Dear Colleagues,
These are exciting times we live in. What we are witnessing may be
described as an emerging New Renaissance in science, technology and
philosophy, and all of it is related to computing/information*.
In order to support the above claim let me quote two of Ted's
statements; that in my view both amount to the need of new logic -
pluralist informational logic that is closely related to the new
paradigm of computation - interactional computation (which can be seen
as generalization of algorithmic computation).
"I myself see a continuity between Einstein's revolution in situating
physical notions, Freud's in situating social ones (though his mechanics
are weak) and what we must do in the general domain whose "situation"
spans physics through societal concepts and fashions." (Ted)
Being originally a physicist, I focus on Einstein because the comparison
with Newton is instructive on several levels. For me it is in the first
place a question of giving up absolutes.
>From the perspective of Computing and Philosophy the shift from Newton's
universe to Einstein's seems to be a crucial one. Historically, as a
scientist, one was forced to leave absolutes, one by one. We were
shifted from the center of the Universe, only to later on be forced to
leave the idea of absolute space altogether and what is even worse to
give up the absolute time - all of it was really painful.
The next offer that will be necessary to make, will be to leave the
Absolute Truth and it is not without very good reasons people will be
ready to do that.
Focusing on information instead of knowledge can be the smoothest way to
go from logical monism which is the ruling paradigm of science and a
precondition for the absolute truth. The alternative, logical pluralism
leads necessarily to models where truth is not conserved as there is no
absolute logical space it can be attached to - no privileged agent
taking part in information exchange whose frame of reference including
logic would be the absolute one. Information is something that is
characteristic of dynamical system; knowledge presupposes steady states.
Knowledge is not something you receive today and discard tomorrow.
Information is.
"I believe it inevitable that we revisit logic. Many have concluded this
as well. (I've mentioned Barwise before.) Alternative logics already
exist in fields that presently seem remote from science - in fact this
is the point, they seem remote from science precisely because their
logics are so different. I suggest we consider artistic and
humanity-centric "logics" also, as we hunt for tools, and be open to a
scope that includes internal conceptual mechanics: desires, intuitions,
emotions, creativity." - to quote Ted again.
I definitely agree with the need of new logic - specifically logical
pluralism. Actually pluralist's logics are developing within the theory
of computing and they will soon show as tools we need to
re-conceptualize the world (or at least computational theory of it) in
terms of this radically new interaction paradigm.
Today's computers are information-processing devices that have changed
dramatically compared to their original function that consisted in
sequential processing of data. Contrary to traditional algorithmic
computation, in which computer provided with a suitable algorithm and an
input was left alone to crunch the numbers until algorithm terminated,
interactive computation implies interaction i.e. communication of the
computing process with the external world during the computation.
Computational processes are now conceived as distributed, reactive,
agent-based and concurrent.
Interaction consequently provides a new conceptualization of
computational phenomena which involves communication and information
exchange.
The problems that are to be solved by natural computing/ soft computing
are of the following kind:
"Physical systems described by multiple variable and multiple parameter
models having non-linear coupling, frequently occur in the fields of
physics, engineering, technical applications, economy, etc. The
conventional approaches for understanding and predicting the behaviour
of such systems based on analytical techniques can prove to be very
difficult, even at the initial stages of establishing an appropriate
mathematical model. The computational environment used in such an
analytical approach is perhaps too categoric and inflexible in order to
cope with the intricacy and the complexity of the real world physical
systems." http://mecha.ee.boun.edu.tr/asi.html
Just as an indication of how far we have come in the development, here
are some of web resources and references on Natural computation (which
also is distributed, reactive, agent-based and concurrent computation):
The European Molecular Computing Consortium (Emcc)
http://openit.disco.unimib.it/emcc/?screen=1280x1024
The First International Conference on Natural Computation
http://www.xtu.edu.cn/nc2005/, subject areas
might be interesting
http://www.springer.com/sgw/cda/frontpage/0,11855,5-40099-69-1194772-0,00.html
Springer Natural Computing Series
With best regards,
Gordana
_______________________________________________________
Dr. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Electronics
M�lardalen University
V�ster�s, Sweden
* */Shifting the Paradigm of the Philosophy of Science: the Philosophy
of Information and a New Renaissance
<../../../Gordana/web/work/shifting_paradigm_singlespace.pdf>,/* Minds
and Machines: Special Issue on the Philosophy of Information, November
2003, Volume 13, available at
http://www.idt.mdh.se/personal/gdc/work//shifting_paradigm_singlespace.pdf
Received on Tue Nov 15 09:16:24 2005
