RE: passing the moderation - obstacles

Pedro and Colleagues,

I would like to add a coda to Pedro's theme of 'Particulate Complex'.

Reflecting this on the sociolinguistic level is the
'portmanteau syndrome' - the tendency to use words like information
as an impressive 'blender' - information society, information
superhighway etc - which reflects a general trend in professional
terminology towards the amalgam, the fused concept, the acronym -
IT and 'Knowledge Management'(KM) being the most pernicious examples.

As an antidote perhaps we can 1. resist the tendency to use or
create specious amalgams and acronyms with the 'I-word';

2. try substituting 'informational' for 'information',
where appropriate(e.g 'Informational Management'
emphasises management style rather than just handling
of documents and data);

3. use the more specific term if possible('Document Retrieval'
or 'Text Retrieval' instead of 'Information Retrieval etc).

This way when we discuss the 'I-word' we can at least
pacify Wittgenstein's ghost <:

Cheers

John

John Holgate M.A. (lit), M.A (information science)
Director of Library Services
St. George Hospital, Sydney Australia

Tel: 0293502042
email: holgatej@sesahs.nsw.gov.au

-----Original Message-----
From: "Pedro C. Mariju�n" [mailto:marijuan@posta.unizar.es]
Sent: Thursday, 21 March 2002 20:33
To: Multiple recipients of list FIS
Subject: Re: passing the moderation

Dear colleagues,

Some days ago Wolfang was proposing reflection on a couple of points:

>- try to identify common and general obstacles to an over-arching
>concept of information, on the one hand, in a kind of top-down manner;
>- and, on the other hand, in a bottom-up way try to find concrete
>obstacles in certain areas.
>

I would respond to the former suggesting "THE PARTICULATE COMPLEX", as a
Western cultural trait that emphasizes atomistic constituents almost
everywhere: physics, chemistry, biology (genes as particles for heredity),
behaviorism, social sciences (social atomism--utilitarism), even in
linguistics (phonems),and of course, reductionism in philos. of sci...

As for the second, lack of a parsimonious info view of the cell, and of the
human nervous system.

best

Pedro

=========================================
Pedro C. Mariju�n
Fundaci�n CIRCE
CPS Univ. Zaragoza, 50015 Zaragoza, Spain
TEL. (34) 976 762036-761863, FAX (34) 976 732078
email: marijuan@posta.unizar.es
=========================================

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Received on Mon Mar 25 00:40:33 2002