[Fis] Consilience: Writing on the Clouds

> 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.

Dear John and colleagues,

Instead of a conservative complaint about the luggage which might be lost,
we can also consider this new configuration as challenges to the research
programs in the information and communication sciences. One can expect
emerging structures in the new domains because of ongoing processes of
codification. The codification mechanisms are no longer (quasi-)biologically
given (like a luggage belt), but the communicative constructs can be
hypothesized and then be researched empirically. The research design tends
then to become more reflexive.

I hope that this is somewhat helpful.

With kind regards,

Loet

  _____

Loet Leydesdorff
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20- 525 6598; fax: +31-20- 525 3681
 <mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net> loet@leydesdorff.net ;
<http://www.leydesdorff.net/> http://www.leydesdorff.net/

 <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff-sci.htm> The Challenge of
Scientometrics ; <http://www.upublish.com/books/leydesdorff.htm> The
Self-Organization of the Knowledge-Based Society
Received on Mon Nov 29 09:33:01 2004