“Information” (=information including its processing, communication, etc.) is indispensable for the modern understanding of processes within cells, tissues, organs, the organism, but also between individuals and social structures. Is “information” the mathematically applicable substitute for the omnipotent and in all living entities identical Vis Vitalis, applicable also to machines? Vis Vitalis was falsified by evolutionary theory. Its explanatory power was not “saved” with an alternative hypothesis. So the causal explanation of what could be handled previously with Vis Vitalis remains a “grey area” in the landscape of sciences. “Information” seems to fill the gap between, e.g., body and mind. Therefore, an analysis of “information” from an evolutionary view can be helpful even for information sciences: there are gaps which cannot be bridged sufficiently, especially between the different evolutionary levels up to the “hierarchical structure” of a person as a social being. An analysis is presented: the meaning and the indispensable carriers of “information” have changed within the evolutionary processes. Options and restrictions for an evolution-oriented use of “information” are discussed and applied. Doing this it seems possible not only to bridge the gap between the layers within the biological, emotional, cognitive and intellectual hierarchical levels within a person, but between persons and machines too. Full article

The extraordinary scientific-technical, economic, and social transformations related to the widespread use of computers and to the whole information and communication technologies have not been accompanied by the development of a scientific “informational” perspective helping make a coherent sense of the spectacular changes occurring. Like in other industrial revolutions of the past, technical praxis antedates the emergence of theoretical disciplines. Apart from the difficulties in handling new empirical domains and in framing new ways of thinking, the case of information science implies the difficult re-evaluation of important bodies of knowledge already well accommodated in specific disciplines. Herein, we will discuss how a new understanding of the “natural information flows” as they prototypically occur in living beings—even in the simplest cells—could provide a sound basis for reappraising fundamental problems of the new science. The role of a renewed information science, multidisciplinarily conceived and empirically grounded, widely transcends the limited “library” and knowledge-repositories mission into which classical information science was cajoled during past decades. Paraphrasing the Spanish philosopher J. Ortega y Gasset, the overhaul of information science itself becomes “the challenge of our time”. Full article