FIS Track: Workshop
Through the prism of physical–biological–cognitive sciences, computing and philosophy
Invited Speakers
Søren Brier How to get towards a truly transdisciplinary information science
John Collier What must the world be like to have information about it?
Robert K. Logan General Systems Theory and Media Ecology: Parallel disciplines that inform each other
Pedro C. Marijuán What does it mean to be an information scientist in the XXIst century?
Presenters
Mark S. Burgin, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic* Computation as Information Transformation
Ron Cottam*, Willy Ranson, Roger Vounckx Scale, Hyperscale and Metascalar Information in Living Systems
Rickard von Haugwitz*, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Alexander Almér Computational Account of Emotion, an Oxymoron?
Marcin J. Schroeder Information Science: New Response to Old Challenges in the Scientific View of Reality
Programme
Load the detailed programme down here.
Moderators
Marcin J. Schroeder, Professor of Mathematics, Akita International University, Akita, Japan
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Professor of Computer Science, Mälardalen University and Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Objectives
The bilateral/bidirectional relations between corners of the triangle Information-Reality-Cognition have been subject of many discussions, considered from the perspective of one of the corners. Landauer’s “Information is physical” or Wheeler’s “It from bit”, QBism (Quantum Bayesianism) and Endophysics (agent-centered physics) are frequently considered clearly defined, although perhaps extreme philosophical positions generated from the perspective of physics and establishing the relationship between information and reality. However, their consequences outside of physics, with the focus in biology and cognitive science have not been explored in depth. Neither have computational and philosophical approaches followed systematically these relationships.
An example of the question of special interest for the workshop would be the influence of information science (including study of life/cognition), computing and philosophy on the development of new physics, and the other way round. Do we need new physics? The fact that for many years Nobel Prizes in Physics are given to achievements in engineering suggests the need for new thinking. Dark matter and dark energy are nothing but 96% blank space on the territory of physics. How would such new physics affect our understanding of reality and cognition?
The need for change of paradigms can be seen in many intellectual and research initiatives of recent time such as Information Physics, building on the insight that from the epistemological point of view, all our interaction with the physical world results in different types of information that processed and mutually related on higher levels of abstraction results in informational structures that build physical theories on which our understanding of the physical world is based. Morphological Computation is a new view of the connection between structures and dynamics of information processing. Integral Biomathics is searching not only for new physics, but also new mathematics suitable for the study of life and cognition, while Bioinformatics treats biological systems as info-computational objects, whereas Cognitive Computing has an ambition to implement cognitive behaviour into computational artifacts.
