Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS

Re: [Fis] ON INFORMATION ETHICS

From: Pedro Marijuan <[email protected]>
Date: Thu 23 Mar 2006 - 14:26:03 CET

FIS Friends,

A modest heap of ideas is accumulating on info ethics. I will comment on
some recent postings (Stan, Rafael, Michael...)

To Stan's simplifications on Global Capitalism, second law plus Darwinian
penchant, I would had another two: complexity growth and instinct of
"conformity with the group", both in combination with the previous ones.
Complexity growth may occur precisely because of the introduction of
-"constraints", from the very beginning (at the very quantum level of
Pauli's exclusion principle!). In human language, the constraints we
introduce either in pronunciation or in grammar make possible the
linguistic fabrication of open-ended contents. Such rules clearly represent
a burden, but are a necessary path to follow in order to generate
novelty. It also occurs socially, for we can organize a complex social
structure only because people have to follow an increasingly complex set of
rules (e.g., think on traffic). Then, the instinct of "conformity with the
group" appears as a curious phenomenon, a sort of collective life-saving
device which is widely shared among anthropoidea, and that in the human
case creeps into a vast variety of social networkings, primitive and
advanced ones. At the same time, we compete and are willing to stay safely
into the pack. In the US it means it means Wall Street and Silicon Valley
together with "Sunday America" and religious fundamentalism... In any case,
there seems possible to draw neat relationships of ethics with these two
new aspects that add some spice to Second Law and Darwinian competence.

Then Rafael says that "ethics is an informational science as far as it
analizes morality i.e. the rules of society(ies) considering them under the
conditions of their historical development and future possibilities. The
key point is then how far such rules block societal development which means
at the same time that the "ideas" or "goals" must/can be reconsidered and
"re-imaginized." This is the deep connection between ethics with drama,
poetry, music..." I much agree with the vision of ethics as an
informational science, particularly because of the "closure" operation that
ethics has to perform at the social level. Other integrative disciplines
are forced to such closure operations, but perhaps none of them with the
amplitude and complexity that ethics has to confront. We have not talked
about "values" yet... are they a shorthand for people being able to get a
collective ethical orientation, a minimalist "mapping" allowing themselves
to align with the group? In the relationship between ethics, arts, sciences
and technologies I would disagree with Foucault's over-extended use of the
term technologies (see in Rafael's); it can be confusing and misleading.

I have already pointed that the informational discussion of ethics should
connect with Jared Diamond's (1996) proposals on the evolution of social
complexity. And some of Michael's points on books, media, etc., might be
discussed along the guidelines of the informational needs of societies as
their complexity grows. This idea may be extended to reopen Richard's and
Marcin's suggestions about organizing some modest research on a taxonomy of
information. To put it in the terms of the current discussion, the
evolution of societies is another theater where an informational way of
thinking may enrich traditional disciplines.

At the time being, however, that fis explorations dovetail in conventional
institutional settings looks almost a miracle ---unless institutional
proposals presented in Paris (2005) by some fis parties fructify, we will
be left in the could permanently. As far as I know, Dail, Mary Joe, and
Wolfgang are already doing some legal and administrative advancements, so
that interesting "novelties" might occur relatively soon. Who knows?

with best wishes,

Pedro

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Received on Thu Mar 23 14:20:19 2006


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