Dear FIS colleagues,
It was quite pleasant finding all these exciting messages at the return of
vacations. As a meager contribution, let me reproduce a fragment of the
Introduction to the Proceedings of the 1994 FIS conference in Madrid:
"The FIS-conference attempts to rescue information as a central scientific
tool and to put it into a new context so as to serve as a basis for a
fundamental disciplinary development. The novelty of our approach is that,
instead of trying a precise 'atomic' definition of information, and
actually getting quagmired in it, information is understood as related to a
widespread network of processes potentially involving the integration of
cosmic (subatomic), molecular, cellular (neuronal), computational, human
and social occurrences, demanding both a unifying and a
multiperspectivistic approach... So to speak, instead of the discussion of
a single particularized concept, information becomes the intellectual
adventure of developing a 'vertical' science connecting the different
scales of 'informational processes' -- reminding physics itself, which from
a pre-Galilean particularized term evolved towards a vertical science
connecting the previously separated "celestial", "sublunar", and
"terrestrial" occurrences..."
Obviously, this one is not the first time we discuss about the nature of
information and its definition, but as time passes it is getting more and
more sophisticate indeed. My impression is that either looking at the
external "branches" (measurable patterns), or at the internal "roots"
(meaning & purpose), or at the connecting "trunk" (communication act) of
the tree of information, we get caught in an endless circulation amongst
scientific disciplines. Actually the sciences may be seen themselves as an
information organon at the service of the whole society--and each
discipline has tailored a particular notion (modality) of information by
means of its principles, postulates, theories and observations. Should we
get satisfied by the partial complementarity between those heterogeneous
info forms --or should we aspire to elaborate a clearer vision of the whole
problem?
best post-vacational greetings
Pedro
Received on Mon Sep 5 17:14:49 2005
