Conference
Theoretical and Foundational Problems
in
Information Studies
is organized online (September 12 – 19, 2021) as a part of IS4SI Summit 2021 (is4si.org).
Participation in the conference is free of charge.
We live in time when information has become visible and its importance appreciated. However, information has been always of the prime importance. Life is founded on information processes. All knowledge of people has been possible only by receiving and processing information. However, information theory was created only in the 20th century and although many think there is only Shannon’s information theory, researchers created many others such as semantic information theory, algorithmic information theory, and economic information theory to mention but a few. The critical achievement in this area was the creation of the general theory of information, which unified all existing information theories, explained the essence of information, revealed physical and mental counterparts of information and provided scientific explanation to many information enigmas such as “It from Bit” of John Wheeler.
The goal of the Conference is to bring together academics, researchers and practitioners, providing beneficial conditions for presenting and discussing recent achievements and problems of information theory and its applications to theoretical issues of science and humanities, as well as information-oriented and information-based theories in different areas. The intention is to allow including the widest possible range of perspectives from philosophical or scientific, to visionary and artistic. There will be an opportunity to present original and creative contributions without any restriction by disciplinary divisions or level of advancement of research.
Researchers will be able to present their written but unpublished papers, their ideas even if they do not have the form of a paper, as well as to make an overview of their publications in some area or of their ongoing research or of a recently published book.
In this context, it is becoming evident that three major developments in our understanding of information processing structures are shaping the theory and practice of how we interact with each other and our environment:
- The genome and its ability to create autopoietic systems through information coding and managing of physical and chemical processes in nature.
- The digital computing structures and their ability to model, monitor, and manage information processing and communication between us and our environment.
- New mathematics of named sets, knowledge structures, cognizing agents and structural machines which, provide a theoretical framework of unified information processing mechanisms going beyond symbolic computing and neural networks.
These advances are allowing people to further their understanding of the evolution of sentient, resilient and intelligent systems in nature but also to design a new class of digital automata with autopoietic and cognitive behaviors to enhance our current information processing systems with higher degree of sentience, resilience and intelligence at scale.
The Conference consists of two streams.
“What is required is an overreaching theoretical framework, a set of bridging laws that thoroughly explain how mental events relate to brain activity patterns. The enigmas that baffle contemporary neuroscientists are not so different from the ones that physicists resolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. How, they wondered, do the macroscopic properties of ordinary matter arise from a mere arrangement of atoms? Whence the solidity of a table, if it consists almost entirely of a void, sparsely populated by a few atoms of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen? What is a liquid? A solid? A crystal? A gas? A burning flame? How do their shapes and other tangible features arise from a loose cloth of atoms? Answering these questions required an acute dissection of the components of matter, but this bottom-up analysis was not enough; a synthetic mathematical theory was needed.”
Stanislas Dehaene (2014) “Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes our Thoughts” Penguin Books, New York. P 162
Stream 1: Theoretical Information Studies
Theoretical Information Studies are naturally divided into three fields:
Information theory constitutes the basic component of theoretical information studies. Many theories of information, such as Shannon’s and Fisher’s syntactic information theories, semantic information theory, algorithmic information theory, economic information theory, dynamic information theory, and evolutionary information theory, have been created by researchers expanding our knowledge about information. All of them are unified by the general theory of information.
Application of information theory to the theoretical areas of science and humanities, e.g., application to theoretical physics or to theoretical computer science, allow the further development of these areas and form a component of theoretical information studies.
The collection of information-oriented and information-based theories in different areas, such as genetics, which treats hereditary information, or theoretical computer science, which studies information processing, forms another component of theoretical information studies.
“Information is related to knowledge and data, as energy is related to matter.”
Burgin, M. (2010) Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification. World Scientific, Singapore. p 198
Stream 2: Foundations of Information and Information Studies
Foundations of Information and Information Studies are naturally divided into three fields:
Ontology of information researches the essence and nature of information and information processes. There is active research in this area because still there is no unanimous understanding of the phenomenon of information.
Epistemology of information studies includes fields of theoretical knowledge, such as mathematics, logics or physics, which are used in the study of information.
Methodology of information studies explores organization, planning, objectives and results of information studies.
The conference includes following special sessions
Special Session 1: New Directions in Information Processing
Session Organizer: Rao Mikkilineni
Special Session 2: Neosentience, Biomimetics, and Insight Engine 2.0
Session Organizer: Bill Seaman
Special Session 3: Information in Natural Sciences
Session Organizer: Annette Grathoff
Special Session 4: Information in Social Sciences
Session Organizer: Peter Carr
Special Session 5: Information, Knowledge, and Meaning
Session Organizer: Rafal Maciag
Special Session 6: Information Phenomenon
Session Organizer: Krassimir Markov
Special Session 7: Information in Practical Problems
Session Organizer: Arkadiy Dantsker
Theoretical and Foundational Problems in Information Studies
To participate, send Prof. Mark Burgin a tentative title and a short abstract of your talk (from 5 sentences to 1 page); An extended abstract of up to 2 pages is due by June 15th, 2021.
Submissions
Annette.grathoff@is4si.org
Conference
Online streaming September 12 – 19, 2021
Contact
mburgin@math.ucla.edu
Theoretical and Foundational Problems (TFP) in Information Studies 