Proceedings, 2017, IS4SI 2017

The International Summit is4si-2017, Digitalisation for a Sustainable Society: Embodied, Embedded, Networked, Empowered through Information, Computation & Cognition, was held 12– 16 June 2017 at Chalmers University of Technology Conference Center in Gothenburg, Sweden. The summit was organized by the International Society for the Study of Information in collaboration with the Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg. Full article

Information Science evolved in the last few decades from peripheral studies of other disciplines which used the concept of information with a more or less common-sense meaning, to a fully-fledged discipline with a growing toolkit of concepts and methods of inquiry. This does not mean that the concept of information acquired a unique definition across research and application fields or that there is a consensus regarding its theoretical description. However no nontrivial concept of science or philosophy has such unchallenged, uniform formulation. Full article

Treating communication as information exchange between systems, we employ the most fundamental structure in mathematics, nature and cognition, which is called a named set or a fundamental triad because it has been useful in a variety of areas such as networks and networking, physics, information theory, mathematics, logic, database theory and practice, artificial intelligence, mathematical linguistics, epistemology and methodology of science, to mention but a few. Here we use structural models based on the theory of named sets for description and analysis of interpersonal communication explicating its structural regularities. Full article

The debate about information is clearly ontological: how do we know what is real? Which is the object of our knowledge? Only after having clarified this point we can start epistemological debates, which at their turn, are part of the ontological perspective (about nature, knowledge, and the world itself, here the vicious circle). Therefore: things do not happen in the world, but happen in our minds. For that reason, information cannot be considered something real that is just expecting to be captured by some information-gatherer entity like a human being. At that point the multidimensional aspects related to information integration produced by some special entities, which at their turn are constrained by specific morphological aspects, reveal the conflictive nature of reality as information. In fact, it is a process. Full article

In his book “What is Information”, Robert Logan explores certain issues related to information on the basis of the connotation of information itself, and puts forward two important theories of “extended mind” and “symbolosphere”. Based on the strong-emergence theory, Logan depicts the material emergence and non-material emergence, and proposes a neo-dualism view, a weak form of dualism. According to this, different from the biosphere, the evolution and reproduction mechanism in symbolosphere do not follow the rules of genetic inheritance, but the mechanisms of memes, belonging to the territory of information study. However, the new dualism faces the difficulty to correctly explain the ontological position of the symbolosphere, while the philosophy of information provides a standard solution in its theory of human evolution. Full article

This paper aims to present a new way of understanding and elaborating the current state of the reality which remains in the substantial dependency on the technology. An example of such a relatively mature technology is the internet. This paper shows the coherent descriptive schema of it based on the idea of discursive space which has two essential ingredients: complexity as a generic model and discourse as its direct substance. Abstract discursive space is created according to the idea of the physical state (phase) space. Discursive space lets further to describe the knowledge phenomenon. Full article

The idea of combining information from a database with information derived directly through the senses is termed augmented reality. Augmented reality (AR) is that organically, in real-time and dynamically overlaying virtual images created by computers and other information on real environment which the observer sees. And when the observer moves in real environment, virtual information changes according to the movement, just like those virtual information truly exists in real world. AR is used with the mobile devices with GPS and WiFi connections. The user gives the system information to identify the desired destination, and the system then generates sufficient information. The disadvantages reveal themselves when there is no WiFi connection or there is no space in the storage of mobile device to maintain the image of the whole map. Then the traditional ways of recognition of localization must be used, most often with analogue (paper) map or image. The presentation of coding of some data and metadata on an image or a map (both in digital and analogue form) permits inter alia the inclusion of e.g., paper map or analogue image into the chain of digital devices use. Some solutions, remarks and comments concerning functioning of the digitally augmented (printed) map within the information society are presented. Full article

I’ll follow a line of thought that suggests to intend “personal autonomy” in a social sense. The urgency to undertake this move arises because of the wide variety of informational sources we are exposed which influence our behavior. Social background represents the basis for autonomy; at the same time, interaction with others (real or virtual) enlarges the possibility for autonomous judgements. My attempt is to try to elucidate the connection between autonomy, knowledge by testimony and the exposition to informational diversity. Full article

This paper aims to explore the ecological characteristics of information and its scientific research from various aspects. Firstly, it explores formal information including eight basic types, and then explores the essence of information involved the logic of position and order or sequence. Finally, it reveals the ecological characteristics of information ontology related to terminology framework and conceptual system, which is characterized by not only the ambiguity of formal semantics and formal information can be automatically identified and eliminated in the computer-aided information processing environment, but also the ambiguity of the content semantics and content information, can pass through language chessboard and knowledge chess game, with essential information and ontological information, to resolve ambiguity. The result is that the basic law of information and its existence is highlighted, and the social and ecological characteristics of information science research are embodied by macro models (ideas and methods) and micro models (Chinese chessboard and English chessboard). Its significance is information ecology and its supporting methodology, formalization and method system to obtain a new breakthrough, specifically for the classification of information phenomenon and attribution on the determination of its scientific basis, which is conducive to the timely identification and resolution of various ambiguities. Full article

Its purpose is to prove information law by logic, mathematics and translation. The method involves: the generalized bilingual logic established on both Aristotle’s formal logic and Frege’s mathematical logic, the linkage function established on both Turing’ strong artificial intelligence using numbers and Searle’s weak artificial intelligence using characters, the ontological knowledge established on both Saussure’s general linguistics and Chomsky’s formal linguistics. The result is that the basic law can be proved by digital and textual twin matrices. Its significance lies in that the global positioning system should be regarded as a special case of the generalized bilingual system. Full article

We consider the derivation of information in both organic and inorganic systems, that is both for organisms and solid state physics, and conclude that information is always subjective, although this presents less of a problem in inorganic systems, where the simplicity of a measurement’s ecosystem implies that information tends towards being objective. Full article

The main goal for this paper is to revisit and rehabilitate structuralist methodology based on the idea of invariance and symmetry for the purpose of the discussion of structural realism and its consequences for ontology of information. This paper continues the earlier work of the author carried out in this spirit. In the present paper the focus is on the general concept of a structure, not necessarily in terms of information, but with important consequences for the study of structural information. The conceptual study of the general concept of a structure is followed by an outline of the mathematical formalism suitable for the development of its theory. Full article

Dimensional analysis is a technique used by scientists and engineers to check the rationality of their calculations, but it can also be used to determine the nature of the quantities used. Information is usually measured in bits, or binary digits, but it could be measured using any other base. I will be arguing that, given the possibility of an objective measure of information in terms of asymmetries, and the relation of information to order, Schrὂdinger’s suggestion that negentropy was an appropriate measure should be taken seriously. After clarifying this notion, I use dimensional analysis to show that negentropy has units of degrees of freedom, and that this is a sensible unit of information. Full article

The new panorama that computers and the new technologies have opened on the entire molecular processes of life, from bioinformatics to “omic” disciplines, and from systems biology to signaling science (to name but a few of the new bioinformational fields), have not cohered yet into a consistent informational scheme or new theory of the cell, so that further high-level characteristics such as meaning, fitness, complexity, and intelligence—closely related to the adaptive relationship with the environment—cannot be consistently approached. Rather, a spattering of dozens of specialized disciplines scarcely interconnected are dealing with multiple partial aspects. Subsequently, explaining the emergence of astonishing integrative inventions related to multicellularity, e.g., the origins of nervous systems and the further development of neuronal complexity, is left in the shadow. Full article

“Partition of existential field” is the highest paradigm of philosophy; and only changes in the highest paradigm can constitute the revolution of philosophy. Since philosophy of information (PI) has triggered radical change in the highest paradigm of philosophy, it will bring about fundamental transformation in philosophy, thus leading to the revolution of philosophy. Full article

Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm theory tells us that the science itself has a certain structure and the development of science has its own laws. His historicism research methodology in philosophy of science provides us a research approach having much referential values for investigating, predicting and programming the process and prospect of the development of Unified Information Science. And the paradigm shift of science firstly needs a breakthrough in its philosophical core-ontological presupposition. Therefore, this article will discuss how the development of Information Philosophy in China provides an opportunity for building the Unified Information Science from the perspective of paradigm theory, analyzing what necessary theoretical foundations that paradigm theory provides for the integration of Information Philosophy and Unified Information Science. Full article

“water origin theory” (WOT) in the world is defined the water as a kind of original medium creating and covering the world. The properties of the water in these WOTs are very similar to the non-existence, The “water” in these WOTs is the most primordial metaphysical concept in the human thoughts. Many concepts in the history of philosophy are similar to it. Thus all the metaphysical concepts in the history of philosophy also point to the areas of non-existence. Full article

The past human civilization stage can be defined as The Material Civilization Stage, with the coming of Intelligent Age, human civilization stage will fundamentally transfer to spiritual stage. The main activities of human beings will change from material creating activities to spiritual life awakening. This will further arouse the evolution of basic paradigm of academic research in several areas, especially social sciences and economics. The methodology of social sciences will more and more return to starting from human nature and life spirituality. And economics enter into New Economic Age, we should establish a new economics theory to adjust to the new Intelligent Age. Full article

The need for a generally accepted definition of “what is information” is self-evident and acute. However, Wu Kun’s definition of information as “a philosophical category indicating indirect being” is unable to satisfy this need, especially when it comes to an everyday usage of the term. That forced me to seek for a more suitable definition of information. Despite the differences, Wu Kun and I agree that we witness today a paradigm shift from data-based computational way of thinking to information-based cognitive way of thinking (Wu Kun calls that “informalization of science”). Below is provided a short comment on this issue. Full article

Different from traditional democracy, ecological democracy not only concerns the interests of people, but also pays attention to the benefits of nature. Its goal is the harmony, freedom, equality and sustainable development between humans, nature and society as a whole. Ecological democracy based on ecological information is necessary with dialogue, communication, exchange and consultation in order to jointly govern and protect the environment because the administrative region has divided the integrity and coherence of the geographical conditions into fragements. The scientific ecological information system constructed in relation to each other can predict the overall ecological evolutional trend and formulate corresponding countermeasures. Ecological information plays an important and basic role to achieve the reconciliation between people and nature, and people to people. Full article

As a kind of thinking mechanism that grasps motion, change and development of objects on the whole, systematic thinking contains a whole set of thinking principles, methods and operation procedures. With the uprising popularity of studies on informational system science and complexity theory, information reveals a new field that the philosophy of the past has not discovered. Wu’s works are putting forward a wholly new scientific thinking way: the Informational Thinking. We can conclude rationally from Wu’s explanations of information that the character of informational thinking way can include and surpass the basic idea of systematic thinking way. So far as the whole process of scientific cognition is concerned, functions of informational thinking are expanded in several aspects. Full article

Meanings are present everywhere in our environment and within ourselves. But these meanings do not exist by themselves. They are associated to information and have to be created, to be generated by agents. The Meaning Generator System (MGS) has been developed to model meaning generation in agents following a system approach in an evolutionary perspective. The agents can be natural or artificial. The MGS generates meaningful information (a meaning) when it receives information that has a connection with an internal constraint to which the agent is submitted. The generated meaning is to be used by the agent to implement actions aimed at satisfying the constraint. We propose here to highlight some characteristics of the MGS that could be related to items of philosophy of information. Full article

The aim of this research essay attempt to reveal the nature of information form the perspective of Marxist Philosophy. The nature of Information is the first question that philosophy of information science and technology research must be answered, thus the problem is still debated. According to Marxist dialectical materialism method to the essence of information has made the analysis and argumentation, points out the essence of information between what is and its internal contact things, and this contact information is presented. Due to the connection between the protean and endless things, thus produce the endless, full of beautiful things in eyes, each are not identical information. To grasp the nature of information, must pay attention to and the specific form of information and information processing, the reorganization, transmission, storage, use and so on. Full article

Philosophy of information should not be taken as the study of philosophical problems in information science and information technology, nor it should be considered as a certain philosophy branch which is affiliated to or can be summed up into any existing traditional philosophy. “Partition of existential field” is the highest paradigm of philosophy; and only changes in the highest paradigm can constitute the revolution of philosophy. Philosophy of information has triggered radical changes in the highest paradigm of philosophy for the first time, so it will certainly bring about the revolution of philosophy. Full article

In contemporary age, the information-internet engineering has been expanding to a global scale, and its deeply social embeddedness is characterized with the digital/material imbrications, cyberspace/user mediating practices, where a new network society emerges. In the network society, newly regional centers are made in the reconstruction of geographical space, personal growth becomes a cyber-action, and unadorned social structure now turns into the network structure. This new network society is a risk society, giving rise to both the disorganized actions (online mass incidents) and the deviant actions (telecommunication frauds). These actions violate the modest standards of public morality, influences on and even ruins the social life. In the face of so many social problems as well as challenges produced by the information-interwork engineering, it is emphasized that the engineering innovations(developing anti-hacker technologies) should play a panopticon-like role in the social governance of network, with its certain synopticon-like management as self-control (the supervision from the public via network) and legal management as external force. Full article

As a kind of thinking mechanism that grasps motion, change and development of objects on the whole, systematic thinking contains a whole set of thinking principles, methods and operation procedures. With the uprising popularity of studies on informational system science and complexity theory, information reveals a new field that the philosophy of the past has not discovered. Wu’s works are putting forward a wholly new scientific thinking way: the Informational Thinking. We can conclude rationally from Wu’s explanations of information that the character of informational thinking way can include and surpass the basic idea of systematic thinking way. So far as the whole process of scientific cognition is concerned, functions of informational thinking are expanded in several aspects. Information civilization is undoubtedly the latest pattern of contemporary human civilization. Nowadays, people are hard to escape the fate of survival of informatization. Its theory and practice are fundamentally reforming and impressively reconstructing existence style of modern society, as well as the modern individual life belief, emotion, behavior, attitude and psychology in every respect. The reconstruction of modern information ecological ethics must face to face with the openness of information culture, non-controllability, freedom, permeability, internationalism, technicality, virtuality, popularity, diversity and immediacy due to the rapid development of information technology and deal with the severe challenges to social management as a result of the tendency of the disordering of network culture, non-controllability, anarchy and liberalization 7. Taking Control of the Optimal Systematic Condition of Objects as the Aim. The modern sense of information ecology refers to a system which is combined by man, practice, value and technology existing in a specific regional environment, which plays a role of educated existence in the integrated system. With the continuing expansion and penetrating of informatization, the spiritual and cultural life of modern society is confronted with the severe challenges of complanation, homogeneity, non-privacy or even alienation and so on. At the same time, it leads to a series of social ethical issues, such as infringement of intellectual property rights, illegal access to information, the illegal use of information technology, information attribution of liability, authorization, infringement of personal right of privacy, infringement of image rights, etc. The emergence of these problems is rooted in information ecological imbalance (It refers to the disequilibrium state among information, human and environment), that is to say, there are information exchange blocks between the internal and external ecological system or imbalance between its elements and subsystems. Information ecological imbalance mainly reflects in the following five aspects: excessive information, information monopoly, information infringing, information pollution and the information syndrome. The root cause of ecological imbalance lies in its entropy. In this increasingly informationized and intelligentized era, “the means of technology” in the sense of pure knowledge is undoubtedly important and indispensable with regard to alleviating the encroachment on information subjects brought by excessive and detrimental information substantially. However, in terms of modern sociology of knowledge, it is more important to pay a close attention to the autonomous construction and normative function of the culture, values and ethics beyond pure knowledge, to keep in mind “the balance of information ecology”, the core value subject of information practice and information culture, to abide by the law of information production, information transmission, information consumption and information disintegration with an aim to ensure the reasonable match of the categories and numbers of information subjects, the coordination of the factors of information ecological environment, the adjustment of information subjects and information ecological environment and the efficient circulation of the whole information system. Thus, the premium practice-value reconstruction of modern information ecological ethics must be based on the diversity and differentiation of information ecology and the principle of coordination, mutual benefits and symbiosis with the aspiration of promoting the coordinated development between human society and information environment. The reconstruction should strive to create a harmonious and open environment to produce information and share information in a fair and just way, to configure and foster more sharing information resources reasonably, to realize the balance of information ecological system and ultimately to promote the sustainable and healthy development of humans, information environment and even the material and spiritual life of human society. Full article

At the invitation of Kun Wu, Head of the International Center for the Philosophy of Information at the Xi’An Jiaotong University, Pedro C. Marijuan paid a ten-day academic visit to the University 4–14 November 2016. During his visit, Marijuan presented three lectures to students and teachers and had two dialogues with Wu November 11th and 12th on the topic of “The Nature and Unification of Information Science and Information Philosophy”. Under this main topic, several sub-topics were discussed, such as the origin and development of information science and technology, the concept of entity, the fundamental principles for building a unified information science, relevant bio-information studies, the epistemological media of information philosophy, the relationship between information flows and matter-energy flows, the statuses of computationalism and general information theory, the structure of unified information science and so on. This extended abstract succinctly displays some basic content of those dialogues. Full article

From the origin of ancient Greek philosophy to the philosophy of medieval ages, although it appeared the discussion of “nominalism” and “realism” in medieval times, the exploration of the concept of “objective but non-real” did not get further developed. From the view of the inherent integration of the unity of general rationality on science and philosophy, Professor Wu Kun revived the concept of “objective but non-reality” and creatively developed his “philosophy of information” system. Because the existence of “objective but non-reality” is inherently a kind of “crossover” field in the traditional philosophy, it certainty solve the problems of traditional philosophy from the ontology, which will lead to the breakthrough in the fundamental paradigm in philosophy, and the philosophy begin its fundamental turn. Full article

The second half of the 20th century has seen the rapid growth of information science, technology, and engineering that amounts to a social and technological revolution. These new trends have generated huge changes in several areas of human life, not only in western societies. I think that in this new age of information civilization the problem of the relationships between information and knowledge has to be readdressed. In this perspective the new challenges related to the generation, distribution, exploitation of information and knowledge have to be seriously seen in the light of their political, economical, educational, cultural, and moral consequences. In my opinion, it is especially in the framework of a study taking advantage of an eco-cognitive perspective that we can reach interesting results, as I have tried to illustrate in my Morality in a Technological World. Knowledge as Duty: the technological advances generated by information science, technology, and engineering of contemporary society have outpaced our moral understanding of the problems that they create and have brought about consequences of such magnitude that old policies and ethics can no longer contain them. I believe that producing, distributing, and applying recalibrated information as appropriate knowledge endowed with optimal and prosperous outcomes has become a duty, one that is just as important as making scientific or medical advances. I contend that to manage these challenges and counter many of information technology’s ill effects is essential to preserve ownership of our own destinies, encouraging responsibility, and enhancing freedom. I will also discuss how objects, structures, and technological artifacts which carry information and knowledge and at the same time also serve, often implicitly, as moral carriers and mediators. Full article

In the perspective of information philosophy, this paper discusses Cursive script space-time evolution from a series of all-round information in calligraphy evolution about history tradition which based in keep often and knew change. In this paper, Dudu was thought to change brushwork method and standard cursive script. Cuiyuan was thought to organization cursive stipple the position relations, Words handwriting coherent leaded to A painting do not move. zhangzhi was thought to take shape yibishu that before and after the continuous problem caused in the calligraphy stroke order successively time irreversibility, causing the cursive handwriting the determination of the overall coherence. Three people tradition of inheritance relationships formed the earliest cursive script. We can see clearly in the space-time evolution of calligraphy aesthetic realization path, which follow cursive old-information and productive cursive new-information and evolution series relationship holographic, from “often” to “change” to form a new “often”. The complexity of Cursive script had matured in informational-assimilation and dissimilation. Finally, it is inspired to the succession and development of contemporary calligraphy for aesthetic path of cursive script. Full article

The information is an indirect existence world, which is different from the direct existence matter world. The knowledge is a systematized information assemblage formed by cognitive subject’s perception and information process and creation of thought; the intelligence is active modes and methods that subjects with cognition and practice abilities grasp, manage, create, exploit, utilize and realize information (including knowledge); the practice is not an activity of pure materiality but a process of realizing subjects’ intentionality information in the objects through implementing planning information. In the human activities, information, knowledge, intelligence and practice have a property of holographic unification. Full article

This paper examines different uses of ideas of layers in philosophical and semiotic thinking and compares these ideas with the use of layers by engineers, especially for the design and analysis of communication systems. It looks at how some authors have drawn on layered thinking to discuss the information, and attempt to draw out some new insights into the nature of information. Full article

Whether in the nearly 40 years’ researches on Chinese Philosophy of Information (PI), or in the conversation between Chinese and Western PI, there has always been a fundamental topic, which is the discussion or definition about the philosophic nature of information, focusing on whether philosophical meaning of information is a “ontological” concept or not, and how could it be possible to become into an issue of ontology. Is there “objective information” (“information-in-itself”) and how to establish a world of “binary-unity of matter and information”? How could the information be possible to exist in the ontological sense, or how to establish the ontological status of information? Is “Ontological information” a kind of “ontological informationalism” or “Pan-informationalism”? etc. It is of great significance for the study on PI to sort out and reconsider these arguments. Full article

This paper for presentation at the 4th International Conference on the Philosophy of Information is based on what Wu Kun has described as the convergence of science and philosophy taking place under the impact of information science and philosophy. I address the question of the extent to which this trend may be considered a revolution in philosophy and whether it is it important and useful to so designate it. This is a preview of a joint paper by Professor Wu and the writer which will go more extensively into the nature of revolution and the philosophy of science as such. Full article

Philosophy of information is the philosophy of the information era, is the essence of the spirit of the information age. It is also a new generalization of the development of contemporary science and philosophy, is the crystallization of integration of philosophy and Science. The quintessence of Philosophy of information is to introduce the concept of information as one of the most basic concepts of philosophy, and its demonstration of the “ontological” status and universal character of information, Furthermore, a complete set of philosophical theories to grasp the world and transform the world. Therefore, “outlook of Philosophy” has been reflected, the field of existence can be redistricted, the basic problems of philosophy are completely expressed, and the ontology of philosophy can be reconstructed. Finally, the research methods of traditional philosophy will be transformed by information methods, it is trying to put the material (quality), energy and information in the theoretical framework of Philosophy of information, seeking the unified information theory. Full article

How to properly understand the concept of information is the real foundation for both studies in information science and information philosophy. This may commonly be accepted by all of us as information researchers. Unfortunately, such a problem has not been solved satisfactory till the present time. This kind of problem could be solved by the joint efforts from the researchers of both information science and philosophy. Full article

With the rapid development and inspiring enlightenment of biological sociology, it is found that the animal world is also quite complex, and the expression of their behavior and emotion also can be seen as good and evil, which is not unique to human beings. So Mencius’ “four-mind of human nature” as the standard of distinguishing human and animal it could anew comprehend. This paper aims to deepen the cognition of Mencius’ “four-mind of human nature” through the two-dimension construction theory of information philosophy. Full article

The relationship between artificial and natural, human intelligence becomes currently an issue of the primary importance for the world. The threats of technological singularity in the form of ultraintelligent machines occupied many philosophers, but thus far nobody paid attention to the encroaching singularity of relatively low level automation which eliminates need for low skill labor force and threatens wide masses of human population. Economists predict that many occupations regarded as requiring high skills will become spurious too. The only solution for the optimal coexistence of the artificial and natural intelligence is in the reform of education. The solution does not require anything new as the liberal arts education promoted human intellectual development leading to the roles which machines least likely can assume. Full article

Information has the characteristic of medium and representation that is the important reason for information to connect the world, including the person’s mind, the human society and the universe. It also opens the door to the self-identity, the underlying magic power. This magic power guide people to adjust their positions in the human society and the universe. Then, the adjustment of human activities will trigger some social changes. Changes may be good or bad. So, people need to respond to them actively. Full article

The issue of information pollutions have become more and more serious these days among which the ones produced by academic cheating has the most catastrophic consequence. Academic cheating is rooted in abandon of integrity; the pursuit of individual interests over academic value, and fabrication of fake innovation with repeat or made up facts Full article

What is the essence of Chinese Calligraphy beauty? It is the most important and difficult question in the history of Chinese Calligraphy art. The explorations that ancient Chinese artists had made on this question can be classified into three main schools: the first school emphasizes the objective manifestation form, which means that calligraphy beauty is natural and in its form; the second school emphasizes the subjective intention, which means that calligraphy beauty is emotion; the third school emphasizes the combination of subjectivity and objectivity. In my opinion, it is necessary to combine the subjectivity and objectivity when we understand the essence of calligraphy beauty. To understand it, however, we cannot just only depend on Chinese philosophical methodology and traditional western philosophy. But the information philosophy in contemporary China, which is built on the basis of criticizing such traditional dualism, can afford an explicit and systematic explanation to the essence of Chinese Calligraphy, and no matter form, image, meaning and mind can be dialectically unified on the basis of information mediums. Full article

Discussions about information centered, either in favor or against, the use of Shannon’s information theory are not only ill-suited but cannot help the discussion unless it is left behind just as the theory of randomness did early in the 1960s with the theory of algorithmic information. While it is true that physics, and many other areas, have been painfully slow at moving away from Shannon entropy and still can find a wide range of applications for it, we will show how eventually more powerful generating and predictive data-driven models will—and should—replace it. I will argue that discussions in Philosophy of Information should be thus one step ahead instead of several behind, guiding not only the philosophical discussion but also leading and steering scientific attention. I will explain the relevance of algorithmic complexity as a salient property at the core of the scientific method, especially in the challenge of causality discovery, and how fears against moving away from Entropy based upon arguments of uncomputability are unfounded, as it precludes progress and embraces defeat. Full article

The information civilization is neither a consequence of industrial civilization, nor an extension of industrial civilization. It is a new form of civilization. It challenges the ideas which were based on industrial civilization, and reshapes the way of how we observe the world, how we make decisions, how we think, play, educate and so on. It will break the structures which formed on the basis of industrial civilization. The root of industrial civilization lies on the separation between science and faith. Science is regarded as a tool to control the world where we are living. Therefore the industrial civilization is a civilization that aims to pursue the maximized personal material interests. The root of information civilization, by contrast, lies on the interconnection based on the information technology. This paper will discuss the meaning of information civilization by comparing the differences between information civilization and industrial civilization and then reveal the contemporary values. Full article

The civic awareness covers four logical parts: consciousness of rights, consciousness of responsibility, consciousness of participation and consciousness of rule. Thanks to the public space expanded by Internet, the civic awareness has emerged rapidly. Nonetheless, there are tendencies of over-emphasis on personal rights, ignorance of rights of others, lack of consciousness of responsibility, and strong but irrational participation. Moreover, as the rule is less legally-binding and recognized, people are hardly aware of that. Full article

The information ecology is not only a social problem (such as the political problem—information security, information policy, or economic problems and management issues), but also a philosophical problem, thus forming a philosophical dimension of information ecology. This dimension focuses on the study of the information environment from the perspective of ecology and reveals some general attributes of the information ecology from the height of philosophy, as it is a spiritual phenomenon rather than a material phenomenon, it is a people-centered phenomenon, and also a value phenomenon, and so on. Full article

The Internet rumor shows the great destructive power by means of Microblogs, WeChat and other emerging carriers. It can not only defame and belittle personal reputation, but also form a strong impact on social order and national stabilization. Therefore, the discussion of the generative mechanism of the Internet rumor is of practical significance. From Schramm's model of communication, people play the role in the communication process as the receiver and spreader, encoding, decoding, and interpreting the code. Meanwhile, according to the information philosophy theory, the knowledge of a person and the creation of information are complex and random. And the communication of the rumors is closely related to the knowledge of the people spreading them. In the present study, we attempted to investigate the generative process of the Internet rumor by setting up an analytical framework for the underlying generative mechanism, deeply seeking methods to govern the Internet rumor. Full article

Virtual reality architectural design can make people in the virtual building environment and even urban space, with different angles to peep or appreciate its external space and interior space dynamic image and layout features. It is produced by the integration, than the model or renderings more image, complete and vivid. Thus, VR technology to virtual reality and real boundaries have become “established facts”, it seems to achieve a virtual and true seamless connection. From the cognitive point of view, this will make Cartesian “mind-the main” and Merleau-Ponty’s “body-the main” trend of unity? Obviously, this problem must be from the human, technology and the relationship between the three aspects of the technical philosophy of phenomenological reflection. Full article

Information civilization is a human civilization relative to the civilization of matter and energy in the sense that information is neither matter nor energy, but it needs matter as its carrier and energy for its communication. Information civilization is a sharing civilization based on information nature. As the information layer of human civilization, it is the process of public information symmetrization with its humanity basis and philosophical foundation. Information civilization is an enslaving material civilization based on information mechanism. Human activity is increasingly becoming information activities that control material and energy. Information civilization is a human nature civilization based on information creative construction that conforms to the human nature most. Human history develops into the stage of the human nature civilization only in the information age. Full article

The series of concepts that are presented by complex information system theory, like the ontological information, information system and so on, not only can exploit new approach for the development of system thoughts, but also can provide the innovation of organization management theories a new horizon or route. As the core constituents of organizations, modern organization management models should be adjusted continuously according to the progress of our time, in order to conform to the development of organizations. And in a time dominated by information technology and information economy, the complex-information-relationships-based technological innovation will help to upgrade modern organization management models, which means that, based on such technological innovation, a brand-new organization management model conforming to characteristics of complex information system can be constructed. This article tries to reconstruct the organization management model by using the complex information system theory and by analyzing the relevant technological innovation. And this reconstructed organization management model, on one hand, can highlight the effectiveness of “information” in the organization management, to tally with the theme of our time; on the other hand, it gives the organization management model a holistic dynamic generation characteristic, to maintain the vitality of the model and to adapt the development nature of organizations Full article

The information thoughts does not originate from modern science and technology. The simple information thoughts germinated in the splendid human ancient philosophies, including ancient Greek philosophies, ancient Indian philosophies and ancient Chinese philosophies. The pre-Qin thoughts and philosophies is the origin of Chinese culture and also is a very important part of ancient world culture. This article focuses on the pre-Qin Chinese philosophy school-Mohism, because, compared to other pre-Qin schools, the Mohism, inaugurated by Mo-tse, relatively paid more attention to the study of natural science. The theories and ideas about primitive elements of the universe, natural laws and correspondence between man and nature in Mohism embody abundant and profound information ideas and information thinking mode. Full article

Digital labor already plays an important role in the development of modern society and it is related with the liberation of human being. There are two distinct arguments: one is that digital labor is the hope of liberation of human labor and bring another chance like a New Renaissance; another is that it is still an alienated form of labor. This article focuses on studying digital labor by dialectics through philosophy reflection. Full article

This paper explores the relationship between natural language and the phenomenon of information. It argues that the Philosophy of Information can provide a bridge between linguistics and information science by offering a deeper understanding of how these two spheres of experience are entangled. Proceeding from the author’s 2002 Foundations of Information Science Online Conference paper ‘The Phantom of Information’ it first asks the question ‘How can we best define information’? The author then offers a brief historical perspective on the Philosophy of Language (PL) and the Philosophy of Information (PI) and highlights where the two fields overlap and interact. He indicates how the ‘information turn’ of the 1990’s grew organically out of the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy. The author treats the phenomenon of information as a new language with distinctive features akin to syntax, person, tense, aspect, voice and mood. Specifically he examines Chomsky’s concept of recursion and redundancy, Wittgenstein’s language as game, Saussure’s langue and parole, Benveniste’s énonciation, informative illocutionary acts (Austin, Searle), the semantic approaches of Dretske Floridi and Barwise, Grice’s implicature and Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker’s ‘inevitable circle between language and information’. He briefly discusses Terrence Deacon’s recent work in biological anthropology on language and information as it relates to his concepts of deixis, reciprocal reference and incompletion. Secondly, the paper indicates how the notion of ‘information’ is embedded in traditional grammar through adpositions which empower language as a faculty for thought and communication. The Subject/Object template of historical grammar imposed on all natural languages is reviewed from the perspective of pragmatics. The notion of ‘information’ itself is traced back (by way of Capurro’s informatio) to a configuration of ideas and concepts in classical Greek philosophy, specifically those of Epicurus and Chrysippus—the founder of formal grammar. Implications for the history and science of information are discussed. Finally, it proposes future directions for this area of study to explore how our total experience of the sphere of language and that of information are interconnected within a broader framework of mind. A distinction between cognition and connaissance is made. The faculty of human language, once the hallmark of humanism, is now under threat by the omnipresent Datocracy and its champion, Homo Informaticus. The informed and informing citizen, Homo Informationis, as defender of the information commons and infoversity, will need to ally with Herder’s Homo Loquens if s/he is to survive. Information philosophers can provide a deeper understanding of these intriguing twin phenomena necessary for our civilization. Full article

The significant breakthrough and innovation obtained by modern information science and technology enable the “information” gradually become the internal driving force of economy development and social progress, causing a great advance of the productivity of modern society, and the information technology quickly transform into the actual productivity-informational productivity. From the perspective of dual-evolution of material world and informational world presented by information philosophy, and through using the information thinking mode and treating the “information” as a way of existence, this article will discuss the evolution of informational productivity and its role for sustainable development society. First, this article will summarize the development process of productivity theories, and will analyze the formation conditions and the evolution process of informational productivity; second, it will expound that the informational productivity is a brand-new productivity form that is different from material productivity and spiritual productivity; third, it will make a dialectical analysis on the systematic, static and dynamic characters, properties and the inherent operation laws of the elements in the structure of informational productivity. At last, this paper will advocate that the realization of informational productivity will depends on the actual conditions, including economy, politics and cultural environments and so on, and will conclude that developing the information productivity is an inevitable road to realize the sustainable development society. Full article

This dissertation studies the problem of information selection of scientific and technical communication. In this thesis I analyze the characteristic, essence, element, structure, function, effect and obstruct in scientific and technical communication, discuss the process, mechanism, principle, method and the way of information selection. I also seek the value of achievements in scientific research and technological development, analyze its evaluation and transformation, and explore the interaction between science-technology and society. I discuss the selective problem of scientific and technical education, scientific and technical popularization. In the process of globalization, there exists unbalanced information communication. At last, I discuss the relation between scientific-technical communication and international competition power. I put forward a proposal for building up an effective network of scientific and technical communication, which is very significant to the national innovation systems and social development. The main conclusions are: (1) scientific and technical communication is the bridge connecting science-technology and society. The communication process is a nonlinear dynamic system in which many elements interact; (2) In order for an effective application, it’s necessary that the communication be all-round based on the need and appropriate selection, not only the information and knowledge of science & technology, but also the scientific method, spirit, civilization be communicated. In the meantime, the social problems need to be taken care of; (3) All individuals, communication media, education and research institutions, corporations, as well as the entire country need to take some proper steps according to the situation for effective selections; (4) During the process of establishing the national innovation systems, carrying out the strategy of sustained development and rejuvenating China through science and education, we must enhance scientific & technical communication and pay special attention to information selection. Full article

Li Erqu is one of the three greatest Confucian at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty. In his theory, Li Erqu thinks that everything in the world is changing, evolution and self generation process, and pay more attention to the first primitive in its movement in the world, which shows the thought of process and generative theory in ancient Chinese philosophy is not only rich but also profound. He inherits and develops Confucian Theory on epistemology and Gong Fu Ontology accomplished by Zhang Zai who put people’s inside and outside together, and put forward one’s heart makes appropriate and fast response to the changing environment outside. Therefore, he thinks the real Confucian has to build his morality inside and struggle to become a ruler in the real life at the same time. Based on the old version of Great Learning, Li Erqu thinks the core of this book is "Mingtishiyong", the first step of learning is "Gewu", and the guiding principle is "Huiguozixin". The mode of interpretation mentioned above reflects Li Erqu combines Neo-Confucianism with the Xin Xue which is proposed by Liu Jiuyuan in South Song dynasty. To an extent, Li Erqu’s epistemology of the Great Learning happened to coincide with some theory of information construction in contemporary information philosophy on this point. Full article

The definition follows the propositional logic, the definition of information is no exception. In recent years, the starting point of the research on the definition of information involves generally investigation of the history of the concept, interdisciplinary research and different aspects of cognition that includes ontology, epistemology, and linguistics and so on, the understanding about the definition of information is divergent. As long as it is about definition of information, regardless what kind of study, however, follows the propositional logic. So the true and false judgment about the definition of information is actually judgment on the proposition of the definition of information. This paper classifies various kinds of intension and definition of the information in the propositional structure by analysing the propositional structure of definition of information and various kinds of defined method about definition of information. Full article

Through discussion on the increments of unordered elements in the transition of 20th century western contemporary music, this paper investigates similarities between 20th century western music and traditional Chinese music. Analyzing chaos in Tradition Chinese Music scripts and inheritance and comparing the fractal features of Chinese and Western music, it also views, from the perspective of philosophy, the value and philosophical meaning of Chinese and Western music. Full article

Having comprehensively investigated the research in the information discipline, we found that there exist numerous mutually isolated theories, but the knowledge about the mutual interrelations was lacking and hence also there is a lack of global theories, principles and common laws of the discipline. These phenomena are obviously a result mainly from the employment of the methodology of mechanical reductionism that seeks and focuses on characteristic constituent parts, neglecting the role of interactions, and context thus assuming that the whole is simply a collection of independent parts. Full article

This paper combined the current brain science development; put forward a novel hypothesis for the pathogenesis of autism which is called Double-Mirror Reflection Model. The camera-monitor experiment’s results and theoretical deduction show that the hypothesis is consistent with the current brain biology cognition and discovery of autism. This hypothesis will provide a new idea for the prevention and diagnosis of autism by the methods of information ecology. Full article

As a new type of machines, the big data-based machine, which may be called the ubiquitous machines, is qualitatively different from the traditional one. The purpose of this paper is to look beyond traditional understanding of human-machine relations and focus on the real challenge brought by the big data based machines in the context of information ecology. Full article

Information studies pursuing a unified theory of information are now trapped in dilemmas because of the hard problems of information, which involve purpose, function, referen, value, etc. Pan-informationalism takes information for granted and considers it as a basic property of the cosmos or being priori to physical properties. It avoids rather than solves the problem. The mainstream of information studies takes the position of methodological reductionism that reducing information to a property that can be quantitatively measured. It is helpful but leaves something essential behind. Transdisciplinary approach takes information as a phenomenon has multiple levels and dimensions that cannot be reduced to but complementary to each other. Analogous to principle of complementarity in quantum mechanics, every level and dimension of information cannot be mathematically transformed to each other but are necessary for explaining information. The shifts between different levels and dimensions are not transformation in mathematic sense but perspective conversion like Gestalt switch. They constitute of ecology of information together. In this spirit, Brier’s cybersemiotics and Deacon’s theory nested hierarchy of information basing on emergent dynamics give us insightful framework to investigate information. Full article

Information ecology requires the support of intelligent information processing, while the latter requires the support of mathematical dialectical logic. This paper introduces the research status and prospect of mathematical dialectical logic for intelligent information processing, including: several basic assumptions (axioms) about information and intelligence; based on mathematical formal logic, gradually liberalizing the constraints to establish the research compendium of mathematical dialectical logic theory system; according to the forming mechanism of various uncertainties, the principles and methods of defining and generating the complete operator cluster of mathematical dialectical logic on propositional level, establishing the complete operator library of intelligent information processing; two application methods of the operator library in intelligent information processing; future work. Full article

In this paper, we use the mathematical theory of factor space to discuss the survival space and ecological problems of the information carrier. It is pointed out that the factor neural network is a suitable mathematical tool to study the information ecology, and it puts forward the preliminary view on the application prospect of the information ecology in the big data and artificial intelligence. Full article

The moral principle that Mr. Floridi merely judges the Good and Evil with the amount of entropy is based on the simplicity and unipolar way of thinking. If practicing in accordance with his principle of Goodness that absolutely excluding entropy, then, in the field of nature and biology can only lead to the end of the dynamic changes, in the field of human mind and scientific development can only lead to rigid and stagnant, in the social field can only lead to fascist autocratic centralization system. The orderly and disorderly development of things have those limits, entropy and entropy increase is not absolute “Evil”, information and entropy reduction is not absolutely “Good”. In the evolution of universe and things embodied in it, there is no evil of eternal entropy increase, and no good of eternal entropy reduction. When the evolution of the whole entropy increases to a certain extent, it will naturally turn into the evolution of the whole entropy reduction; and vice versa, when the evolution of the whole entropy decreases to a certain limit, it will naturally turn into the whole Entropy increase in the evolution process. A reasonable ethical principle should reconcile opposing factors, such as information and entropy, orderly and disorder, integrity and reducibility, certainty and non-determinism, determinism and non-determinism, purpose and randomness, inevitability and contingency, and maintain a reasonable tension between these opposing factors. A reasonable conclusion can only be: Good—relaxation between order and disorder. In addition, the entropy theory (whether it is physical entropy or information entropy) that Floridi borrowed corresponding to order and disorder, and it only deals with grammatical information. The problem of information directly related to ethics and value is mainly in semantics and pragmatics, rather than simply in its grammar, and it is impossible to derive it simply and directly from the size of this formalized entropy. The lagging way of thinking, the deviation of the entropy and the understanding of information theory, led to Mr. Floridi’s information ethical framework hardly to support his ambition to establish macro-ethics. In the same way, his information ethics is also very difficult to be the philosophical foundation of his commitment to the construction of human ecological civilization. In fact, as early as the 20th century, 90 years, Chinese scholars have put forward a general philosophy of value transcended the human-centered narrow position in the name of the natural ontology. This philosophy of value is not only compatible with natural values and human values, but also compatible with material values and information values. It is the value and ethical paradigm putted forward by such a philosophy of value laid the foundation for the construction of human information ecological civilization and the general philosophical basis of sustainable development theory and practice. Full article

Ecological systems are studied in many areas. There are different ecological areas: plant ecology, animal ecology, natural ecology, human ecology, industrial ecology, information ecology, ecology of mind, knowledge ecology and so on. Here we develop a unifying approach to ecological studies developing general ecology, which encompasses and organizes different directions on a reliable foundation. Information ecology as one of the basic areas in ecological studies is placed in a resourceful environment allowing its accelerated development and advanced expansion. Full article

The communication of health knowledge in social media plays an important role in public health literacy and health behavior promotion. But with the accumulation of user-generated health information in social media, more and more misleading health information, health gossip and health rumors are inhibiting the communication of health knowledge and breaking the balance of information ecology in social media. This study focuses on the information ecology in social media and contributes to the communication of health knowledge in social media ecology, highlighting the characteristics of health knowledge and the special Chinese culture. A communication explanatory framework was constructed and 329 samples were tested leveraging PLS. The results indicate that fear communication and trust communication both act as effective communication forms contributing to the communication of health knowledge; face communication acts as a barrier constraining the trust communication while no effect on fear communication. Full article

Interactions between sub-systems and their environment are everywhere. In this paper, logistic map is applied, which felicitously stimulates the chaotic behavior of gene, to make analogy of a health DNA sequence and a mutation DNA sequence. By successfully repairing mutational part of a DNA sequence segment with help of neighbor-compressed method, we propose that compressing the neighbor healthy part to replay the mutational part is an effective way for gene repair. Since information ecosystem also possesses chaotic characteristics, the concept that extracting information from the neighboring environment can amend or complete information of corresponding elements also apply to information ecosystems. Full article

The information really useful to humans must be the trinity of its three components, the form termed syntactic information, the meaning termed semantic information, and the utility termed pragmatic information. But the theory of information set up by Shannon in 1948 is a statistical theory of syntactic information. Thus, the trinity of information theories needs be established as urgently as possible. Such a theory of semantic information will be presented in the paper and it will also be proved that it is the semantic information that is the unique representative of the trinity. This is why the title of the paper is set to “a theory of semantic information” without mentioning the pragmatic information. Full article

Confounding effects of climatic factors temporally contribute to the prevalence of malaria. In this study, we explore a new framework for assessment and identification of hidden ecological factors to the incidence of malaria. A statistical technique, partial least squares path modeling and exploratory factor analysis, is employed to identify hidden ecological factors. Three hidden factors are identified: Factor I is related to minimum temperature and relative humidity, Factor II is related to maximum temperature and solar radiation and Factor III is related to precipitation and wind speed, respectively. Factor I is identified as the most influential hidden ecological factor of malaria incidence in the study area, as evaluated by communality and Dillon-Goldstein’s indices. Full article

This work proposes an error-resilient video coding scheme for improving the ecosystem of Wireless Visual Sensor Network (WVSN). In order to optimize the video information communication over WVSN, this work first provides a discussion on ecology technology model of video transmission in the WVSNs. And then proposes a Distributed Video Parallel Coding scheme, which make use of the correlation of video information in the decoder side, to cope with the loss of video data over wireless error-prone channel. Specifically, this work proposes a Partition Irregular Repeat Accumulate codec, which exhibits better error resilience performance and obtain the same compression ratio with traditional video coding method. The experimental results indicate that the performance of the proposed Distributed Video Parallel Coding scheme is promising and can better optimize the ecosystem of video communication over WVSN. Full article

Intelligent information system, human information system in particular, should be able to successfully interact with its environment, via acquiring information concerning the problem in environment and solving the problem based on the information. The system should then possess such functions as information acquiring, transferring and processing, as well as information conversing to knowledge and intelligence for problem solving. All the functions have to be integrated into a process of “information conversion and intelligence creation”. What will be presented in the paper is the law that governs the entirety of the process. The methodology, model, concepts, theories and principles that all support the law will be explained in brief. Full article

Mining the inherent emotional feature of life is of great significance, and the method to extract the inherent emotional feature with a small number of samples is explored based on neonatal cry in this study. The minimum embedding dimension is taken as the nonlinear feature representing nervous system activity and emotion, and is also analyzed at multiple scales. It is found that the minimum embedding dimension of pain cries is higher than that of sad cries, and has a certain change rule in different frequency bands. The results are consistent with related emotional research of brain nerve activity and the characteristics of the pain cry, and may help in the study of information ecology of the brain in different emotions. Full article

In the ecological chain of mobile video communication, most of the existing video coding schemes are focusing on the compression performance while sacrificing the computational complexity. For mobile-to-mobile video communication, both the transmitter and receiver devices may have limited computing resources. Consequently, the unbalance between the power consumption and compression efficiency is critical for the video communication ecosystem. Based on the advantages of the cloud computing, this study proposes a low complexity end-to-end video communication system based on the cloud transcoding. A distributed video coding (DVC) to high efficiency video coding (HEVC) transcoder is proposed for implementation on cloud, while the user ends are computational light-weighted. Full article

The universe is a constantly evolving information ecosystem, which originates from the information as the energy (the essence of information is energy), thus forming the material, life, spirit and other elements of the universe. There are only two kinds of basic objective existence, such as information (energy) and limiting particle, which constitute the myriad things in universe. Full article

In this study we present a new ecosystem for urban planning which highly depended on a variety of basic information. From information ecology view, the urban planning process could be seen as an ecological chain with the conversion of “survey—analysis—planning-implementation”. Over decades’ urban researchers usually focus on the conversion of “planning” and “implementation”, while less effort has been made in the “survey” and “analysis” part. Most of works only collect limited data from which little information can be obtained describing human activity. In order to improve the information ecosystem for urban planning, we first introduces “Street Vibrancy Assessment based on Video Data” into urban planning, focusing on the understanding of human activity. Compared with other data, video data is relevant more accurate and more reliable at micro-scale. Based on video data, an urban planning case is designed and discussed. In such case, the human mobility and activity parameters based on video data are analyzed and fed into a specific calculation model to get the external representation of street vibrancy. The correlation between the external representation and the constituent elements of the street vibrancy are exploited afterward for the assessment. Finally the assessment results can be used to guide the “planning” and “implementation” of the urban planning ecosystem. Full article

This paper introduces the core ideas of the information ecological theory，analyzes the report recently released by British House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee named “Cyber Security: Protection of Personal Data Online” by information ecological theory framework including information man and information circumstance, elaborates the roles and ecological niches of the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office, TalkTalk and its users, third-party partner agencies, and public safety agencies in the personal data protection ecosystem, summarizes it’s experiences and practices in this theory frame; On this basis, the article analyzes the existing problems of online personal data protection ecosystems, such as ecological chain fragmentation and ecosystem imbalance; Then this work tries to find the possible cause of the problem, establishes personal data protection macro mechanism and proposes appropriate countermeasures. Full article

The law of information transformation reveals the essential of cognition, to fasten the process of information transformation for cognition body, we present the knowledge ecological tree analysis and algorithm in the paper based on factor space theory, which provides a plate of mathematical description for information ecosystem. Full article

Due to numerous factors two categories of methodology in scientific studies have been established till the present time, one for classical physics and the other for information science, each of which have been successful in its own domain. On the other hand, however, when dealing with the complex problems the cooperation and integration between the two categories of methodology will become an unavoidable necessary. Taking the human medical study as an example of complex problems, the necessity of methodological integration will be discussed in the paper. Full article

Many academic disciplines and applied fields use the concepts and language of information, yet different areas talk in different ways and make different implicit or explicit assumptions about the nature of information. The Difference That Makes a Difference (DTMD) series of conferences and workshops aims, therefore, at interdisciplinary sharing of insights on information by bringing academics and practitioners into conversation and dialogue. Full article

In a world that is highly saturated by data, sifting it and making sense of it has become increasingly important. A key mechanism for this process is narrative—the stories we tell about the world, whether in terms of politics or technology, which enable us to select information that we see as important. Yet narratives are highly contested and multiple. This article discusses the dynamics of narrative creation, via a process of selective information, arguing that this leads some people to see particular data as crucial information, while leading others to ignore it completely. Full article

In the current digitalised society, communication level requires high predicative competence and concept clarity to avoid predicative fallacies and to manage the contemporary information overload successfully. In this paper we review the fundamental conceptual and operative requirements to achieve this goal. The Evolutive Elementary Pragmatic Model (E²PM) operative tool can be quite helpful. This paper presents a relevant contribute to model and simulation, offering an example of new forms of evolutive inter- and trans-disciplinary post-Bertalanffy modeling. Full article

Facebook promises to make us readers and authors of our own stories, but in fact, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has created a production line of narratable narration that imprisons lives, biographies, and possible tales. Processing the metadata, behaviors and interactions of billions of users within the platform’s walled garden, the algorithm imposes itself as an omniscient and totalitarian narrator, a predictive storytelling machine that benefits the only readers that truly count: advertisers Full article

This talk will focus on cognitive processes between conscious and subconscious awareness in order to present a slightly different definition of narrative. Rather than simply accepting that narrative is a conscious selection of stories subject to bias, I will argue that biases are the primary structure of narrative and that their success is explained in painfully simple terms. Full article

This keynote will give an introduction to IEEE P7000, the first standard IEEE is ever going to publish on ethical issues in system design. As co-chair of IEEE P7000 I am going to inform the audience about what this standard will be all about. In a nutshell: engineers, technologists and other project stakeholders need a methodology for identifying, analyzing and reconciling ethical concerns of end users at the beginning of systems and software life cycles. The purpose of IEEE P7000 is to enable the pragmatic application of this type of Value-Based System Design methodology which demonstrates that conceptual analysis of values and an extensive feasibility analysis can help to refine ethical system requirements in systems and software life cycles. It will provide engineers and technologists with an implementable process aligning innovation management processes, IS system design approaches and software engineering methods to minimize ethical risk for their organizations, stakeholders and end users. In the course of the keynote I will also show how relevant values and system design ideas can be gained from using utilitarianism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics. Full article

The Physical Computability Thesis (PCT) states that the physical world is computable. Sometimes it is argued that a well-evidenced logical principle, the Church-Turing Thesis, entails PCT. But this reasoning is faulty. I argue that it is an open question whether PCT is true: even if the universe is finite, physics may turn out to confound PCT. What would a non-computable physics look like, and what would be the implications for scientists and engineers? I review potential countermodels to various formulations of PCT. Full article

Although molecules like DNA can be analyzed in terms of their intrinsic information content on the basis of their structural complexity, it is their role in regulating cell metabolism and preserving genetic inheritance that is central. It is a basic tenet of cellular molecular biology that the sequence of nucleotides in a DNA polymer provides information contributing to the structure of proteins and their metabolic interactions and that DNA replication preserves and transmits this information across organism generations. In this respect one can describe DNA structures as being “about” protein structures and indirectly about cell function with respect to a probable environment. It is not merely that we as observers have made this referential assessment. It is intrinsic to cell function and evolution. But there is nothing intrinsic to nucleic acid polymers that makes them intrinsically referential. How a molecule like DNA or RNA could have acquired this property of being “about” other molecules and their interrelationships remains mysterious. In this presentation I will describe a molecular thought experiment that demonstrates how dynamical constraints embodied in a simple molecular system can become spontaneously offloaded onto a molecule’s structural constraints such that this structure separately preserves and re-presents the dynamical constraints that are critical for reconstituting the containing molecular system should it become disrupted. Three variants on this model system provide unambiguous examples of three canonical referential relationships that roughly correspond to iconic, indexical, and symbolic referential relationships. This analysis can help to formalize the relationship between physical-chemical, informational, and semiotic theories of life, as well as provide clues to the origin and nature of molecular genetic information. Full article

Digital technology is changing society and industry, but how big is the change and how fast will it come? Can we speak of a digital revolution comparable to the industrial revolution? Does it make sense to speak of data as the new oil? Will av world with Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data be so different as to warrant the talk of a digital revolution? What are the important challenges facing us, and how do we make the most of the new technologies? Full article

The science of psychology has become fragmented due to its multiple roots, diverse methodologies and premises. Using simple information related notions like input and output, combined with recursive systems’ view a powerful theory is presented, based on what classic psychology notions like self, consciousness or emotions are re-defined and are brought to a common ground. If accepted by the research community, the approach could also grow into a unifying thinking frame for social sciences (sociology, history, political sciences, economics etc.). In addition to cognitive science’s efforts it aims to integrate our knowledge about both cognition and groups, personality, genders etc. Full article

As big enterprises and consumers communicate, collaborate and conduct commerce almost at the speed of light using voice, data and video, information explosion (a term first used in 1941, according to the Oxford English Dictionary) has created a need for its accumulation, processing and integration to create “knowledge.” Knowledge processing, in turn, allows us to use the information to make strategic decisions and improve the efficiency of the processes involved. Therefore, knowledge processing systems, their theory and practice are receiving renewed focus. These systems include processes and activities such as cognition, knowledge production, learning, knowledge acquisition, reasoning, management and application. In this paper we discuss how knowledge processing can be viewed as manipulation of various knowledge structures and their transformation. We argue that efficient organization of knowledge processing has to be based on structure transformations of data represented in a symbolic form. Full article

In this paper we analyze our current understanding of genes, neurons and the neocortex and draw a parallel to current implementations of cognitive computing in Silicon. We argue that current information technologies have evolved from the original stored program control architecture implementing the Turing machines which allowed us to model, configure, monitor and control any physical system using a Universal Turing Machine model. However, large scale of distributed computations and their tolerance requirement to fluctuations have created new challenges. We suggest that a new agent based computing model extension to the current Turing machine meets this challenge and provides a path to cognitive self-learning and self-managing systems. Full article

A combination of directed homotopy topological and Morse theoretic methods can significantly extend control and information theories, permitting deeper understanding of `developmental’ pathologies afflicting a broad spectrum of biological, psychological, socioeconomic, machine, and hybrid processes across different time scales and levels of organization. Such pathologies emerge as phase transitions driven by synergistic forms of environmental insult under stochastic circumstances, causing `comorbid condensations’ through groupoid symmetry breaking. The resulting statistical models should be useful for the analysis of experimental and observational data in many fields. Full article

We present a rational introduction to the logical processes that govern, how tokens in a sequence—the DNA—determine the assembly of commutative tokens—the cell’s constituents—in a quasi-bijective way. We discuss the relation of sequences to commutative assemblies. We present properties of natural numbers that create logical relations which are concurrently sequential and commutative. The basic concept is that of consolidation of logical conflicts and contradictions into a system of compromises. The main tool we use is known as “cyclic permutations”. The numeric facts that serve as the backbone of the argumentation are to be found in OEIS. Full article

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. Full article

Analyses the concept of document, using as theoretical support, discussions created by authors from the library and Information Science mainly from France and United States traditions. Discussions about information philosophy based on the works of Rafael Capurro and Bernd Frohmman are also used to analyze the concept of document. Demonstrate that human biological samples, stored in biobanks, can be considered as documents. Full article

The presentation proposes to complement an existing development on meaning generation for animals, humans and artificial agents by looking at what could have existed at pre-biotic times and what could be a post-human meaning generation. The core of the approach is based on an existing model for meaning generation: the Meaning Generator System (MGS). The MGS is part of an agent submitted to an internal constraint. The MGS generates a meaning when it receives information that has a connection with the constraint. The generated meaning is used by the agent to implement an action (physical, biological or mental) aimed at satisfying the constraint. The action can be in or out the agent. The purpose of the presentation is to widen the MGS approach in order to reach a coverage for information, constraint and meaning from a pre-biotic level to a possible post-human one. We present the MGS for animals, humans and artificial agents with the corresponding constraints. We then look at what could have been a constraint at a pre-biotic far from thermodynamic equilibrium level. At the other end of the spectrum we look at a possible post-human status with an evolution of a ‘limit anxiety’ human constraint and also with AAs submitted to animal or human type constraints. Such approach links information science with physics, evolution, anthropology, semiotics and human mind. Continuations are proposed. Full article

Evaluation of the chosen mathematical model of a physical system (phenomena) is considered within the framework of thermodynamic theory and Mark Burgin’s general theory of information. The finiteness of the model cased by the limited number of chosen variables and the need to use the International system of units cause the existing of the a-priori uncertainty of a physical-mathematical model. The proposed formula for calculation of this uncertainty provides its value comparison with the actual experimental measurement uncertainty. Examples of practical application in the framework of the considered concept are introduced regarding analysis of the Boltzmann constant and gravitational constant measurements. Full article

Structures play a crucial role in the world. They define things and thoughts, processes and functions, images and ideas. The goal of this research is to study structural information, which is intrinsically connected to structures. Here we present two approaches. In one of them, structural information is information in structures. In the other one, structural information is information about structures. Full article

We study the relation between Information Theory and Automatic Problem Solving to demonstrate that the Entropy measure can be used as a special case of $-Calculus Cost Functions measure. We hypothesize that Kolmogorov Complexity (Algorithmic Entropy) can be useful to standardize $-Calculus Search (Algorithm) Cost Function. Full article

Scientific methodology is widely accepted as macroscopic reflect of the scientific view on one hand and as the general guideline to a certain class of research works on the other hand. Therefore, methodology employment is extremely crucial in scientific research. Whether the methodology employed in a field of research works is proper would, to a large extent, determine whether the achievements in the field of research could be made. However, there is no one single general methodology existed that can be applied to all fields of research with success. Which of the methodology should be employed in a certain field of research depends on which kind of phenomenon is studied. This paper will discuss the methodology consideration for information Studies and the methodology of information ecology is recommended. Full article

This paper explores the difference between companion animals and domestic livestock from the viewpoint of neo-cybernetical informatics, referring to an educational trial which was to raise a young pig for eating. The problem in this trial is based on an informatic difference between seeing a pig as a friend and as food in daily lives. Our behavior as being a communicational actor should be distinguished from just being a non-communicational sign interpreter because we can assume ethical norms as long as a communication system continuously operates. This argument can be a starting point for developing a new discussion on ethical issues, not in terms of the difference of intelligence or the importance of lives, but in terms of the possibility of construction of a communication system with us. Full article

The concept of complexity has been neglected in the legal domain. Both as a qualitative concept that could be used to legally and politically analyze and criticize legal proceedings and as a quantitative concept that could be used to compare, rank, plan and optimize these proceedings. In science the opposite is true. Especially in the field of Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT) the concept of complexity has been scrutinized. In this paper we introduce a model of problem complexity in the legal domain. We use a formal model of legal knowledge to describe the parameters of the problem complexity of legal cases represented in this model. Full article

In his search for the ‘essence’ of continuity, Richard Dedekind (1872) discovered the notion of cut. Epistemologically speaking, a cut produces a separation of a simply infinite system into two parts (Stücke) such that all the elements of one part are screened off all the elements of the other. The distinct continuity of a two-state quantum system is encapsulated in the notion of qubit, the basic ‘unit’ of quantum information. A qubit secures an infinite amount of information, which, however, appears to be only penetrable through ‘sections’ of classical bits. Whereas Dedekind’s cuts dwell on the discrete of number theory, the theory of nature is primarily concerned with continuous transformations. In contrast with Dedekind’s line of thought, could the notion of information be derived from a ‘principle’ of continuity? Full article

For an universal and scale-invariant definition of information the idea of a “smallest” information is discussed. Elementary information is defined. For the utilization of this approach the question of the further emergent development of elementary information is analyzed, a scheme for scale dependent emergence processes of information is suggested. Full article

Information is a subject of multiple efforts of conceptualization leading to controversies. Not frequently sufficient effort is made to formulate the concept of information in a way leading to its formal mathematical theory. Discussions of conceptualizations of information usually are focusing on the articulation of definitions, but not on their consequences for theoretical studies. This paper compares two conceptualizations of information exploring their mathematical theories. One of these concepts and its mathematical theory were introduced in earlier publications of the author. Information was defined in terms of the opposition of one and many and its theory was formulated in terms of closure spaces. The other concept of information was formulated in a rather open-ended way by Bateson as “any difference that makes a difference”. There are some similarities between Bateson’s concept of information and that of MacKay. In this paper a mathematical theory is formulated for this alternative approach to information founded on the concept of a difference in terms of generalized orthogonality relation. Finally, the mathematical formalisms for both approaches are compared and related. In conclusion of that comparison the approach to information founded on the concept of difference is a special case for the approach based on one-and-many opposition. Full article

Quantitative analysis of messages from the Foundations of Information Science (FIS) mailing list posted from between 6 December 1997 and 29 November 2016. Messages, their authors and dates are taken from the official FIS website. Messages are classified according to the main topics of discussion, through the analysis of the titles, in order to identify the main authors and topics discussed over the years. Then, the textual analysis of the messages of each topic is carried out to determine the specific vocabulary of each subject. The results show that the discussions are, in general, multidisciplinary, with topics independent of each other. The most discussed topics were “Information and Physics” and “Definition of Information” and the top 10 authors participated, on average, in 72% (23 of 32) of the topics. Full article

Information is usually in strings, like sentences, programs or data for a computer. Information is a much more general concept, however. Here I look at information systems that can be three or more dimensional, and examine how such systems can be arranged hierarchically so that each level has an associated entropy due to unconstrained information at a lower level. This allows self-organization of such systems, which may be biological, psychological, or social. Full article

It is known that living things are a type of dissipative systems. A very special class, because they manage to stay far from thermodynamic equilibrium for reasons that are internal to these systems. Living systems are good enough at capturing energy from their environment and dissipating that energy as heat. But in the middle, self-organizes, they survive and replicate themselves. Full article

A transdisciplinary theory for cognition and communication has at least been described from the following paradigms (1) An objective information processing view or info-mechanicism; (2) A social constructivist view; (3) A systemic cybernetic view of self-organization; (4) Semiotic paradigms of experience and interpretation (phenomenological and hermeneutical aspects) including biosemiotic going into animal, plant, bacterial and cellular living systems. They all have their transdisciplinary shortcomings. A transdisciplinary framework called Cybersemiotics that integrate phenomenological and hermeneutical aspect in Peircean semiotic logic with cybernetic and systemic autopoietic emergentist process-informational view, is suggested. Full article

In this talk, I will explain how algorithmic information theory, which is the mathematical theory of randomness; and algorithmic probability, which is the theory of optimal induction, can be used in molecular biology to study and steer artificial and biological systems such as genetic networks to even reveal some key properties of the cell Waddington landscape, and how these aspects help in tackling the challenge of causal discovery in science.[...] Full article

In this essay, I discuss ethical risks of pursuing participatory research as an industrial doctoral student. I particularly focus on two facets. First, ethical questions that may arise as a consequence of the dual character of the work format, i.e., being both an academic student and a practitioner in the field of study. Second, ethical consideration in relation to a participatory research method in which the researcher recognises his or her role as a change agent within the system, but studies the system as a whole. I conclude that there might be several ethical risks associated with such research, of which the doctoral student should be conscious and transparent. Full article

The United Nations listed maternal mortality as a major problem especially in developing countries. Predictive models that predict pregnancy complications have been suggested as an intervention to reduce maternal mortality but at the moment, many are not used in clinical practice. This study proposes a service-dominant perspective as an alternative use of predictive models to create value for maternal healthcare. I anticipate that through the use of the service innovation framework and social capital theory, I can study how health practitioners and pregnant women can be empowered with skills and knowledge to predict pregnancy complications and trigger collaborative value creation. Full article

The term disciplinarity seems not to have a commonly accepted definition but it relates to a specific field of academic study. Disciplinary is an adjective related to the branch of learning or knowledge. When talking about a discipline, it is not merely a body of knowledge but also a set of practices by which the knowledge is acquired, confirmed, implemented, preserved, and reproduced. Post (2009) argues that questions of disciplinarity seek criteria for validating the “eccentric” angle of vision of a particular “intellectual” community in terms of its methodology, subject matter, curriculum or its shared purpose. The discussion in this essay focuses on transdisciplinarity and information systems Full article

Cloud computing is a new generation of computing systems, increasingly developing as a promising solution to deal with the explosion of computing complexity and data size. One of the main concerns to shift from traditional computing systems to Cloud is ethical consideration. In many cases, ethical issues depend on particular applications and circumstances. However, we intend to identify ethical issues of Cloud, inherent in the fundamental nature of the technology rather than specific circumstances. There are multiple technological criteria affecting ethical issues in Cloud, such as security; privacy; compliance and performance metrics. Along with the technological criteria, a set of rules and regulations called Terms and Conditions (T&C) effects on ethics in the Cloud. T&C is an agreement specifying the rights and obligations of users, Cloud providers, and third parties. In this ongoing research work, we aim to firstly investigate the main technological criteria affecting ethics in Cloud, while at the same time, we provide a discussion to indicate that how each of these criteria influences ethics. Secondly, we consider the relationship between the T&C rules and ethics. Finally, we have a quick look at ethical issues in Cloud versus traditional web-based applications. Full article

As systems, for example vehicle systems, get increasingly autonomous and information intense, the information exchanged with the user, i.e., the operator, are increasingly becoming a designed interaction. This work investigates how interaction technologies, interaction design principles, and machine information systems can be used to provide user experiences and efficient interaction between the operator and industrial mobile machines; for example, agricultural machines and construction machines. In this pursuit the research aims to explore the use of mixed reality interaction and visual presentation using see-through interfaces and symbolic metaphors, to enhance the interaction for operators working with these types of machines. Full article

Synthesis of time-triggered network schedules is a known practice to obtain low jitter and bounded end-to-end delay needed in some applications where not only the information but the transmission timings are crucial. However, synthesizing such schedules is a NP-complete problem where state-of-the-art synthesizers are being out scaled by the increasing size and complexity of new application networks. We present different divide and conquer approaches to handle the increasing complexity of future networks while maintaining the synthesis time reasonably low. Full article

The automotive domain has witnessed a tremendous growth in the amount of software deployed in cars. The car no longer contains mechanical components only, but more and more functionality is controlled by embedded systems. Due to this, the domain is multi-disciplinary, involving engineers from mechanical, electrical, electronics and software disciplines. However, this is now changing as the problems being addressed in the domain are becoming more complex. Problems are now societal such as smart cities or green mobility. Solving such complex problems requires going beyond multi-disciplinarity and towards transdisciplinarity. This involves including stakeholders that represent the users and also the societal interests. This paper discusses opportunities and challenges for trans-disciplinarity in the automotive domain. Full article

Self-driving cars are a transdisciplinary topic and well discussed in public and science. However, ethical dilemmas, such as the trolley problem, seem to dominate those discussions and consequently obfuscate much bigger ethical challenges in the development and operation of self-driving cars. We propose a systematic approach by creating a conceptual ethical model that connects components, systems and stakeholders to pinpoint ethical challenges for self-driving cars. This will help to move away from stagnating discussions over abstract thought experiments and to move forward to address and solve actual ethical challenges. Full article

Morphological computing, at its core, entails that the morphology (shape + material properties) of an agent (a living organism or a machine) enables and constrains its possible (physical and social) interactions with the environment as well as its development, including its growth and reconfiguration [1]. [...] Full article

One fundamental aspect of Human-Robot Interactions is the role of the morphologies of both humans and machines. Basically, humans are naturalistically oriented towards the social interaction with other humans. Taking into account that fact that human morphologies run a social role, and that affection or emotion are fundamental aspects of the eco-cognitive and social processes, this talk tries to relate some classic and current challenges related to HRI: moral bias, emotional role into HRI, and dynamical morphologies in transhumanist scenarios. Full article

Eco-cognitive computationalism sees computation as active in physical entities suitably transformed so that data can be encoded and decoded to obtain fruitful results. Turing’s original intellectual perspective first of all clearly depicted the evolutionary emergence in humans of information, meaning, and of the first rudimentary forms of cognition, as the result of a complex interplay and simultaneous coevolution, in time, of the states of brain/mind, body, and external environment. At the same time it furnished the conceptual framework able to show how thanks to an imitation of the above process the subsequent invention of the Universal Practical Computing Machine is achieved, that computer that in the perspective offered by Turing I call “mimetic mind”. It is by extending this framework that I think we can limpidly see that the recent emphasis on the simplification of cognitive and motor tasks generated in organic agents by morphological aspects implies—in robotics—the need not only of further “computational mimesis” of the related performances—when possible—but also the construction of appropriate “mimetic bodies” able to render the accompanied computation simpler, according to a general appeal to the “simplexity” of animal embodied cognition. Full article

Natural and morphological forms of computing have diverse conceptualizations. This paper presents an alternative view on morphological computing based on a slightly generalized form of a Turing machine in which one-way action of head on tape is replaced by mutual interaction. This generalized (symmetric) Turing machine can serve as a component of a multi-level complex computing system in much closer analogy to living objects which tend to form systems of very high level of complexity (with levels starting at molecular level), through cellular one to organismal level, or possibly to the level of population or eco-system. Full article

I will present a memory model that can account for many aspects of the presence of an inner world, ranging from object permanence, episodic memory and planning to imagination and reveries. It is modelled after neurophysiological data and includes many parts of the cerebral cortex together with models of emotion and arousal systems. Attention plays a crucial role as the interface between the inner and the external world and directs the flow of information from sensory organs to memory as well in the opposite direction as top-down influences on perception. The internal and external world can be seen as two dynamical systems that can be coupled or decoupled in different ways depending on the state of the organism and the task at hand. Full article

Although cognitive and social development are often studied in isolation, many researchers have demonstrated convincingly that cognition and the social environment are inseparable components of development. For instance, the social context plays a crucial role in many facets of cognitive development. Critically, the mechanisms by which social interactions impact cognitive development remain poorly understood. Here, we present a dynamic field model that elucidates the neural and behavioral mechanisms by which social interactions contribute to developmental changes in cognition and how these influences are reciprocal in nature. Full article

As the scale of computations become large and as both people and machines demand communication, collaboration and commerce at the speed of light, rapid fluctuations in the demand for computing performance and fluctuations in available resource pools, both make it necessary to respond fast and readjust the computation structures and associated resources so as to not disrupt the user experience or the service transaction. Current Information Technologies from their memory-starved, server-centric, low-bandwidth origins from von Neumann’s stored program control implementation of the Turing Machine are evolving with new architectures to meet the demand for scale and speed. In this paper we discuss the evolution of current IT to cognitive IT, where computing processes become self-aware of their resource requirements in real-time and seek to adjust them from a global knowledge of available resource pools and their provisioning processes. This is transforming the current state of the IT as we know it to a cognitive IT. Full article

This paper describes a new approach to autonomic computing that brings self-managing properties to applications and workflows of applications using a new computing model inspired by the functioning of the Turing Oracle Machine discussed in Alan Turing’s Thesis. This approach, based on an effective management of the knowledge about the function, the structure and the fluctuations of the managed workflow, makes it possible to create an interoperable global network of clouds that can be used to support self-provisioning workloads with auto-scaling, auto-failover and live migration, guaranteeing the required level of QoS without disrupting user experience. Full article

The paper reviews existing models for organizing information for machine learning systems in heterogeneous computing environments. In this context, we focus on structured knowledge representations as they have played a key role in enabling machine learning at scale. The paper highlights recent case studies where knowledge structures when combined with the knowledge of the distributed computation graph have accelerated machine-learning applications by 10 times or more. We extend these concepts to the design of Cognitive Distributed Learning Systems to resolve critical bottlenecks in real-time machine learning applications such as Predictive Analytics and Recommender Systems. Full article

In the paper we present several models of computation for autonomic cloud computing. In particular, we justify that for autonomic cloud computing if we require perfect self-reflection, we need models of computation going beyond Turing machines. To approximate self-reflection, models below Turing machines are sufficient. The above claims are illustrated using as an example the DIME Network Architecture. Full article

Habits and rituals play a fundamental role in human life [1] and are worthy to be considered also because they represent a form of embodied knowledge. According to Dubray [2], habits can be studied in general, but also with the focus on their physiological, psychological, ethical, pedagogical, philosophical and theological aspects. [...] Full article

The information age presents us with a gambit: present information transparency to level the asymmetries of information, “democratizing” the opportunities for people to act according to more informed, autonomous decisions; or to control and manipulate our inherent human vulnerabilities to further skew power towards increasing asymmetrical positive feedback loops benefitting the few.[...] Full article

Peirce’s view of science and religion differs from the received view and therefore has interesting consequences for how we see the connections between the two [1]. Peirce was like Karl Popper a fallibilist opposing the logical positivist epistemology of possibility of verification of scientific theories and models. The end of research in a certified truth is an ideal far away in the future [2]. Furthermore he was not a physicalistic material mechanists but a process philosopher and an evolutionary synechist [3]. This means that he thought that mind and matter was connected in a continuum and that matter has some internal living qualities, because he did not believe that the world is ruled by absolute precisely determinable laws that somehow existed before the manifest universe in time and space came to be [4]. A further problem with the mechanicism of classical physics was that the time concept in Newton’s theory of motion was reversible. Time had no arrow. But in Peirce’s cosmogony change is at the basis as Firstness is imbued with the tendency to take habits and time therefore has an arrow and is irreversible and therefore what the laws manifested as the universe develop. This was unthinkable from a mechanical point of view. But Prigogine and Stengers [5]—in there development of non-equilibrium thermodynamics based on Boltzmann’s probability interpretation of thermodynamics—got irreversibility accepted as the basic process in physical ontology and in 2013 the recognized physicist Lee Smolin published the book Time Reborn [6] where he accepts Peirce’s as well as Prigogine’s views on the nature of time, change and law, which was a big change in foundational conception og physics. In contrast to Smolin and Prigogine Peirce also grounds his philosophical framework in phenomenology. He is inspired by German idealism and Naturphilosophie especially Hegel and Schelling though he is also a kind of empiricist. This makes him a kind of process objective idealist; but a very special one. In the tradition of Aristoteles, Hegel and Kant he worked out system of basic categories that had deep influence on his Cosmogony [4]. Full article

Habits as a form of behavior re-execution without explicit deliberation is discussed in terms of implicit anticipation, to be contrasted with explicit anticipation and mental simulation. Two hypotheses, addressing how habits and mental simulation may be implemented in the brain and to what degree they represent two modes brain function, are formulated. Arguments for and against the two hypotheses are discussed shortly, specifically addressing whether habits and mental simulation represent two distinct functions, or to what degree there may be intermediate forms of habit execution involving partial deliberation. A potential role of habits in memory consolidation is also hypnotized. Full article

My contribution aims to show the common source of habits and rituals, namely the fact that they are grounded on the same logic or process of repetition even though they may have different functions. After a brief introduction into the philosophy of rituals, I propose an interpretation of rituals as cultural activity which is based on the same mechanism of habits but it is expressed in a we-form. Full article

Religion is a fundamental part of the lived experience of the majority of humanity. This paper reports on the conceptualization of religion through an understanding of its relationship with information. The focus is on practice and ritual rather than belief. Information is here understood in terms of Bateson’s definition of “the difference that makes a difference”. The paper explores information in a ritual context in a variety of settings, as well as touching on work done regarding other uses of information by religious communities, such as church websites and learning environments. Full article

The externalization/disembodiment of mind is a significant cognitive perspective able to unveil some basic features of abduction and creative/hypothetical thinking, its success in explaining the semiotic interplay between internal and external representations (mimetic and creative) is evident. This is also clear at the level of some intellectual issues stressed by the role of artifacts in ritual settings, in which also interesting cases of creative meaning formation are at play. Taking advantage of the concept of manipulative abduction, I will stress the role of some external artifacts (symbols in ritual tools). I contend these artifacts, and the habits they originate, can be usefully represented as memory mediators that “mediate” and make available the story of their origin and the actions related to them, which can be learned and/or re-activated when needed. This is especially patent in an anthropological perspective. Furthermore, symbolic habits—for example in psychoanalytical frameworks—can also be seen as memory mediators which maximize abducibility, because they maximize recoverability, in so far as they are the best possible expression of something not yet grasped by consciousness. Full article

Philosophy itself is philosophizing to our experience of the world, life, or thought, and it is truly enriching our social, political, intellectual, and emotional existence. Although, philosophers have various views on a single issue, but they still share a common interest, i.e., a critic with the comprehensive thought of approach, and therefore, ‘philosophy’ is a way to understand our life (not a way of life). Similarly, our life is based on the various kinds of habits and rituals (prayer, meditation, yoga, worship many deities, speaking multiple languages and symbols for communicating with each other, eating various foods with different cultural practices, etc.) due to the religious practices and people love to do these procedures to continue their existing diversity of cultures. Take an example of ‘Happiness’. For understanding the true nature of happiness, there are many philosophical debates on it from both the east and west perspectives, but their underlying motto is same, i.e., the continuous practice of habits. However, this paper will mainly focus on Aristotle’s understanding of ‘Eudaimonia’ (happiness) and the significant role of ‘habits’ for flourishing a happy life. Full article

In one of the most distinctive readings of the concept of habit, Felix Ravaisson cut through its common association with passivity by posing the problem as one of distance: considered as conscious reflection, an inclination may be said to tend towards an end or object outside it; considered as habitual, however, an inclination may be said to be much closer to the actuality it seeks to reach.[...] Full article

Since algorithmic recommendation has been widely adopted in information distribution, as a new concept of “network neutrality”, “algorithmic neutrality” has come into the public view. Thus, from an initial requirement only to Internet Service Providers providing wire or wireless services, restricting their controlling of the application and content providers, “network neutrality” requirement has extended to contain content providers, service providers and terminal equipment manufacturers, until covers all the upstream and downstream industries’ technologies around fixed or mobile networks. Nowadays, it has further become a requirement of platishers represented by social media to recommend information to users by algorithm. Full article

This research investigates activists’ social media tactics and how these tactics materialize at the intersection of social media materialities and protest. The argument is based on a case study of social media communication by activists involved in the Blockupy action against the opening of the new European Central Bank headquarters in March 2016 in Frankfurt am Main; Germany. We conclude by empirically and conceptually discussing the tension between activist agency and social media materialities. Full article

The process of globalisation leveraged by digital technologies has dramatically increased the capacities of the capitalist milieu and its homogenisation momentum. This indeed endangers the preservation of cultural and community identities and their related capacities to act, including the capacity to sustainably adapt to their environments. Before this global issue, the author proposes the subsidiarity principle as a kind of fundamental ground for the Global Information Society, based on Stafford Beer’s Viable system model. Full article

At re: publica 2010 Sascha Lobo gave a lecture entitled ‘How to Survive a Shitstorm’. Thus he established the term. The term ‘Shitstorm’ describe a phenomenon often observed on the social web: One or two critical remarks trigger aggressive, insultung and even threatening verbal attacks which culminate in a ‘wave of indignation’ through active as well as seemingly passive actors. Full article

During the last decades, the world has been going through major technological, economic and social changes. The evolutionary process has brought people together through flows of communication into global digital networks to an extent that scientists have started to talk of the rise of a new geological era called “Anthropocene”. The paper “Programming the State—Digital Technology and Institutional Design” focuses on political aspects of the on-going technological transformation bringing us into a digital society. The aim is to discuss the relation between political and technological change by applying historical institutional theory to explain and understand how ideas and ideology are embedded into digital political institutions. The discussion starts by explaining the basic concepts used in historical institutional theory such as path dependency and formative moments. I then turn to a theory of history formulated by R.G. Collingwood, as this help to understand how the formation of political institutions may be studied in terms of a design process. My argument is that in order to understand the design of political institutions we have to include the study of political ideology since ideologies serve as the design plan for specific institutional solutions. If we are to understand the logic of digitalization we have to be aware of which ideas that are embedded into digital technological solutions. The presentation ends with a discussion on the implications that may be drawn by this argument and whether or not it is possible to turn back from a path once chosen to step upon. Full article

Based on the mini-public theory, this paper examines the mobile Internet public platform in the countryside of western China, and sees it as the public sphere of digital community. The research considers that the public sphere of this kind of digital community transforms the “Half acquaintance society” into “acquaintances society” and constructs the rural endogenous order. Its essence is the new media empower the village elite outside the system to form a social-media-based alliance, and with the village idle staff, left-behind women and other people to form the media self-organizing, become a new village endogenous power. The elite alliance of outside institutions, through express in the public sphere, media mobilization, public action, and so on, connected the scattered in different space of “atomic” villagers, promote the development of rural society. With the change of the village power structure, the elite alliance of the outside system and the village of the state agent have formed a competitive relationship, temporarily formed a relatively balanced cooperative governance model. The public sphere of the digital community makes villages from the nominal villager autonomy to the autonomy mode of “self-management, self-education and self-service” through the public participation of the villagers. Full article

Social, political and economic features of Austria as well as Sweden and the United Kingdom show similarities such that they can be examined in parallel and compared. Cultural differences in these countries are transmitted in a variety of situation, but they do not necessarily refer to the same social distinctions. Moreover, our observation of common features among these three countries will target the rise of right-wing political parties, invoked by the “crises” from Middle East. Furthermore this study aims to observe the reaction of the citizens of these three countries respectively, the sympathizers as well as those who disagree with such populistic proclamations. Such social and cultural issues arise attention and, at the same time call upon the empirical focus in anthropological studies. We are suggesting this parallel examination with regard to the anthropological science and its methods that will help to carry out our research. This research will contribute results with a critical discourse analysis in combination with empirical research methods and analysis. Full article

If one contends that ‘hacking’ has become a crucial cultural practice in—and, to some extent, in opposition to—digital capitalism [1–4], one may argue that ‘biohacking’, i.e., the extension of this practice to medical and biotechnologies and the life sciences, would constitute a key driver of the informatisation of the realm of life, as driven by processes of technoscientific convergence in the information paradigm ([5], 72ff.).[...] Full article

Most phenomena in the world have both positive and negative aspects (pluses and minuses). This is also true of digitalization. However, lately a lot more emphasis has been placed on the positive potentials of digitalization than on its negative potentials and already occurring negative effects. Digitalization is supposed to bring increased efficiency leading to greater speed and lower costs. The question is: greater speed and lower costs for whom? Who is actually profiting from digitalization in a narrow and broader sense? In this paper, I will discuss the idea that perfectly well functioning social practices, like human face-to-face communication, shopping, banking, medical care, education, administration, policing, travel, taxi, hotels, old age care (using robots), car driving, military attack (using drones), security, privacy etc. have already been or should be ”disrupted” (a recent positive buzz word) and exchanged for digital services, supposedly bringing greater efficiency and sometimes a “shared economy” through increased speed and lower costs. Below, we will note a number of such examples, coming, for example, from shopping, where customers are asked to register what they buy themselves and then pay with a plastic card, in this way recording their purchase for the benefit of the shop owners, credit card company and bank, or from academic education, where knowledgeable persons lecturing can be exchanged for a digital learning environment, where students learn on their own. We will pose the question: “When is digitalization warranted and when not?” When is it better to trust established human practices than to disrupt and substitute them with digital replacements? When should we not fix what is not broken? How can we digitalize with care, avoiding disruption of some of the best practices evolved by mankind? Full article

Discussions on fake news, alternative facts and the post-factual age demonstrate that we still expect a certain concept of truth on Social Media. At the same time, it is highly questionable if digital sharing-platforms with user-created content are the right place to provide reliable information. Furthermore, we have to consider the impact of visual evidence on irrational discourse, as information technology is offering images in ever-increasing quality and visual issues. I will concentrate on the role of images in Social Media and open a historical perspective: Social Media create an artificial reality, and it is a commonplace that in artificial realities truth and fiction cannot be distinguished. Can an image of reality that obstructs reality transport truth? Or should Social Media rather be seen as poetry? Full article

The very common Internet citizen has a very restricted autonomous capacity to move through the network which is becoming the ever stretching milieu where our lives take place. At the same time, the capacity to manage relevant information from ourselves and the environment we are living in offers new avenues to deal with healthcare, sustainability issues and problems of many different kinds and significant social concern which were previously insufficiently attended. While the actual structure of the Internet, geared by big-data technologies, exhibits a network topology highly concentrated, the authors propose a cyber-subsidiary model which may solve the conundrum where the human condition seem to be trapped in a blind alley. Full article

This contribution proposes a learning approach to system design in a transhuman era. Understanding transhuman settings as systems of co-creation and co-evolution, development processes can be informed by learning principles. A development framework is proposed and scenarios of intervention are sketched. Illustrating the application of agogic principles sets the stage for further research in this highly diverse and dynamically evolving field. Full article

Protecting human health and understanding the effects of information society on humans implicates a reference model of the essentials and “normal” functions of human beings. Such models can simply be called “images of men” (“Menschenbilder”). In this paper, common concepts of men are mentioned and it is outlined that an image of men is a paradoxical construct. Especially Homo deficiens (Gehlen) and the natural artificiality (Plessner) are the roots of technophilia of humans that is one important driver of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The other main driver is the efficiency-oriented modern society that provides such tools. One field is neuropsychiatry where monitoring of the mental and brain state for diagnosis and therapeutic modification by chemical and electrical tools is developing very fast. On the other hand, ICT already has some negative health implications in respect of internet addiction or digital dementia. These aspects of ICT society are discussed regarding the question of change of humans and of change of their image. Full article

Within a few decades autonomous robotic devices, computing machines, autonomous cars, drones and alike will be among us in numbers, forms and roles unimaginable only 20 or 30 years ago. How can we be sure that those machines will not under any circumstances harm us? We need a verification criterion: a test that would verify the autonomous machine’s ‘moral’ aptitude, an aptitude to make ‘good’ rather than ‘bad’ choices. This paper discusses what such a test would consist of. We will call this test the machine ethics test or the Just Machine Test (JMT).The Just Machine Test is not intended to prove that machines have reached the level of moral standing people have, or reached the level of autonomy that endows them with ‘moral personality’ and makes them responsible for what they do. Full article

Due to the concentration on necessity and underestimation of creativity and especially of the political realm men have lost understanding of their world. The accent on satisfying biological needs and improving man’s environment through automated labour evince these tendencies. Other examples are the transhumanists’ efforts to improve man’s body. The efforts to perceive more, better, faster etc. without knowing why are just manifestations of endeavours deprived of sense. Full article

A major goal of transhumanism is the transformation of human beings into posthuman ones by exploiting present and emerging technologies. Nanotechnology is considered as a promising candidate in this respect. Its objects of interest are molecular structures with their surface properties and their specific design as sensors and actuators in various environments including the human blood circulation, lung, brain, etc. In the mythologies all over the world one encounters the idea of super-natural strength, invulnerability, eternal youth, invisibility, invincibility, and immortality. Some proponents of transhumanism dream of a future in which all this will come true. And there are leading experts in nanotechnology who formulate quite similar aims and objectives of their area: the obligatory victory over Alzheimer disease and Parkinson disease, cleansing of wounds, blood, lung, brain enhancement, soldiers who fight without fear, managers who need no sleep to be able to work 24 h a day 7 days a week for their companies, magic hoods, and much more. In the presentation, I discussed the relation between transhumanism and nanotechnology and compile some reasons why old myths will not come true. Full article

Transhumanism is interrogated from critical race theoretical and decolonial perspectives with a view to establishing its ‘algorithmic’ relationship to historical processes of race formation (or racialization) within Euro-American historical experience. Although the Transhumanist project is overdetermined vis-à-vis its raison-d’être, it is argued that a useful way of thinking about this project is in terms of its relationship to the shifting phenomenon of ‘whiteness’. It is suggested that Transhumanism constitutes a techno-scientific response to the phenomenon of ‘White Crisis’ at least partly prompted by ‘critical’ posthumanist contestation of Eurocentrically-universal humanism. Full article

After roughly 35 years of development in the theories of self-organization and related variants (chaos, self-organized criticality, and so forth), it is somewhat of a surprise that physics proper has not yet sufficiently found its entry into the ongoing quest for a precise concept of information. [...] Full article

Information is not an objective and independent concept. It is influenced by society we live in, by the culture and its historical development. States of affairs we would like to change, changeable and unchangeable components of the world are all expressions of power over the world. Full article