RE: [Fis] Consilience: Writing on the Clouds

Loet, Aleks, Pedro

"O, that this too too solid flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!" (Shakespeare, 'Hamlet', 1602ish)

"When a wise man points at the moon the idiot looks at the finger" (me quoting
Heinz von Forster quoting Confucius s.d.)

How do we separate the 'citation system' from the traditional communication structures
of scientific publication? Stefan Harnad et al attempted this with the birth of the
e-journal in the 90's and the vision of a Public Library of Science.

The 'bibliographic conspiracy' and the 'impact factor imperative' support commercial publishing, academic tenure, library budgets, refereed scholarship, evidential precedent etc etc. I don't think we can throw out the baby (the forms and artefacts of cognition) with the bath water of knowledge politics. If we do we could end up in a hyperlinked Borgesian world with pointers pointing at pointers like so many deictic angels on the head of a pin or a network of learned spies informing on each other (as in Elizabethan England)
all swearing allegiance to the motto 'In Google (or Yahoo) We Trust'.

>From a 'consilience' perspective this 'pointing' process may reflect some deep-seated need in our organism for publication, quotation and reference. Maybe citation theory could form part of a Grand Unifying Theory of 'publication' - a phenomenon which embraces scholarly publishing, the mating dance of the peacock, the exhibitionism of the A-list and the expressive functions of natural language?

What 'law' is it that determines if and when a scientific discovery is published?
Leonardo's brilliant insights remained embedded in his diaries and had scarcely any
'impact' on the history of science. On the other hand a much cited catchword like
'the medium is the message' can have an exaggerated effect on a civilisation.
Reason is parsimonious but nature, it would seem, is prodigal in physical and mental reproduction. The 'survival of the fittest' has become 'publish or perish'.

I must agree with Loet that nebulous airline food and Pinteresque conversations are with us for the duration of the post-modern trip. And the captain has just announced that glial astrocytes are now directing air traffic through the synapses of our cognitive flight paths. The lost luggage of the Enlightenment is still going around a carousel in some airport in France and, like Tom Hanks in 'The Terminal', we can't go home again.

John H

-----Original Message-----
From: fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es
[mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es]On Behalf Of Loet Leydesdorff
Sent: Saturday, 27 November 2004 1:50
To: 'Aleks Jakulin'; ' Pedro C. Marijuán '; 'fis-listas.unizar.es'
Subject: RE: [Fis] Consilience: Writing on the Clouds

> You might be aware of "ghost" journals, "ghost" "interdisciplinary"
> multi-conferences at popular tourist spots, whose only
> purpose is the score.
> You might have read various pieces of uninformed nonsense
> that managed to get smuggled by the editors' eyes into fancy
> journals. Of course, one can analyze the clouds to find
> circles of empty vapor, too. Loet?

Dear Aleks:

"All that is solid will melt into air." (Marx, 1848).
In the post-modern world we have lost the solidness of the clouds and the
vapor between the clouds has become important for the reconstruction because
it may lead to a new perspective (innovation?). No roundabout for the return
flight. Sorry.

With kind regards,

Loet

>
> The unscrupulous will seek to undermine any system of
> assigning relevance.
> What counts is not the vapor but the rain. The sad thing is
> that it often takes a very long time, and vapor from much
> sweat before the rain comes.
>
> Aleks
>
> _______________________________________________
> fis mailing list
> fis@listas.unizar.es
> http://webmail.unizar.es/mailman/listinfo/fis
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Received on Mon Nov 29 09:18:52 2004