Prime Factors of Information

2016

Abstract: The recent history of information theory and science shows a trend in emphasis from quantitative measures to qualitative characterizations. In parallel, aspects of information are being developed, for example by Pedro Marijuan, Wolf-gang Hofkirchner and others that are extending the notion of qualitative, non-computational information in the biological and cognitive domain to include meaning and function. However, there is as yet no consensus on whether a single acceptable definition or theory of the concept of information is possible, leading to many attempts to view it as a complex, a notion with varied meanings or a group of different entities. In my opinion, the difficulties in developing a Unified Theory of Information (UTI) that would include its qualitative and quantita-tive aspects and their relation to meaning are a consequence of implicit or explicit reliance on the principles of standard, truth-functional bivalent or multivalent logics. In reality, information p...

In a 2007 conference abstract, David Bawden attempts an equivalence between information and self-organized complexity. Encouragement to make these notions the fundamental principles of reality, while matter, energy, space and time would be productions. I am inspired by this presentation and bounce back on its limits to show how to pave the way for a unification of information in the physical, biological and human sciences. Reality is not one of uncertainty but of an alternation between uncertainty and certainty. The driving force is the self-organized sequence of the two indissoluble aspects of information, information-essence and information-communication.

Proceedings of ISIS Summit Vienna 2015—The Information Society at the Crossroads, 2015

The challenges of complexity, of the lack of a comprehensive holistic methodology and of antithetic aspects of life and cognition are not new. They accompanied development of Western philosophy and science from the very beginning. Thus, it is not their presence in European intellectual tradition that is surprising, but their persistence. The first of these challenges, complexity is well known, but the focus of its study is more on the limits of the unconquerable, not on their elimination. Holism always fascinated European intellectuals, but was never fully admitted into standard scientific methodology. Only very recently under the name of integrative medicine acquires the status of institutionally recognized way of inquiry and practice. In the study of life and cognition challenges are multiple and commonly recognized, but there is lack of comprehensive, cross-disciplinary methodology to respond to them. Information science with sufficiently general and well defined concept of information can replace the crumbling foundations for science which until recently were given by physics. Concepts of modern physics lost intuitive character and are in increasing degree dependent on interpretation in terms of information, computation, or cognition. However, in order to serve as a firm new foundation they require a common comprehensive framework. The approach to information, its structure, integration and dynamics proposed by the author can serve as an example of a conceptual framework which can serve this purpose. Challenge of Complexity The challenges of complexity, of the lack of a comprehensive holistic methodology and of antithetic aspects of life and cognition are not new. They accompanied development of Western philosophy and

Proceedings

Shannon's Information was devised to improve the performance of a data communication channel. Since then, the situation has changed drastically and today a more generally applicable and suitable definition of information is urgently required. To meet this demand, I have proposed a definition of my own. According to it, information is a complex notion with Physical and Semantic information staying for Real and Imaginary parts of the term. The scientific community has very unfriendly accepted this idea. But without a better solution for the problem of: (1) intron-exon partition in genes; (2) information flow in neuronal networks; (3) memory creation and potentiation in brains; (4) thoughts and thinking materialization in human heads; and (5) the undeniable shift from Computational (that is, data processing based) approach to Cognitive (that is, information processing based) approach in the field of scientific research, they would be forced to admit one day that something worthy in this new definition is really present.

The recent history of information theory and science shows a trend in emphasis from quantitative measures to qualitative characterizations. In parallel, aspects of information are being developed, for example by Pedro Marijuan, Wolf-gang Hofkirchner and others that are extending the notion of qualitative, non-computational information in the biological and cognitive domain to include meaning and function. However, there is as yet no consensus on whether a single acceptable definition or theory of the concept of information is possible, leading to many attempts to view it as a complex, a notion with varied meanings or a group of different entities. In my opinion, the difficulties in developing a Unified Theory of Information (UTI) that would include its qualitative and quantita-tive aspects and their relation to meaning are a consequence of implicit or explicit reliance on the principles of standard, truth-functional bivalent or multivalent logics. In reality, information processes, ...

The information as a scientific category is a primary notion which can not be defined. The information is not a material metric but is an intellectual one, because it can arise only as a result of intellectual activity. In practice the information can be found as data, algorithms and goal-vectors. The information has five levels: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics. The information is a way to depict existing things, and so it can substitute them. Hence, any information, which is stored on Earth, can be viewed as the global model of the real world. Considering the properties of information we can solve one of the basic question of philosophy: "What was first: the intellection or the material?". The answer of informatics for this basic question is that the primary one is the intellection.

2012

Making an incursion in the forest of problems and theories of information, beyond observing a lack of mutual understanding among information theorists, we find out that information can be understood as a multifaceted reality. The variety of theories is in itself a reflection of the complex nature of information. A systematic approach to these theories, looking for common and divergent understandings render-so to speak-a cubist picture of what information really is, showing for instance its multi-dimensionality. In other words, when we say there is information in cables and organisms, in antennas and societies, in robots and mental states, we do not have to be mistaken: information is considered in each case in different aspects.

First Paragraph: At the core of the philosophy of information is the ‘ti esti’ question that inaugurated several branches of philosophy from Plato onwards. Just what is information? The term is undoubtedly vague and still an important part of the modern linguistic landscape. We live in the “information age,” we read “information” in the papers, we can gather “information” on, say, the salt gradients of the currents in the Pacific Ocean, and we can talk about the amount of “information” that can be delivered over a wireless connection. Yet, as several philosophers have pointed out, we can scarcely say precisely what the term means. Given that it is also used differently across different fields of study (biology, communications, computer science, economics, mathematics, etc.), it is a hallmark of the philosophy of information to undertake this clarifying task, if the term “information” is to be informative at all. So, first and foremost, this research area examines the term in its multiplicity of meanings and clarifies its many uses.

The Power and the Glory of Machinehood

Annual review of information science and …, 2002