science Institute (chaired by Prof. Kang Ouyang) and the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (chaired by Prof. Yi-Xin Zhong). Your hospitality and your friendship are indelible treasures we brought back home. Thank you, Wolfgang, for encouraging us all; and thank you, Mary Jo, for generously supporting our participation…  Nonetheless, though these were decisive steps, we face now a long path to be walked with no less resolution so that the new science of information can in fact offer scientific and practical fruits.

A programme including abstracts of the works presented at the congress and links to the respective articles in versions previous to the presentation at FIS2010 (sciforum site) –see document. A compilation of reviewed versions of the articles will constitute a forthcoming special issue of TripleC.

A thematic proposal by: Mark Burgin

The general theory of information has three parts:

• Philosophical, which gives a new vision of information and its place in the modern world;
• Methodological, which studies basic principles of information theory and information technology;
• Theoretical, which is mathematically based making available different mathematical models of information, information processes and information processing systems.

Mathematical models are developed in various domains and employ different mathematical theories. Such an information space can be a logical system (in this model, logicians can contribute) or a Hilbert space, which is used in physics for representing observables (in this model, physicists can contribute). Actually observables (even by their name) are information operators. There are models based on functional analysis, in which information is represented by operators acting on information spaces, which are state spaces of infological systems. Other models use logic (logical models), theory of algorithms (constructive models), theory of categories (categorical models), topology (topological models), and some other mathematical theories.

The general theory of information provides a powerful base for obtaining a relevant solution to a variety of problems encountered by modern society because the vast majority of these problems are related to information (by the way, communication is also exchange of information).

There are various journal publications on the general theory of information. The most developed exposition of this theory is given in the book Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification, World Scientific Publishing, 2010.

The general theory of information is the most advanced direction in information theory because it encompasses all (!!!) other directions in information theory. A lot of supporting evidence is given in the book Theory of Information. The majority of popular and not so popular information theories (including Shannon theory of communication, Carnap and Bar-Hillel’s semantic information theory, Kolmogorov, Solomonoff and Chaitin’s algorithmic information theory, Dretske, Barwise and Seligman’s theory of information flow, and many others) are presented in the book and it is explained why all of them are particular cases of the general theory of information.

Information is everywhere. So, experts in various fields (philosophers, mathematicians, physicists, biologists, computer scientists, economists, anthropologists, sociologists, etc.) can work in the general theory of information developing it and can use this theory in their studies in physics, biology, economics, anthropology, sociology, system theory, informatics, computer science, etc.

Now it is a good time to work in this area because the general theory of information is at the very beginning. Those who start earlier to work in a new ground-breaking theory have advantages and can easier obtain outstanding results, becoming authorities in information studies. For instance, brothers Bernoulli studied the calculus under Leibniz and became the top mathematicians in Europe developing and applying the calculus (a general mathematical theory for studying functions), which was at the very beginning at their time. German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovered electromagnetic waves (namely, radio waves) when he used and expanded Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory (a general physical theory).

Mark Burgin

Interviewer

Interviewee: Elizabeth Buchanan

Earlier this month, Anthony Hoffmann (University of Wisconsin Ph.D. student and Project Assistant with the Internet Research Ethics Digital Library, Resource Center, and Commons project) sat down with Dr. Elizabeth Buchanan (Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, director of the Center for Information Policy Research, and Principal Investigator on the same IRE project) for a friendly conversation regarding the subject of Internet research ethics.

I’ve been working in the area of Internet research ethics, really, since 1998. When I wrote my dissertation, it was studying online interactions in a Bioethics course in a medical school, and when I went through the Institutional Review Board (IRB), I had to explain how I was collecting data when I would never sit f2f with the participants. I had to justify issues of consent, pseudonymity, online interviewing, data storage, and the like, and at that time, the IRB was not very well versed in online research. What got me really piqued was when the course I was studying was focusing on traditional research ethics issues, justice, consent, beneficience, so, I was experiencing a very meta-level engagement with the issues while grappling with them in this online setting.

What makes the issue of Internet research ethics distinct from research ethics more broadly?

When we discuss IRE, we tend to begin with those three principles—justice, consent, and beneficience—from research ethics, rightly or wrongly so. That is where much of the work has been focused in the past ten years. How do we “fit” forms of online research into a particular paradigm, namely, a paradigm that comes from the biomedical, and is codified in the United States Belmont Report. Most of us know the history of research ethics, to some extent, but it is worth reviewing briefly. The modern traditions of codified, formalized research ethics stem from the Nuremberg Code, released in 1947, as a response to atrocities committed in the name of research during World War II. From the Code, the concept of informed consent of subjects or participants emerged as a basic premise of medical or biomedical research. The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki (first adopted in 1964), which subsequently followed the Code, included the concept of informed consent along with broader notions of human dignity and safety. Both the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki were strongly grounded in the medical/bio-medical perspectives, while the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights spoke to a range of basic rights beyond research specificity. Nevertheless, the UN Declaration shares in common with codified research ethics a commitment to basic rights of autonomy, protection, safety, and knowledge.

In the United States, research violations of human rights of dignity and autonomy became well known through the Tuskegee experiments, which began in 1930 and lasted for 42 years. Such ethical issues as deception, respect for persons, and disclosure were raised along research lines. One major debate that emerged specifically out of the Tuskegee experiments is the balance between individual harms and greater scientific knowledge, the latter of which was used as a rationale for the conduct of the research. This debate between the greater good of the individual versus the societal underscores the diverse consequentialist and non-consequentialist ethical approaches to research ethics.

And this dichotomy also plays out in IRE…

Yes. We still use that “dichotomy” of consequentialist and non-consequentialist framework to sort through IRE issues. What is unique to Internet research has been debated for years now. Typically, we tend to identify differences in terms of identity, privacy, consent, ownership of data, longevity of data, storage, and research with minors. Basically, I argue that we cannot use the same language, the same discourse, with IRE as we do with “traditional” research. IRBs/ethics boards, and researchers must change the ways they conceptualize research and research ethics to better fit this new paradigm.

The difference between “traditional” research, as you put it, and Internet research seems to hinge on the Internet itself. How does the Internet fit into research today?

It fits into every discipline in so many ways. I am hard pressed to think of a discipline that is not, in some way, making use of the Internet. From online epidemiology to social work, they are all there, in many different methodologies. We see tons of online surveys, which I don’t particularly like, from either an ethical or methodological perspective (if you are interested in more on this, see my paper with E. Hvizdak, 2009*). We see online ethnographies, studies of virtual communities, case studies. What has been interesting to watch has been the ways in which different disciplines struggle with ethics.

How so?

In some disciplines, the “human” in the human subjects aspect of the research, is not at any risk, and the research is, perhaps, not human subjects-based at all, as is the case in discourse or content analyses of Internet materials. In others, there is authentic human subjects work, where lives can be affected, and where risks and benefits must be calculated, individual identities strongly protected. Specific research methods along this continuum range from analyses of data sets, aggregated and decontextualized, merely representing some facet of experience, devoid of connection with individual people, to the use of online surveys, in which a range of ethical issues can be found, sometimes to the surprise of the researcher and researched, for instance, where individuals may or may not be readily identifiable, and where data may or may not be in the full control of the researcher, depending on the tool to participant observations of lists and the people who inhabit them; to complex, in-depth ethnographies of people and their communities online, with the potential to harm individuals if their real-life (or on-screen life) identities were exposed.

What sorts of agents – groups, individuals, or professionals – are relevant to these issues?

Many professional associations are indeed interested. The Association of Internet Researchers is a prominent player in the IRE field, and as I said, they’ve been working on this for many years. But, in recent years, I’ve given talks on IRE to groups as diverse as PRIMR (Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research) to HICCS (Hawaiian International Conference on Systems Science) and to the Computers and Philosophy (CAP) in India.  But, most recently, in the US, the federal bodies are very interested—the National Science Foundation has funded us generously to study IRE in the context of ethics boards, and in the context of web 2.0; the Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) has invited me to speak and this July, Michael Zimmer and I from the IRE Commons will present to the Secretary’s Advisory Committee to OHRP. That is very important that on the federal level, our work is making a difference and being heard.

What, in your opinion, are the most pressing IRE issues today?

I am very interested in cloud computing, databanks, and forms of bot or agent research. These are all areas that completely break down the model of traditional research regulation. They simply don’t fit our previous paradigm. For instance, in traditional research, we would tell our subjects where and for how long data would be stored. We cannot actually make those ascertains to the same degree of certainly with cloud computing. With shared data banks, the idea of consent is fundamentally changed. When data is pooled and reused, researchers must work according to a different ethic. And, we are not yet in agreement as to what that is. Another hot area—do bots or avatars “fit” as a “human subject?” It may sound like a strange question, but when we look more closely, it may not be so odd. We have bots and agents acting autonomously, making decisions, scraping data. According to what—if any—research ethics are they held?

The hardest part of IRE work is the moving target. Just when we understand one thing, for instance, online survey tools, another app or venue pops up to confound us. Think of Twitter. Now that these are archived by the Library of Congress we have issues of consent and privacy facing us.

It is a great time to be studying IRE, and I am fortunate to have been here through the years.

* Buchanan, E. and Hvizdak, E. (2009). Online Survey Tools: Ethical and Methodological Concerns of Human Research Ethics Committees. Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (JERHRE) 4(2), 37-48.

Our colleague and member of the Science Advisory Committee, Luciano Floridi, held a professorial lecture at the University of Herfordshire on March 23th. It was recorded and can be accessed in the Website of the University.

In the history of human knowing there have been radical changes in the way we conceive our place among other beings in the universe. The way we look at ourselves, what are our expectations, endeavours, responsibilities… depends dramatically on this conception of our place in the realm of beings. The development of IT is “not only changing how we deal with the world and make sense of it, or interact with each other” -which is plenty of practical consequences-; we are also attending (after Copernico, Darwin and Freud) to a forth shift in the human-conciousness affecting what roles and responsibilities we assume.

Our colleague Luciano -in his characteristic clear and sharp style- poses questions and arguments concerning the very Science of Information. In the necessary equilibrium between the technical and natural world -pointed out by Floridi, as an state we should strive for if we decide to life in a decent world-, the Science of Information could play a significant role.

Page where the video stream is available: http://web-apps.herts.ac.uk/uhweb/apps/video/prof-luciano-floridi.cfm

We wish to express our gratitude to the University of Herfordshire, to whom we ask for the possibility of making the lecture somehow available.

]]> http://bitrumagora.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/professorial-lecture-of-luciano-floridi-the-fourth-revolution-the-impact-of-information-technology-on-our-lives/feed/ 0 jnafria Floridi-Forth revolution-2 http://bitrumagora.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/trust-in-the-information-society/ http://bitrumagora.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/trust-in-the-information-society/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 20:26:03 +0000 José María http://bitrumagora.wordpress.com/?p=129 ]]> A conference organized by the European Commission & INTECO

February 10^th & 11^th 2010 in León, Spain

Report by: José María Díaz Nafría

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The conference Trust in the Information Society, held on the 10^th and 11^th of Februrary, 2010 in Leon, Spain, aimed at gathering the complete spectrum of stakeholders in the Information Society to address the issue of steering ICTs to be trustworthy. The conference agenda was built around five major topics that emerged out of a survey of the “Advisory Board of Research and Innovation for Security, Privacy and Trustworthiness in the Information Society” (RISEPTIS) supported by the European Commission since 2008 and aimed at providing “visionary guidance on policy and research challenges in the field of security and trust.” The five topics -constituting different sessions- were: 1) Digital life and trust (an industrial view); 2) Trustworthy networking and computing services; 3) An European Framework for digital identity management; 4) Development of the Legal Framework of the EU with regard to the protection of Data and Privacy, 5) International cooperation on trust and security research.

The relevance of this conference is twofold: on the one hand, it provides guidance for European research policies and industrial innovation in the information technology realm; on the other hand, it offers patterns for an Information Society which is envisaged as an European backbone (for instance, in the Lisbon Treaty), therefore as a cultural and political concern.

The set of recommendations included in the RISEPTIS survey reflects the necessity for: 1^st) deepening in the interdisciplinarity of research and development in information technologies, 2^nd) the inviolability of some cultural basis as privacy and identity considered as fundamental democratic values, 3^rd) the necessity for large scale innovation including public and industrial actors as well as international cooperation.

From the point of view of the Science of Information

From the perspective of our endeavour for a Science of Information, in my opinion, these are the most relevant conclusions:

In a positive sense and somehow in tune with our venture:

1. There is growing awareness about the complexity of the informational processes, especially in social concerns, and therefore a growing consciousness that a simple bottom-up approach (reductive) or a top-down one (projective) are not enough (topics 1 & 2).
2. The need for a multidimensional confrontation to the problems arisen in the information society, by means of a broaden interdisciplinarity (RISEPTIS 2009: rec. 1 & 2).
3. The information society is more and more conceived as an ecosystem in which complex equilibria have to be pursued among natural basis, technical and cultural means, economical relations, social- and political forces (Topic 2: Riguidel; Topic 5: Neeraj Suri; RISEPTIS 2009: rec. 4 & 5).
4. International cooperation is a requisite for an efficient confrontation to global challenges (topic 5, RISEPTIS 2009: rec. 6).

But critically also some weakness can be pointed out:

1. Although only bottom-up or top-down approaches are considered as not sufficient, a complex approach (in a system- or complex- theoretical viewpoint) was scarcely conceived as a road for the challenging questions being posed (topic 5: Tai Znati).
2. The inclusiveness of the Information Society is mostly accounted in terms of information divide with two main aspects: how to connect everybody, accessibility, and how to enlighten people about information means, literacy (open session, topic 5). While the question considering if ICT are really accounting for social needs, is not seriously tackled; as well as the question about how could they better fit social needs.
3. Although we are dealing with an issue of major social relevance, some significant social actors are completely missed. As a consequence, some dark sides of trust and security as exclusion, fear, mistrust… are not properly considered. Moreover, the social actors are mainly conceived in tree categories: industry, administration and consumers, i.e. the social landscape is highly commodified. Security and trustworthiness are seen as commercial goods, the agents are providers, regulators or customers (topic 1). Where are then citizens, cultural values and de-commodified goods? What about those who cannot be consumers; or those wishing to act beyond any commercial activity? (Fleissner 2009)
4. Although identity was a central issue, and society or community is a major source of identity, this aspect was practically left aside, even if as argued some e-identity means might bring about some kind of exclusions, invisible borders and classes of users with different access to informational resources (topic 2).
5. Another misrepresentation that can be observed in the panel of speakers concerns gender, since there were only 5 women among 32 speakers. It is also interesting to point out how this lack of balance was especially sharp in the field of security and trust (a single female speaker), but not in privacy issues. We might ask: is it something related to female tendencies from hunter-gatherer societies till nowadays or determined by cultural mores?
6. Although international cooperation is conceived as a necessary road to undertake global challenges, no intercultural approximation is observed. However, as it has been remarked in many intercultural studies concerning information ethics and policies, there is a lack of understanding regarding values that are culturally taken as irreducible and often pretended as universal, for instance, privacy and identity (Capurro 2007, Ess 2006, Floridi 2008, Nishigaki 2006, glosarium, etc.). Considering the allegedly centrality of these two elements in trustworthiness concerns and the requirement of international cooperation, there was a lack of concern regarding for instance the Asian and African viewpoints on privacy and identity, and other values as solidarity or social justice that has also been recognised as a global principle (UNESCO 2007).

Conclusions of Leon

As a result of the discussions the following conclusions were reached:

“The participants to the Conference […]:

1. Confirm the essential importance of the development of Trust in the Information Society for economic growth, prosperity and the promotion of our societal values.
2. Endorse the analysis and recommendations presented in the RISEPTIS Report, in particular to:
   1. Strengthen interdisciplinary RTD for Trust in the Information Society.
   2. Stimulate ICT products and services based on “Trust by Design”.
   3. Develop an EU Framework for electronic identification in full respect of privacy and for broad societal use, including e-Government, e-Health and the Private sector.
   4. Develop an ecosystem of technology and law preserving our societal values and creating trust in the society, all within a global context.
3. Emphasise the urgency to develop a platform for effective cooperation on trust issues between stakeholders in RTD, industry, society, law and regulation and education and awareness.

And recommend to the European Commission and Member States

1. To give urgent attention to these Conclusions of Leon in their upcoming decisions on the European Digital Agenda and Granada Strategy as well as in other relevant discussions, like those to be held at the WCIT 2010 in Amsterdam.
2. To call upon ENISA, in close cooperation with stakeholders, to actively support programmes of the European Commission and Member States, related to security and trust in ICT, in particular in bridging the gap between technology and policy, and ensuring efficient uptake of research results in operational environments.
3. To strengthen international cooperation to promote and develop Trust in the Information Society at a global scale.”

More information on Trust-IS

• Conference web: http://trustworthyict.inteco.es/
• Event videos: http://www.trustworthyict-inteco.webcastlive.es/
• Presentations: http://trustworthyict.inteco.es/index.php/en/presentations
• Conclusions: http://trustworthyict.inteco.es/index.php/en/conclusions

References

• CAPURRO, Rafael (2007). Intercultural Information Ethics. In: Capurro, Rafael / Frühbauer, Johannes / Hausmanninger, Thomas (Eds.): Localizing the Internet. Ethical aspects in intercultural perspective. Munich: Fink, 21-38. [Online] <http://www.capurro.de/iie.html> [accessed: 10/10/2010]
• ESS, Charles (2006). Ethical pluralism and global informaion ethics. In Ethics and Information Technology,8, 215-226.
• FLEISSNER, P. (2008). The “Commodification” of Knowledge in the Global Information Society. Triple C, 7(2), 228-238.
• FLORIDI, Luciano (2008). Information Ethics. Its Nature and Scope. En: Jeroen van den Hoven y John Wecker (Eds.).Information Technology and Moral Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, pp. 40-65.
• NISHIGAKI, Toru (2006). The ethics in Japanese information society: Consideration on Fracisco Varela’s The Embodied Mind from the perspective of fundamental informatics. Ethics and Information Technology, 8:237-242.
• RISEPTIS (2009). Trust in the information society. Report of the Advisory board RISEPTIS (Research and Innovation on Security Privacy and Trustworthiness in the Information Society). European Commission’s 7^th Framework. [Online] http://www.think-trust.eu/riseptis.html > [accessed: 28/11/2009]
• UNESCO (2007). European regional Conference on “ethical dimensions of the information society”. Ethics and human rights in the information society. Final recommendations. [Online] <http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/26941/12121514093FinalRecommendations_en.pdf/FinalRecommendations_en.pdf>   [accessed: 31/03/2010]

FlS 2010: Towards a New Science of Information

Beijing: 20-23 August, 2010

Conference website: www.fis2010.cn (http://fis2010.sisi2006.cn/fis2010/index.aspx)

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Continuing the series of FIS Conferences (Madrid 1994, Vienna 1996, Paris 2005) a new venue will be held in Beijing 2010.  In our times, an increasing number of disciplines are dealing with information in very different ways: from information society and information technology to communication studies (and related subjects like codes, meaning, knowledge, and intelligence), as well as quantum information, bioinformation, knowledge economy, network science, computer science and Internet, to name but a few. At the same time, an increasing number of scientists in the East and the West have been engaged with the foundational problems underlying this development, to such an extent that the integration of disciplines revolving around information seems an idea whose time has come. A new science of information can be envisaged that explores the possibilities of establishing a common ground around the information concept, of constructing a new scientific perspective that connects the different information-related disciplines and provides a new framework for transdisciplinary research.

The purpose of this conference is thus:

• to enable the discussion of different concepts, theories and approaches to the information field,
• to facilitate the exchange between informational disciplines concerning different but complementary tasks, objects of study, and methodologies,
• to network researchers and research institutions as well as knowledge transfer institutions in the promotion of the new science of information,
• to create a new community of scholars and to promote a new style of scholarship,
• to advance a new point of view on global problems.

1. The Impact of a New Science of Information on Society
2. The Position of Intelligence Science in Information Science
   1. Information and Intelligence
   2. Intelligence Science as an Engineering Informatics in Information Science
3. The Role of Other Applied Information Science Disciplines (Computer Science, Human Computer Interaction, Computer Mediated Communication, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Information and Communication Technologies and Society, Library and Documentation Science, …)
4. The Basis of a New Science of Information
   1. Feasibility of a single generic concept of information
   2. Concepts, Principles, and Methodology of a “General Informatics” or “Theoretical Informatics”
   3. Knowledge Structure of a Unified Theory of Information
5. Philosophy of Information
   1. Information Ethics
   2. Epistemology (Information and the Scientific Method, …)
   3. Ontology of Information
   4. Information and Philosophy of Science (Information and the System of Sciences – Transdisciplinarity – Consilience, …)
6. Science of Information in Real-World Systems
   1. Science of Information in Physical and Chemical Systems (Quantum Information, Molecular Recognition, …)
   2. Science of Information in Living Systems (Biosemiotics, Systems Biology, Bioinformation, …)
   3. Science of Information in Human / Social Systems
      1. Science of Information in Human Cognition (Mind-Brain Theory, Consciousness, …)
      2. Science of Information in Human Communication (Linguistics, Social Networking, Communication Studies, …)
      3. Science of Information in Human Cooperation (Collective Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Advanced Intelligence, …)
7. Science of the Information Society / Age (Information Society Theory, Internet Research, Social Informatics, New Media Studies, …)
8. Other related topics

Papers should be no longer than 10 pages including all tables, figures, and references but excluding a cover page. Fonts should be in 10-12 pt. Each submission must include one cover page which should contain (see paper template provided at the website):

1. “FIS 2010 Beijing, China” at the left corner in top line of the cover page;
2. Title of the paper with an abstract of no more than 500 words;
3. A few keywords, from the list above where possible, giving a clear indication of topics;
4. Author name(s) with affiliation(s), complete postal address(es), and phone number(s);
5. Email address of the contact author;
6. First (ONLY) author’s register photo (2-inch) and a resume, attached to author(s)’ published paper.

• All papers for FIS 2010 should be submitted by Email to zrli@hubu.edu.cn, sisi2006@126.com.
• All paper submissions will be peer reviewed.
• Accepted papers will be published and available at the conference.
• At least one author of an accepted paper must register at the conference and present the paper at the conference.
• FIS 2010 Best Paper Awards will be conferred at the conference on the authors of (1) the best research paper and (2) the best application paper.

• Deadline of Paper Submission: May 20, 2010
• Acceptance Notification: June 20, 2010
• Camera-Ready Paper: July 10, 2010
• Paper Collection Published: August 20, 2010

• Technical Committee on Artificial Intelligence Theory (TCAIT), Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI), Beijing
• Foundations of Information Science (FIS), Zaragoza
• Science of Information Institute (SoII), Washington

Co-organizers:

• Beijing Institute of Graphical Communication, China
• BITrum Research Group, León, Spain
• Center for Information Policy Research, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA
• Institut für Design Science e.V., Munich, Germany
• International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET), Paris, France
• Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI), Basel, Switzerland
• Symmetrion, Budapest, Hungary
• Unified Theory of Information (UTI) Research Group, Vienna, Austria
• Washington Evolutionary Systems Society (WESS), Washington, USA

Sponsor:

Technical Committee on Artificial Intelligence Theory (TCAIT), Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI), Beijing, China

Co-sponsors:

• Beijing Institute of Graphical Communication, China
• Wuhan Wutong-Rain Culture Development Limited Company, China
• Center for Information Policy Research, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA

Conference Honorary Chairs:

• Yi-Xin Zhong
• Zhong-Zhi Shi

International Advisory Board:

• Joseph Brenner (International Center for Transdisciplinary Research, Paris, France)
• Søren Brier (Professor in the Semiotics of Information, Cognitive and Communication Science, Department of International Culture and Communication Studies, Centre for Language, Cognition, and Mentality, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark)
• Elizabeth A. Buchanan (Center for Information Policy Research, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA)
• Mark Burgin (Visiting Scholar, Department of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
• Jerry Chandler (Research Professor, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies, George Mason University, USA)
• John Collier (Professor, Philosophy and Ethics, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa)
• György Darvas (Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Research Organization, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary)
• José María Díaz Nafría (Visiting Professor, University of León, Spain)
• Dail Doucette (Director, Science of Information Institute, Washington, USA)
• Charles Ess (Visiting Professor, Department of Information and Media Studies, University of Aarhus, Denmark)
• Peter Fleissner (retired University Professor, Institute of Design and Assesment of Technology, Vienna University of Technology, Austria)
• Luciano Floridi (Research Chair in Philosophy of Information, Department of Philosophy, University of Hertfordshire, UK)
• Ted Goranson (Sirius Beta, USA)
• Soraj Hongladarom (Director, Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand)
• Alicia Juarrero (Professor, Prince George’s Community College, USA)
• Allenna Leonard (President, International Society for the Systems Sciences, Canada)
• Michael Leyton (Professor, DIMACS Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, Rutgers University, USA)
• An-Shun Li (President, Wuhan Wutong-Rain Culture Development Institute, China)
• Shu-Kun Lin (Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland)
• Robert K. Logan (Professor Emeritus, Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Canada)
• Ai-Nai Ma (Professor, Peking University, China)
• Shi-Long Ma (Professor, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China)
• Dong-Sheng Miao (Professor, Renmin University of China, China)
• Basarab Nicolescu (Professor, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania)
• Toru Nishigaki (Professor, Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, University of Tokyo, Japan)
• Michel Petitjean (MTi, INSERM, Université Paris Diderot, France)
• Stuart A. Umpleby (Professor, Department of Management, Rutgers University, USA)
• Kun Wu (Professor, Xian Jiaotong University, China)
• Tom Ziemke (Professor of Cognitive Science and Cognitive Robotics, Cognition and Interaction Lab, University of Skövde, Sweden)
• Rainer E. Zimmermann (Professor of Philosophy, University of Applied Sciences Munich, Germany)

General Chairs:

• Hua-Can He (TCAIT, CAAI)
• Pedro Marijuan (FIS)
• Wolfgang Hofkirchner (SoII)

Programme Co-Chairs:

• Prof. Zong-Rong Li
• Prof. Xin-Zheng Jin
• Prof. Jing-Shan Wang
• Dr. Shu-Feng Li

Organization Co-Chairs:

• Prof. Jing-Shan Wang
• Prof. Jun-Ping Du
• Wei-Ning Wang
• Dr. Dan Yu

General Secretary:

• Prof. Zong-Rong Li; Tele: (86)27-63962956, (86)13554242936; Email: zrli@hubu.edu.cn
• Prof. Jian-Wei Zhang; Tele: (86)13971245691; Email: weissschatten@sina.com
• Prof. Jing-Shan Wang; Tele: (86)13693182024; Email: sisi2006@126.com