A Proposal for Wrapping Up

Friends--

I was expecting more discussion on Jerry's challenge. If I understand
it right, it is quite radical and reflects just the sort of high
level controversy I suggested we examine before we wrap up.

On one side, we have Jerry and a few others (I count myself here) who
claim that we need more than a tweak in existing paradigms, but whole
new abstractions, even whole new manners of abstraction. Opposed are
the vast majority of FISers who propose shifts of perspectives or new
metaphors within existing abstractions. The fulcrum of this
difference seems to be what approach one prefers for "escaping" the
foreground/background problem of "information." (I also admit that
when reading some of these clever more pragmatic positions, I find
them compelling as well.)

I suggest we log this as a worthwhile issue to be examined by future
activities. Let me propose some other grand controversies I perceived
in the prior discussion.

I think Koichiro's proposal, if I understand it right is equally
radical, to move the notion of "time" outside the framework of
information, turning it into the metatool for the new science: a
grammar for information. Some others independently developed this
notion -- it appeared in several forms during the discussions of
entropy, but the last few months have seen little of this radical
position, and the default discussion context seems to not attempt
something so expensive theoretically.

Periodically, another religious difference creeps in and then damps
down. I think we are roughly divided between those who consider the
first class citizen of information to be the "message" (and all of
its surrogates), while others propose a citizen based on "context,"
situated functionality or "system awareness." There are many
denominations on both sides of this chasm, unless I'm mistaken.

This divide is reflected in one superficially similar: the preferred
lever. Some champion "societal" even "cultural/emotional"
perspectives, while others cling to chemical or biological focii to
"inform" societal dynamics. This seems a profound difference to me,
so profound it colors everything.

In reviewing the last few years' messages (pretty vast, actually)
many seem occupied with similar basic religious divides, but the
ordinary problems of language, meaning and reality that have occupied
many great minds -- minds concerned more with discovery and
understanding than invention. I cannot say whether those are
reflections of the meatier controversies of our new agenda, the other
way around or relatively irrelevant distractions. I suspect the
latter.

Well, I think Pedro has allocated us another week or so to wrap this
up. Does anyone feel it beneficial to identify these types of
outstanding differences? Whether I have dissected the discussion
correctly is another issue, and I defer to more capable colleagues to
replace my suggestions with better ones.

Best, Ted
Received on Fri Jan 17 01:00:53 2003