Continuing the tradition of S4SI Summits, the 2021 Summit had the form of ten federated conferences focusing on more specific aspects of the study of information. Its title, “Information Study for the Benefit of Humanity: Learning from the Past and Building the New Normal,” referred to the present great challenge faced by the global community—the pandemic of a new coronavirus that itself can be considered a large scale informational phenomenon. However, the pandemic was not the only global challenge discussed at the conferences contributing to the summit. Another great global challenge discussed at the summit was related to the issues arising with the rapidly increasing role of information technology in all domains of human life and work, and the dangers of their abuse or uncontrolled drift in directions that threaten human wellbeing. These concerns pointed at the need for a better understanding of information as a central concept of science, technology, and culture, another main theme of the summit. Full article

The philosophy of AI currently comprises the core of Philosophy and Computing. Fascinating ideas include: B. Goertzel states that humans use paraconsistent logic, which robots should follow; S. Thaler’s discovery engines (DABUS), which are at the early stage AGI; the Uplift team trying to build advanced AI around the kernel of ethics, while solving the problem of life-long-learning neural nets. J. Copeland gave an IS4SI plenary, while Oron Shagrir and Jun Tani gave APC plenary lectures. J. Bach assembled an amazing panel on machine consciousness. Novel session on the fourth space was led by D. Hardegger. Invited speakers including M. Burgin, S. Castro, R. Goodwin, R. Manzotti, M. Talanov. Graduate presentations e.g., J. Dakowski, C. Abels. BICA/APC panel on ethics and future AGI with R. Yampolkiy, M. Waser and D. Kelley. Full article

As intelligent machines are more and more present in our environment, the interest of researchers in the problem of AI (artificial intelligence) agency is growing significantly. In light of this, this paper aims to examine the dominant trends in AI agency research regarding their philosophical implications, as well as to provide a research commentary. Recurring themes of point and network notions of agency are identified, based on which the argument for the dual-process nature of agency perception is presented. Emphasis is placed on the agency attribution phenomenon. The novel hypothesis of a negative correlation between the perceived agency of AI and its interpretability outlines the future research direction. Full article

Is information a real entity, or is it only a useful mathematical notion? Shannon’s equation and a consolidated tradition have led many scientists and laymen to consider information as some kind of physical, additive quantity. The very well-known argument in favour of information as a physical quantity has not reached any definitive conclusion. Much has been derived from Shannon’s formula, which was introduced to provide a convenient logarithmic measure that might be practically useful and close to most intuitive feelings. Shannon never insisted on the ontological status of information, which might be revealed to be a lot less committing than is often believed. The bottom line is that information might be a convenient mathematical notation to express the probability of independent configurations in a system. Full article

The concept of Platonism is extended by introducing the new concept of a “Platonic computer” which is incorporated in metacomputics. The theoretical framework of metacomputics postulates that such a Platonic computer exists within the realm of ‘forms’ and is made by, of, with, and from metaconsciousness. Metaconsciousness is defined as the “power to conceive, to perceive, and to be self-aware” and is the formless, contentless infinite potentiality. The infinite potentiality of metaconsciousness is expressed as specific actualities via Platonic computation. This means that an abstract entity is the conscious state of being a specific actuality and is the processing output of the Platonic computer. As such, the physical computer made of silicon is but a shadow or poor imitation of the Platonic computer. Nevertheless, by programing the physical computer it is possible to simulate the generation of abstract entities as the processing output of the Platonic computer. Full article

Attempts by social media to conduct vetting and verification of user-posted content, unless fully successful, will do more harm than good. Such attempts cannot be fully successful due to the vagaries of automated assessment of reliability and truth; no algorithm can be immune to the adversarial submission of material that passes all checks yet still contains misinformation. In light of the inevitable failures, public assurances that falsehoods are blocked will render fake news more trusted and more influential. Full article

This short paper describes an inter- and transdisciplinary concept of the “4th Space” by building upon other concepts that aimed to describe communities in the digital/virtual sphere, such as the “4th Place”, or the hybrid “Splace” concept. However, this concept argues that the “4th Space” that can be made visible through three axes (hence the term “Space” instead of “Place”), while each axis represents another factor that defines the “4th Space”. Full article

(1) Introduction: While automatic Sudoku solvers are a well-known area of study in formal sciences, there has been little to no progress when it comes to describing the proving process as analogous to Sudoku solving. (2) Materials and Methods: This paper proposes two methods of solving Sudokus automatically: one using Hilbert systems, the other with an additional contradiction rule. (3) Results: While the first algorithm was not complete, it seems that the second one is. It was able to solve most of the provided test cases in under a second. (4) Discussion: Different work already suggests this concept for a Sudoku solver. However, it comes from a different theoretic standpoint. Future work in this field might include incorporating the results of proof theory or searching for a Sudoku solvable for every possible substitution. Full article

The goal of the paper is the introduction and exploration of new types of information processing. Starting with the typology developed in such an important class of information processing as computation, we extend this typology by analyzing information representations used in computational processes and delineating novel forms of information representations. While the traditional approach deals only with two dimensions of information processing—symbolic and sub-symbolic, our analysis explicated one more dimension—super-symbolic information processing. Information processing in biological systems is both symbolic and sub-symbolic, having the form of genes and neural networks. Nevertheless, in their evolution, biological systems have advanced their abilities one step further by developing super-symbolic information processing and evolving symbiotic information processing that performs information processing on the combined knowledge in the brain from both symbolic, subsymbolic, and super-symbolic information processing to derive higher order autopoietic and cognitive behaviors. Performing all forms of information processing, biological systems achieve much higher cognitive and intelligence level. That is why here we also consider a new type of computing automata called structural machines with the goal of transferring these advantageous features of biological systems to the existing information processing technology. Full article

The aim of this paper is to analyze the philosophical implications of the techno-scientific promises and discourses that generally surround big data, but also to nuance their content with respect to the concrete uses of these technologies in the natural sciences. To achieve this, I will rely on a case study focusing on the hopes, as well as the effective practical and theoretical issues, that accompany the development of big data and numerical models within the ecological sciences. Full article

Humanity today has high expectations and hopes for the use of artificial intelligence on a large scale. Is AI capable of generating an ethic to save both the planet and contemporary society? The current paper paints a picture of the society of the future and the great changes that will occur due to the explosive development of new information technologies; it argues the reasons why ethics will have to be further formulated in the social context by involving transdisciplinary communities of specialists. The analysis was made based on the results obtained regarding the state of the art in science, technology, and engineering, and is based on the inability of communities to incorporate and make optimal use of innovations. At the same time, it aims to develop the ethical principles that underlie further development. Full article

The article describes the evolution of the understanding and application of the concept of knowledge in the 20th century. It includes important facts, such as the epistemological turn in mathematics, Popper’s proposal, Gettier’s article, the emergence of the idea of social contexts of knowledge, the instrumentalization of knowledge e.g., in management, and a new knowledge situation in the context of artificial intelligence. These facts lead to the idea of knowledges which replaces the traditional, platonic idea of one true knowledge that belongs exclusively to man. Full article

This paper aims to identify the systemic factors contributing to the transformation of the moral identity/moral identities of nowadays person(s), during these times of technological changes and challenges, based on the rhizomality and transgressiveness, in order to formulate some logic and clear questions related to the possibility of moral identity/moral identities of AIs/AGIs. Full article

Ontologies of the real world that are realized, internally, by AI systems and human agents are different. We call this difference an ontological gap. The paper posits that this ontological gap is one of the reasons responsible for the failures of AI, in realizing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) capacities. Moreover, the authors postulate that the implementation of the biosemiotics perspective and a subjective judgment in synthetic agents would seem to be a necessary precondition for a synthetic system to realize human-like cognition and intelligence. The paper concludes with general remarks on the state of AI technology and its conceptual underpinnings. Full article

Combining earlier spatial typologies of places and communities with computer-mediated communication technologies, Hardegger developed the idea of the 4th space. Given that misinformation has become a crucial problem in many online environments over the course of the last few years, this article attempts to assess the implications of this development for the 4th space. This article begins with an analysis of people’s tendency to lie in different environments. Afterwards, properties of the 4th space are assessed that create opportunities for misinformation-based communities to emerge. Finally, open questions in relation to misinformation and the 4th space that deserve further attention are addressed. Full article

New social environments are emerging as spaces and places where work and life at home are no longer separate. Digital spaces and physical places have become intertwined: the 1st space is home, the 2nd is work, the 3rd is informal meeting places, while the 4th space represents different combinations of the previous ones. This paper describes the need for value-based designs of the 4th space through a transdisciplinary approach. We argue for a need to understand human interactions in physical and digital spaces from a user-centered perspective, meaning to understand user needs and preferences of digital content in physical and virtual spaces. Moreover, we point out the need to address identity, ethical, and legal requirements of these types of spaces. Finally, we address the need to connect emerging technologies such as AI, and design approaches such a gamification, with cognitive, structural, economic, social and technological challenges and opportunities of the 4th space. Full article

I propose a number of principles that I believe are substantial for various faculties of the mammalian brain, such as perception, expectations, imagery, and memory. The same principles are also of interest when designing an artificial but biologically inspired cognitive architecture. More-over, I discuss how the same principles may lie behind the ability to represent new concepts and to imagine fictitious and impossible objects, while also giving us reasons to believe that there are limits to our imagination and to what it is possible for us to think about. Some ideas regarding how these principles could be relevant for an autonomous agent to become functionally conscious are discussed as well. Full article

The problem of freedom of speech caught the attention of thinkers from the very beginning of our civilization, but it was only in the modern age that it became a central issue both in theoretical philosophy and in social practices. Freedom of speech is not only a matter of the individual’s private rights but also one of the fundamental conditions for the proper functioning of the public sphere. The space of mutual communication has gone through extremely dynamic changes in the last decades —we live in the proverbial “global village”, where the possibilities seem unlimited. However, parallel to these possibilities, extremely real threats appear. The aim of my paper is the presentation of the idea of freedom of speech in traditional understanding and describing new challenges. The question arises: to what extent can traditional values be transferred into a new “digital reality”? Full article

This is a work in progress that aims to study Semiotic Theory as the grounding to support the development of new models of mind. These models can be used to construct artificial intelligent agents to deal with several tasks in the real world. The introduction presents a specific scope of cognition that takes perception and action as two connected moments bound together by signs. Some key concepts related to Peircean categories and sign typology are presented, and they are used to demonstrate their connections to the three instances of the world of ideas: World of Sense, World of Things, and World of Categories. Sensors/Actuators are considered as the unique interface with the properties of the world (signals). They are the basic artificial devices in the process of sign representation that lead semiosis toward more developed signs and, consequently, more complex ideas. Finally, artificial cognition must allow agents to act in the world, and it occurs by means of the sign interpretant, mostly by the energetic interpretant. Full article

There is a growing debate on how to regulate and make responsible use of digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI). In an increasingly globalized scenario, power relations and inequalities between different countries and regions need to be addressed. While developed countries are leading the building of an ethical governance architecture for AI, in the so-called global south (e.g., countries with a post-colonial history, also called non-developing countries), their situation of vulnerability and dependence on northern domination leads them to import digital technology, capital and modes of organization from these developed countries. This imbalance, in the absence of an ethical reflection, can have a significantly negative impact on their already excluded, oppressed and discriminated populations. In this paper, we want to explore to what extent countries from the global south that import digital technology from developed countries may be affected if we do not take into account the need for multi-level and ethical global governance of AI from a human rights/democratic perspective. In particular, we want to address two problems that may arise: (a) Lack of governance capacity in southern populations resulting from their dependence from northern leadership on technological innovations and regulations, and (b) material and workforce extractivism inflicted by the northern countries on southern ones. Full article

This paper briefly sketches the ontological, epistemic, and ethical implications of three farming paradigms: 20th Century Chemico-mechanical agronomy, Microbiomic-ecological cultivation, and Algorithmic “Smart” farming. The position ultimately taken, though not fully defended, is that Smart farming algorithms will predictably fail, likely catastrophically, if doesn’t become the dominant paradigm in practice as we integrate and connect and scale up. Full article

In 2021, Daniel Hardegger reinterpreted the notion of The 4th Space as meaning the virtual space. It dwells within the three dimensions: Physical space where it is instantiated, technological medium used to access it, and the time frame. The ontology of Hardegger’s 4th space relies on traditionalist real-space physicalism. Luciano Floridi, in his 2014 The 4th Revolution, has placed the informational revolution within his prior framework of information-based ontology, where human beings as well as virtual and physical objects, are all inforgs—informational entities. In this brief article, we compare and contrast these ontologies. Full article

I considered the problem of existence of virtual objects, mainly the mode of existence of these objects, while I omitted the issue of the criteria of their existence. I present a brief exposition of alternative the concepts of modes (forms, kinds) of existence of virtual objects proposed in the literature on the subject, and then I demonstrate my position on this issue. Full article

Coworking spaces—shared work-spaces in which freelancers, entrepreneurs, but also employees ‘work alone together’—are presented as an example of the blurring of spaces within the knowledge economy. These are spaces in which key current issues (digitalization, knowledge flows, flexibility and innovation) play out at the micro level. Post-pandemic, coworking spaces are likely to play a greater as remote working remains a permanent feature. But how should we reassess their role in the advent of a ubiquitous digital 4th space, and what might this mean for how the role of proximity itself is (re)conceptualized in relation to innovation? Full article

Digital Humanism, formulated in 2019, is an explicit demand for the development and application of human-centred technology, that is, for “pulling” a humanised and humane digitalisation instead of “pushing” it for merely economic reasons. Under the title above, the scientific encounter of inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives has aimed at presenting and questioning the conception of that trend. Special emphasis has been placed on the link between digital technology and the urgent societal goals of mitigating, if not resolving, the existential multi-crisis humanity faces today. Full article

This paper argues for actively engaging with current technological imaginaries by gamification of potential corresponding sociotechnical imaginaries. Digital games could allow explorations of techno-deterministic imaginaries, such as the Smart City. Moreover, ludic implementations of counternarratives could also visualize alternative futures even more tailored to the needs of the users and stakeholders of urban areas. This could be especially valuable in times when new visions of urban life are needed. Ludic engaging with sociotechnical imaginaries could accompany the process of technological invention and innovation in order to interactively explore speculative futures. In this context, digital games would be both a tool and an art form. Full article

Keeping humans in the loop or bringing them back into the loop in dynamically changing socio-technical systems requires the human-centered arrangement of system designs and the adoption of digital artefacts according to human capabilities and needs. Design-integrated engineering of System-of-Systems (SoS) facilitates the complex interplay of cyber-physical technologies and humans both through model-driven and interactive handling. In this contribution, SoS thinking is introduced as an approach to self-governance of cyber-physical infrastructures and digital appliances. It allows socio-technical system development to be based on the focused articulation of stakeholder interests and behavior, by using them as a baseline for digital twin modeling. In this way, digital twins can represent the system designs and implementation details required for engineering. As such, they enable various pathways to SoS self-governance in cyber-physical settings. Full article

To shape technologies in accordance with human values and needs, it is necessary to claim human values and needs as requirements of technology. Therefore, it is essential to educate requirements engineers in the elicitation, analysis, and evaluation of conflicts concerning values and needs. The German Informatics Society describes interdisciplinary basic competences in informatics and society in the recommendations for the curriculum for bachelor courses in computer sciences. In these recommendations, sustainability and environmental aspects are missing. In Germany, there are one hundred and eight universities and universities of applied science which have courses in computer sciences (German: Informatik) graduating with a bachelor. Sixty-one of these institutions offer no courses in informatics and society. Full article

The ongoing digitalization presents a great challenge for the philosophical concept of humanism as it leads to many risks, including those that arise out of the assumption that computers can outperform humans in any task or job. Still, it is argued that it is an illusion based on erroneous premises, and that the development of the ICT sphere can actually augment humans by empowering them, presenting new possibilities: machines could perform more monotonous routine labor, while humans would be free to follow their creativity. Full article

Under labels like »AI« or »Machine Learning«, adaptive systems using methods of function approximation for adapting their performance to given sets of data from the environment are increasingly being deployed in the domain of knowledge work. Their design and effective use raise new questions with respect to their specific qualities. Summarizing relevant experiences from more than four decades of human-centered design of software artifacts and computer-assisted work processes, lessons learned are being reflected on with respect to what new challenges they bring about, and what new research questions they raise, respectively. Full article

Digital information and communication technologies have been a powerful force for change since the middle of the 20th century. Their Promethean reach demands laying bare their hidden tentacles to maximize benefit and minimize harm to living-beings-in-their-environment, requiring an unambiguous and practical definition of information to show that the interactions of living beings with their environment are constitutive of information generation, information exchange, information relations, and life. The purpose of this paper is to discover the connection between info-autopoiesis, based on Bateson’s difference which makes a difference, the self-referenced, recursive process of information self-production that engages all living beings in their efforts to satisfy their physiological and social needs; and digitalisation, viewed as both the ability to encode information in multifarious but equivalent forms to allow for embodied syntactic occurrence, and as the means to artificially generate information that is beyond the reach of its originators. Full article

The subject of this paper is a description of the renew and more advanced idea of digital transformation, which is understood not as a contemporary process of the impact of digital technologies on social life, but as an epistemological change in geometry and mathematics in the 19th century. Turing machine was a result of this change as well as the new idea of axiomatic systems. The first brought back the concept of computability as an essence of the world, and the second was a new and arbitrary model of reasoning. Both changed the image of the social world. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that has received much attention in the public media, politics and economy. There is a worldwide expectation that AI will be a key technology for the future. In this short paper, I sketch and discuss whether the prospects and hopes are realistic from a technical point of view and under which conditions AI will contribute to the welfare of human beings. Full article

Digital Humanism aims to prevent technologies from developing in ways that are detrimental to humanity. As the level of interaction between technologies and their users intensifies, it becomes inappropriate to consider the situation as one involving two separate entities. Instead, they together form an integrated Sociotechnical System. This article considers such systems from the perspective of Emergent Information Theory, which provides an explanatory framework for the origins and functions of both designed technological and evolved biological information-based systems. Based on this unified perspective, the systemic challenges of controlling systems that combine designed and self-organizing components are discussed. The conclusions drawn provide theoretical foundations to support the realization of the goals of the Vienna Manifesto. Full article

The main purpose of sustainable interaction design is to meet global challenges in society, the economy, and the environment to an extent that goes beyond the well-being of human beings and attempts to promote the well-being of all beings. This paper examines the relationship between sustainable interaction design and digital humanism. Interactions as objects of design could/should be characterized as able to afford sustainable behavior for the following reasons: their very existence is sustainable, they are designed to evoke sustainability, or they are part of a sustainable system. Humanity needs to realize that every single human being is part of the humanitarian and ecological crisis. Through sustainable interaction design, we could really help users feel that they are part of the solution and that their actions can truly change lives. We seek answers related to the design, materiality, and contribution of sustainable interactions in shaping more humane interfaces. Full article

As a generalization of intuitionistic fuzzy sets, single-valued neutrosophic sets have certain advantages for solving indeterminate and inconsistent information. In this paper, we study the fuzzy inference full implication method based on a single-valued neutrosophic t-representable t-norm. Firstly, single-valued neutrosophic fuzzy inference triple I principles for fuzzy modus ponens and fuzzy modus tollens are shown. Then, single-valued neutrosophic $ℛ$-type triple I solutions for fuzzy modus ponens and fuzzy modus tollens are given. Finally, the robustness of the full implication of the triple I method based on a left-continuous single-valued neutrosophic t-representable t-norm is investigated. As a special case in the main results, the sensitivities of full implication triple I solutions, based on three special single-valued neutrosophic t-representable t-norms, are given. Full article

It has been demonstrated that electroencephalography (EEG) signals can be acquired from electrodes placed on an earpiece inserted into the ear, and the interest in dry ear-EEG has increased in recent years. However, the challenge is to find an excellent durable electrode material, with which the stable quality signals can be collected after repeated insertions. To achieve a sustained ear-EEG recording platform, a new generic earpiece designed with PDMS and the AgCl powder sintered electrode is proposed in this paper. The platform’s characteristics are evaluated with an alpha band modulation and auditory steady-state response (ASSR), with the inclusion of different ear sizes of subjects. Recordings from the prototyped generic ear-EEG platform are compared to conventional scalp EEG recordings. The ear-EEG electrode exhibits good wear resistance. After repeated insertion and removal of the electrode, the quality of the signal acquired by the electrode was stable, and statistically significant (p < 0.05) responses were measured for ASSR paradigms. Full article

The development of the basic theory of safety science is relatively short compared with other disciplines, and the corresponding basic theory is weaker. However, with the development of science and technology, more and more complex systems have emerged. These systems are significantly different from earlier systems, including in complexity, factor changes, data information, and system control. Traditional reliability and fault analysis methods are difficult to solve. In order to manage these problems, the author proposes a space fault tree theory to study system reliability and system fault evolution process. At present, the space fault tree theory is divided into four parts, the space fault tree theory foundation, the intelligent space fault tree, the space fault network, the system motion space and the system mapping theory. The space fault tree is combined with factor space, a cloud model, fuzzy structure element, and system stability and information ecology methodology. The objective is for the space fault tree theory to complete the system reliability and fault analysis, as well as fault big data analysis, fault logic relationship reasoning, system fault evolution process research and system motion change measurement capability. In order to demonstrate the results of the space fault tree research, this paper is written to briefly introduce the four major parts and main contents and results of the space fault tree theory. Full article

Intelligence science (IS) was founded by the CAAI (Chinese Association for Artificial nIntelligence) in 2003. From numerous and complicated artificial intelligence theorem and technologies out a new, abstract science developed to define the deep concepts and create the foundational theorems on intelligence. It is an important contribution to science itself. IS is a natural and effective advance from AI and many other fields. This paper explains such necessity and significance. The CAAI and IS4IS-CC (International Society for Information Studies-China Chapter) has staged four Intelligence International Conferences on Intelligence (ICIS). The first ICIS was staged at Chengdu University of Technology. This conference series attempted to develop the foundations of IS. Currently, there are 194 universities in China have intelligence science and technology departments or offer related courses. This paper discusses the four ICIS and the education of IS. The four ICIS conferences are ICIS2016, ICIS2017, ICIS2018, and ICIS2020. Through this series of conferences, theoretical studies were collected, and the discipline kernel of IS was founded. We introduce some of these basic original theorems, including the author’s phase theorem. The fifth conference is set to be held in Xi-an, and the main topic is “Information Science and Intelligence science”. These approaches should be the prelude to future studies in intelligence science that should create a golden age for human beings. Full article

This paper expounds the great significance of human intelligence research from the height of the wisdom age. We should understand what it is to be a human being and what are the mechanisms of this intelligence. The author advocates that systematic science should be involved in such research. Methodology, especially oriental holistic thinking, is important. We put out the idea of “Education Engineer”, first try to do theoretical research, focus a concept System Quotient, then to build a model. To establish such a system, we undertake several decades of exploration according to the thought of Xuesen Qian’s “Dacheng Wisdom” and the fruits of information science and intelligence science. The concepts of “Human intelligence system” and “System Quotient ”(SQ) are proposed, developed completely and applied in the classroom. A “teaching information feedback system” has been created. It contains a “classroom informatization” and a “Playing with Science” system. Full article

This is an appeal for the collective reconsideration of the paradigm that be currently executed in the information discipline, because it is not a suitable paradigm for the information discipline but the one suitable for physical disciplines. The unsuitable paradigm has created a situation that recalls the old saying, “putting A’s hat on B’s head”. The misuse of the paradigm has been the unique cause of all the problems related to information studies; therefore, this should indeed be changed as soon and as swiftly as possible, if we want the information discipline to enter the highest stage of its development. Full article

Due to the past t_P and the future t_F being divided into a pair of opposing times by the now t_N, the generation mechanism of the contradiction is attributed in this paper as the process in which the time increment Δt and Δt’ are transmitted from the past t_P and the future t_F to the present moment t_N, respectively, and then reverse each other. The category and topos of time contradictorily constructed by the mechanism is discussed. It is shown that not only can the laws of the “Unification of Opposites”, “Mutual change of Quality and Quantity” and “Negation of negation” of the contradiction be represented in this form of category, but some of classic constructions appearing in the fields of mathematics, physics, logic, life, nerves, thinking, and intelligence can also be considered as morphosm- or pattern-induced and emerge via this mechanism as well. On the other hands, a series of concepts, models, and algorithms for noetic science, such as the attribute conjunctive monoid category (ACMC), attribute reasoning lattice category (ARLC), attribute coordinate system (ACS), attribute coordinate analysis method based on the learning of ACS for perception, cognition, and decision-making (ACAM), qualitative (conversion degree) mapping from quantity to quality (QM), attribute grid computer based on qualitative mapping, qualitative criteria transformation (AGC), etc., which have been verified through corresponding experiments, have been proposed, so that not only a set of attribute theory methods from perception to cognition and thinking have been constructed, but the synthetized framework of “Quantitative ⨂ Fixed Image ⇒ Qualitative”, called “Framework of Syntenic Three Approaches” (FSTA) can also be induced. It is possible to provide an alternative reference path and technical solution for noetic science and open complex giant systems because FSTA is consistent with the framework of “Quantitative Intelligence ⨂ Fixed Image Intelligence ⇒ Qualitative Intelligence (Meta Synthetic Wisdom)”, as proposed by Hsue-shen Tsien. Full article

The aim of this paper is the expansion of understanding what intelligence is, what is being performed in the area of AI and in which direction to move further in this area. To achieve these goals, the stratified componential model of intelligence in general and AI, in particular, is introduced and studied. Its application entails three approaches to the development of artificial intelligence. Full article

The achievement of artificial intelligence has been one of the goals in the field of machine learning, and achievements in the field of deep learning have led to the idea that the goal of so-called “intelligence” in artificial intelligence can be achieved with deep learning. From the perspective of philosophy of information, intelligence arises from the information activity of the “subject”. In this paper, we compare the current approaches of deep neural networks and deep learning with the information activity system of the “subject” proposed by philosophy of information, and point out the limitations of deep learning to achieve artificial “intelligence”. Full article

Calligraphy has the characteristics of complexity, and the essence of complexity lies in embodying emergence. The essence of emergence is the creation realized in the multi-dimensional interactive synthesis. The calligraphy of Zhao Zhiqian, as a representative of the official script innovation in the Qing Dynasty, not only selectively inherited the style characteristics of the ancients, but also created a new construction in combination with the calligraphic style of the times, thus realizing emergent creation. By studying Zhao Zhiqian’s official script calligraphy, we can reveal the complex characteristics of its brushwork, structure, and composition, which has a multi-faceted meaning and value for the development of contemporary Chinese calligraphy. Full article

At present, there are many opinions and much confusion in the discussion of the concepts of information, knowledge, data, digit, practice and intelligence, and even the regulations and appellations and their interrelations in the information society and intelligent society, which directly proves that it is necessary to find a reasonable explanation dimension to explain such concepts, appellations and their relations clearly and uniformly. This will certainly help to promote the progress of research in this field. Full article

Since the Renaissance in the Western world, culture has formed two camps, namely scientific rationality and humanism. Facing the reality that the two cultures are gradually splitting into the camp of insiders and outsiders, this article aims to explain the two cultures and further explore whether it is necessary for the public as outsiders to understand science, to what extent the public should understand science, and how to understand it even as a humanistic social scientist. In the end, the article puts forward suggestions and expects to carry out corresponding reforms in the education system itself and scientific communication methods to meet the needs of cultural development or even the further development of society in the new era. Full article

Marx stressed that only by controlling the production tools to technically transform space can it be called the space of practice. Therefore, to explain Marx’s space thought, we must consider its internal logic related to technology. This internal logic is mainly characterized by the space–time compression, under the guidance of technology, the formation of the world market and the formation of spatial productivity. Marx comprised all kinds of contemporary technological thoughts, understood and grasped technology from the perspective of practice, and provided important theoretical resources for reflecting on technology and space—the domain of the community of human destiny. Full article

Lost Book Compilation (Ji Yi Theory) depends on information collation and summary to recover lost books and culture. There have been some holographic phenomena in the process of natural evolution, but such holographic phenomena are also reflected in the process of cultural evolution in human society. The phenomenon of holographic insufficiency exists in both nature and social culture. The holographic phenomenon of social culture is reflected in the corresponding characterization and mapping between books and books, society, era. The holographic nature of social culture is reflected in both horizontal and vertical aspects, that is, contemporary thought and the inheritance and development of historical thought. Full article

The essence of differentiating the new human form is the substitutability of information carrier and the variability of material information. The existing system is the result of collaborative development, and the balance and stability of the system in the future still need to be maintained through collaboration. Therefore, natural persons and the new human form were, are, and will be in collaborative development in the future, which basis is the intelligent ecosystem jointly created by various human forms. Only the establishment of social institutions suitable for the intelligent ecosystem is the institutional basis to ensure the symbiosis. Full article

This paper presents the highlights from the Boundaries of Disinformation workshop held at Chalmers University of Technology. It addresses the phenomenon of disinformation—its historical and current forms. Digitalization and hyperconnectivity have been identified as leading contemporary sources of disinformation. In the effort to counteract disinformation globally, diverse strategies have been proposed. However, it is important not to forget the need for the balance between individual freedom of expression and institutionalized societal thinking used to prevent spreading disinformation. The important aspect of the solution is that the debate about adequate and truthful information, as opposed to disinformation, involves stakeholders. Full article

This paper discusses the slow and unbalanced development dilemma of humanistic significance in intelligent society. The emergence of this development dilemma stems from the fact that people’s living space is being dominated and squeezed by data, networks, and information in modern society. To solve this problem, this paper proposes three aspects to promote the cultivation of humanistic significance in intelligent society, which are: the flexible transformation of information acquisition and reprocessing, the transformation of the meaning output mode under intelligent cooperation, and the innovation of the function mode of humanistic significance on people. Full article

The uncertainty in Chinese traditional music texts has made it possible to inherit the music texts flexibly and creatively. Contemporary information philosophy and complex information system theories reveal the complexity, diversity and ambiguity of human cognition, providing a philosophical and scientific methodology for analyzing complexity issues in different fields. Based on studies on information philosophy and complex information system theories, this paper will discuss Xi’an Drum Music texts and the complex information in its inheritance in order to analyze the significance of uncertainty in inheriting Chinese traditional music. Full article

The continuous progress of the two technologies of bioengineering and artificial intelligence has further expanded the depth and breadth that can be achieved through technological integration between the two. Along with the bright prospects of new technologies come worries about the risks of technology applications, but as long as technology integration upholds certain practical principles, it will open up a new path for the future development of bioengineering and artificial intelligence. This will also provide new opportunities for the development of mankind and society. Full article

Based on the research methods of literature, text analysis and the theories of philosophy, communication and sports, this paper rationally discusses the information processing process of Chinese Wushu’s intrapersonal communication. It is believed that the individual body of the wushu practitioner has the general characteristics of the general information dissemination system and can actively reflect the wushu dissemination information provided by the external world. The intrapersonal communication of Chinese wushu is influenced by the distinct characteristics of individual wushu practitioners’ sociality and interactivity, which forces the individual wushu practitioners to reconstruct the significance of their own social practice of wushu communication and aggregate it into a new impetus to promote the healthy inheritance and development of Chinese wushu. In the age of digital media, the cognitive schema in the individual brain of wushu practitioners is exposed to the relevant dissemination information of wushu, which can show strong cognitive needs and have the ability to carry out in-depth cognition. Full article

Information philosophy is a complete theoretical system that has flourished with the third revolution in science and technology. Information philosophy believes that the world is composed of information and matter, and it is the highest-level discipline in contemporary information science. The problem of modernity has a long history and has had a huge impact on human life. However, many problems have arisen in the process of social transformation. The various consequences of the transformation of modern society have become today’s one of the focus topics. As the essence of the theoretical system of the information age, information philosophy has a certain transcendence in grasping modernity issues. This article attempts to examine the issue of modernity through the perspective of information philosophy, and to provide theoretical wisdom for the modernization of human society. Full article

This article aims to talk about the new challenges of free time in the future society. In the future society, humanity’s physical and mental work will be liberated, and thus humans will have more free time. However, poor utility, management, and creation of free time will result in salient problems to hinder human development, in which the improper allocation of free time, the low quality of free time, and the fragmentation of free time will greatly challenge human development in the future society. The conclusion of this article is that free time is a very critical part of realizing the free and all-round development of all humans, so how we face the three new challenges and learn to use, manage, and create free time is not only an urgent task but also a philosophical question for us to deeply ponder. Full article

This paper aims at a particular love for God in the human exploration of knowledge (including philosophy and science). Here, “a particular love for God” does not mean something related to religion but a way of thinking to pursue perfection, eternity, and absolute ultimateness because God is considered the only infinite, self-caused, and unique substance of the universe. On the one hand, this kind of thinking paradigm is good for people because it guides people to pursue love, beauty, and all perfect things in theory and practice; however, on the other hand, it is too simple, naïve, and extreme because the existence and evolution of the world is very complex and full of multidimensional and multilayered uncertainties and randomness. The conclusion of this article is that the world is not merely a counting machine, so we should abandon the thinking way of loving God and rationally embrace the uncertainties and complexities the future world will bring to us. Full article

We can tentatively extend the idea of semiotics and linguistics to consider that matter itself is its own symbol, which is also its own language. Matter itself has a symbol and a meaning. Matter is a noun and a verb at once. The entire world is a language. Information is a state where language is not understood or where it is prior to being interpreted. Once it is interpreted or understood, it is a language. At this level, we can find that, in fact, the information is a specific form of language and is a subset of language, and not the opposite. Full article

The second quantum revolution blurs the distinction between information and matter. “It from (qu)bit or (Qu)bit from it” thus becomes a philosophical issue. According to the physicist Wen Xiaogang in MIT, quantum topological states of matter, formed by long-range entangled qubits, will show all particles, such as light and electrons, are unified by the long-range entanglement of qubits. That is, it from qubit, not bit. Quantum information unifies matter, i.e., quantum information = quantum matter. This represents a new way to view our world. However, the information-theoretical paradigm, which origins from Wheeler’s “it from bit”, can lead to informational immaterialism and instrumentalism. In perspective of the constructive structural realism, there exists a constructive co-dependent structural relationship between quantum information and quantum matter. Both qubit and it are fundamental structural elements for us constructing our understanding of the physical world. Full article

The recent rise in radiographic and photographic technology in the examination and interpretation of works of art—which has accompanied the digitization of artistic creativity in the contemporary world—has greatly enhanced the power of the naked eye to view and understand the masterpieces of the past. Through modern ‘digital telescopes’ a new breed of art scientists has emerged to both enhance and challenge traditional art scholarship. In this paper, I will first review some of the major projects in this new field of informational aesthetics and provide examples, from the impressive discoveries of Maurizio Seracini and Pascal Cotte, to the magnificent photographic examination of the Ghent Altarpiece by Van der Snickt and his team at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. Secondly, I will present the results of my own three-year exploration of Leonardo da Vinci’s extant paintings and drawings using photographic magnification, leading to the identification of recurrent autographic images and motifs only visible through the lens of a digital camera. Finally, I will discuss the implications of these studies in the philosophy of photography, the world of art and the future of digital humanism. Full article

We discuss the problem of testimony starting from the debate in social epistemology, which is strictly related to the nature of social evidence. We want to know what we can take for granted regarding shared knowledge, especially in critical situations, such as in the COVID-19 era. It is not only a matter of who we can trust or what we can accept using our own epistemic resources. Rather, it is important to establish a plausible connection between testimony and social evidence, i.e., the objectivity of the content of beliefs that we can share. Full article

Hannah Arendt’s “Archimedes point” theory comes from her magnum opus “Human Condition” which described the character of modern society and criticized the phenomenon of information alienation in modern society. When people put themselves on the “Archimedes point”, the information obtained by observation and thinking is divorced from their living life and true conditions. This alienated way of generating and processing information is the reason for the crisis of western political modernity. Firstly, Arendt uses the concept of “Archimedes point” to explain the characteristics of the second stage of the phenomenon of “world alienation”, that is, people treat things around them in a state of alienation and indifference. Secondly, Arendt analyzes the influence of modern science of “Archimedes point” on the way people produce and process information, that is, when modern natural science processes information, it makes the information content singular and digitization and the understanding of information in all process-oriented ways, all the characteristics rooted in people’s minds made people deal with human affairs in the same way. Arendt further explains how the “Archimedes point” mode of generating and processing information threatens modern western politics, that is, this mode will lead to the assimilation of human beings, people will lose reflective ability and obey the “historical law” that humans create by themselves, then fall into the ideological control of totalitarian governments. Based on the study of all this, it can be seen that in the “Archimedes point” mode, the way modern natural science processes information, has led to a series of political crises that may escalate into totalitarian phenomena. Full article

When we discuss education under the background of the development of artificial intelligence, we must first analyze what algorithm-based artificial intelligence can and cannot do. Our education should focus on training people to learn and exercise the abilities that artificial intelligence is not good at or lacks. Only in this way can we give full play to the greatest potential of human intelligence under the blessing of artificial intelligence. Philosophy of information puts forward the idea of an information creation system to describe what kind of information creation ability real intelligence should have. Considering the functions of 9 subsystems, AI has completely or simply possessed some of the subsystem functions, but it still seriously lacks the capabilities of three subsystems. The future education of information creation is launched for the lack of abilities of these three artificial intelligences. Full article

Human’s grasp of information is based on perception. The development of human perceptual ability presents a trend of gradual indirection. As a means, the indirect perception of information is the inevitable result of human’s expansion on perception domains. However, in terms of purpose, before the limitation of time and space has been completely overcome, the development goal of human perceptual ability is to constantly overcome the indirection of perception, the feeling of indirection, and to become infinitely close to the directness of perception while improving perceptual abilities with the help of an external intermediary. The aesthetic process is based on the perception of the information in the works of art. The “sense of presence” emphasized by contemporary art appreciation is the inevitable requirement of the development of information perception technology, which is directly targeted. Full article

From the perspective of philosophical classification of information forms, calligraphy appreciation can be divided into the stages self-contained information of objective and indirect existence, self-contained information of a subject’s intuitive recognition, and regenerative information of subjective initiative creation. In the self-information stage of the indirect existence of an objective view, the calligraphy works themselves have not been recognized and grasped during appreciation and the calligraphy works are only the objective form externalizing the subjective spirit of the creative subject. In the self-information stage of a subject’s intuitive recognition, the spatiotemporal information, the semantic information, technical information, and aesthetic information condensed in the works are directly recognized by the appreciator. In the regenerated information stage of subjective initiative creation, the appreciator subjectively reprocesses and recreates on the basis of the overall grasp of space–time information, semantic information, technical information, and aesthetic information. It includes two forms, the analogy of “skeuomorphism” and the extension of “potential”. Full article

Information is already clearly presented in quantum theory; yet, concealed by matter/energy, it can be revealed only on the premise that the data of information is highlighted. Exploring the mysterious “quantum information” is of great significance for both quantum and information theories. The secret of information is hidden in quantum observation. Quantum phenomena are information as receptive relation. It is in this sense that quantum information is the manifestation of information. Full article

Today, the rapid development of intelligent technology, especially Strong AI, which has become a staple in fiction, from various films and television shows to literary works, has become a contentious topic within popular culture, which approaches the topic with generalized and prejudicial panic. In view of this, this paper analyzes and compares Strong AI and human intelligence through the lens of multi-view fusion, pointing out that Strong AI may appear presently, and be present for a long time to come. Therefore, people should not be excessively anxious and afraid, as this could lead to the blind rejection of high technology and even social instability. What we should do now is make use of this anxiety, be vigilant and sensitive in maintaining ethical practices, consider the future development and trends of Strong AI, and think about how to eliminate or avoid the anxiety it may prompt in human beings in the process. Full article

A major problem facing artificial intelligence ethics is how to give AI the status of the agent and gain the trust of human beings. This is accompanied by the rise of Explanatory AI (XAI). The social attribution theory (SAT) started from the perception experiment of Hyde and others, then psychologists conducted a long-term analysis of the causes and reasons of human intentional action, and Mahler built a complete social psychological attribution model from this. Because SAT is based on action analysis, it can reflect its vast application potential in XAI, including the interpretation of artificial agent action, interpretation of beliefs and other folk psychology concepts, analysis of group intelligence, and the construction of normative agent action and the corresponding ethical explanation. These explorations can provide new ideas for XAI. Full article

In the face of today’s culturally diverse social reality, the ethical design of artificial intelligences systems (AIS) no longer follows only one cultural tradition, but must take into account multiple cultural traditions. Therefore, it is necessary to study the possibility of ethical design of AIS from a transcultural perspective. This paper answers the question of the possibility of ethical design of AIS in a transcultural perspective from four aspects: ethical value base, ethical consensus, designer’s ethical responsibility, and the internal ethical decision-making mechanism of AIS from both theoretical and practical levels. Full article

From the perspective of the division of the field of existence of Philosophy of Information, the concept and scope of aesthetics are reinterpreted in this paper. Against the background of today’s anthropocentrism, the lack of significance in the existence of aesthetics has led to a misinterpretation of aesthetics. The anthropocentric aesthetics is also bound to fall into a dilemma. To break this dilemma, we must reinterpret the aesthetics. At the same time, it is also the first step in establishing a new theory of information aesthetics. Full article

The expansion of computers draws our attention to quantitative aspects of information at the expense of its qualitative aspects. We thus lose, do not have sense for, and do not develop the specific human aspects of intuition, creativity, and situation involvement. Every person is a genius in his individuality, which cannot be expressed in quantitative terms and deserves respect. Full article

Social evolution has reached a point at which the continuation of human life is even at stake. The reason why that is the case lies in dysfunctionalities of the organization of social systems. Those dysfunctionalities came to the fore when hominization was as successful as to cover the whole globe. What social systems could externalize so far, became part of an ever more deteriorating environment on which every system, in turn, has to live on. This system theoretical insight concerns the organization of relations among humans, of relations with nature and of relations with technology. Full article

The “information turn” has gradually become a new direction in philosophy to replace the “linguistic turn”, with “computing” and “information” as the main paths. The main theories of “computing” path are info-computationalism and Floridi’s philosophy of information; the main theory of “information” path is Wu Kun’s philosophy of information. This paper attempts to explain the modes of operation of the two paths and discriminate and analyze the essential differences between the two paths, which lie in the realization of information based on these three theories. Full article

Manipulation is an important technique of Chinese martial arts, and it is the primary content of martial arts in people’s talking about boxing techniques. In Chinese martial arts, the main martial arts methods like “ hit, throw, take, stab” , except for “kick”, require corresponding manipulation to achieve. Tips to learn the secrets of the practical manipulation application from “the Twenty Tactic Songs” in the book Preparation for Martial Arts Methods are up to ten types. As a concept, manipulation has a very rich and complicated information thinking way in literature, painting, dance, the military, and other fields, which opens a broad space for the theoretical study of manipulation. The research takes manipulation in Chinese martial arts as the breakthrough point and its information thinking as the main research object, and interprets the information thinking of manipulation in martial arts theoretically through the methods of literature materials, expert interviews, information philosophy theory, and logical analysis, etc. Full article

The creative education of future information is based on philosophical spirit education. Philosophy education should penetrate primary and secondary education, especially to improve the philosophy literacy of primary and secondary school teachers, which is the construction of the philosophy spirit. The dogmatic education model is very difficult to cultivate innovative talents. Traditional education teaches people obedience; the education of a philosophical spirit is to teach people freedom, questioning, criticism, and innovation. Therefore, the development of scientific and technological innovation strategy should start with the cultivation of philosophical spirit, the basic quality of philosophy in education. Full article

Dunhuang posthumous paper are a huge treasure trove of human civilization, among which the Dunhuang posthumous paper in the Wei-Jin period provides important data for the study of the development of calligraphy’s history. From the perspective of the philosophy of information, the developmental process of a calligraphic style can be interpreted as a holographic relationship. It is not only the hologram of calligraphy art, but also the hologram of a calligraphy aesthetic style, which is also the expression of Chinese culture. This attaches importance to information thinking in calligraphy art. According to the analysis of the stylistic use and aesthetic style of Dunhuang suicide note calligraphy in the Wei-Jin period, the significance of calligraphy can be revealed in its differences and uncertainties. Full article

The research on the nature of life from the perspective of information can be traced back to Schrödinger’s theory on the negative entropy of life. Many system scientists and system philosophers inherited Schrödinger’s research approach and emphasized the relationship between information science and the nature of life. Recently, David Krakauer, the current director of the Santa Fe Institute, and others proposed The Information Theory of Individuality, and further used information theory to define and classify formally individuals, deepening the relationship between information and the nature of life. Information individuals are divided into Organismal Individuality, Colonial Individuality, and Environmental Determined Individuality. The formal definition of information individuals is a new development in Schrödinger’s research on the nature of life, and it is also instructive for contemporary artificial life research. Full article

This paper will analyze Marcia Bates’ definition on information from four perspectives, overall philosophical standpoint, ontological position, epistemological position, and methodological position. The viewpoints of four information specialists (Luciano Floridi, Marcia Bates, Fred Dretske, and Kun Wu) will be compared in the paper as well. At last, we will find Bates’ position in the information study, and also the merit and demerit of her definition on information. Full article

Aesthetics is an important branch of philosophy. In traditional philosophy, art aesthetics tends to analyze the subjectivity and perception of knowledge. Under the framework of information philosophy, it requires us to make a fundamental transformation of art aesthetics, which is a unity of direct and indirect existence, as it is known that while artistic images are objective and tangible, the information they convey to the audience is objective but intangible. Artworks are the understandings and recreations of the objective reality and are integrated with the artists’ subjective feelings, and they are meanwhile influenced by the external environments. As an objective form of existence, the information contained in an artwork is a combination of the artwork itself and the transformed subjective feelings, which reflects not only the objective and indirect existence of the work but the subjective and indirect existence of the artist. Full article

This study focuses on the relationship between the material system and information. Wiener said, “Information is information, not matter or energy”. So far, what information is still a problem for the philosophy of information. This paper will recognize and define information from a new special perspective where information is understood or defined as the form of interaction between different layers of the material system, and demonstrate this idea based on the modern complexity system theory. Full article

This article proposes the substitution of artificial intelligence due to technological development: it not only includes the iteration and advancement of human-use tools of intelligent systems in the material world, and the systematic substitution of human labor, but also the push of intelligent systems on human creation in the information world. The integration of artificial intelligence and bioengineering not only enables technology to advance production and promote social development but also optimizes the structure of life forms, achieves creative breakthroughs in thinking, reshapes and recreates new ways of life evolution, and at the same time realizes culture evolution. Full article

Understanding the ternary structure of “subject-information entity-object” actually brings out a modern philosophical system with the connotation of “language philosophy-information philosophy-cognitive philosophy” that is, the internal relationship of three basic philosophical concepts with “thinking-emergence-existence” as the core. This paper attempts to explore: 1. The relationship between emergence and thinking; 2. The relationship between emergence and existence; 3. The relationship between emergence and information; 4. The application of emergence in modern philosophy; 5. Enlightenment of emergence to future society. Full article

“Qi” plays an important role in Chinese Calligraphy Theory. “Qi” deeply embodies the spirit of Taoism and philosophical speculation with Oriental characteristics and can reflect the core and composition of traditional Chinese art aesthetics. The “qi” of calligraphy determines the character of calligraphy works and is the soul of calligraphy. When “qi” is weak, the quality of calligraphy works is poor, but calligraphy works will have a high style when they are full of “qi”. “qi” governs the aesthetic evaluation and artistic creation of Chinese calligraphy, which runs through the whole history of Chinese calligraphy. From the point of view of Chinese philosophy of information, “qi” is a kind of comprehensive information conveyed in calligraphy works. Calligraphy works should capture important information in such aspects as handwriting potential, romantic charm, strength, significance and antiquity, so as to form the unique character of calligraphers. Full article

Marx saw that the universal application of machines in the 19th century had a double effect, that is, to promote the development of productive forces, to open new fields of production, and to realize the enrichment of labor products At the same time, it also leads to the impoverishment of laborers’ working ability and a large amount of unemployment, so that workers become “local people”. Although the phenomenon of alienation caused by the universal application of machines is an inevitable stage in the development of human society, Marx revealed the deep roots behind it. The capitalist application of machines is different from that of the machines themselves. Finally, he aimed his criticism at capitalists and the capitalist social system. With the advent of today’s intelligent era, a new round of social problems has emerged, such as unemployment, aging knowledge structures, human development, and other difficulties. Marx’s machine thinking still has value in dealing with these practical problems. Full article

The emergence of holographic stage art has made the concrete space of the dance theater fragmented, the virtuality and multiplicity place the dancers’ performances in a kind of phantom space beyond the object. In this kind of cross-border cooperation of visual arts, a new interactive space is formed between dancers and audiences, dancers and holographic images, and audiences and holographic images. This paper believes that there are three types of interaction modes in the holographic dance theater. The first is the interaction between technology and the body, the second is the interaction between technology and space, and the third is the interaction between technology and emotion. Among the three interactions, the interaction between technology and emotion is the developmental direction of the holographic dance theater in the future. The beauty presented by dance art is the unique beauty of human life organisms. The new media tools should extend the senses of dance and inject new cultural attitudes and aesthetic interests into the development of dance. Full article

The theme of the conference, “Morphological Computing of Cognition and Intelligence” (MORCOM 2021), focused on the unconventional forms of computing, which bring the promise of more efficient intelligent and cognitive computing. The present editorial, written by the organizers of the conference, reports the ideas and goals of MORCOM 2021 and provides an overview of the contributions. Full article

Most of the bioinspired morphological computing studies have departed from a human analysis bias: to consider cognitive morphology as encapsulated by one body, which, of course, can have enactive connections with other bodies, but that is defined by clear bodily boundaries. Such complex biological inspiration has been directing the research agenda of a huge number of labs and institutions in recent decades. Nevertheless, there are other bioinspired examples or even technical possibilities that go beyond biological capabilities (such as constant morphological updating and reshaping, which asks for remapping cognitive performances). Additionally, despite the interest of swarm cognition (which includes superorganisms of flocks, swarms, packs, schools, crowds, or societies) in such non-human-centered approaches, there is still a biological constraint: such cognitive systems have permanent bodily morphologies and only interact between similar entities. In all cases, and even considering amazing possibilities, such as the largest living organism on Earth (specifically the honey fungus Armillaria ostoyae, measuring 3.8 km across in the Blue Mountains in Oregon), it has not been put over the table the possibility of thinking about cross-morphological cognitive systems. Nests of intelligent drones as a single part of AI systems with other co-working morphologies, for example. I am, therefore, suggesting the necessity of thinking about cross-embodied cognitive morphologies, more dynamical and challenging than any other existing cognitive system already studied or created. Full article

The paper is intended as an exploration of the potential methodology for hypercomputing using the long intellectual experience of the study of morphology and morphogenesis. The first part of the paper shows that the missing element of the process of computation in the studies searching for the generalization of computation is encoding. Turing Machines can work only on information encoded in a very specific way. When we look for ways to generalize computation, the analysis of encoding is the most likely source of ideas for the extension of this concept. The second part of the paper is an exploration of the history of morphogenesis from the perspective of the search for a method of unconventional encoding information. Full article

This paper builds upon a recent proposal of a pragmatically-oriented framework for the practice of ‘Complex Thinking’ to further conceptualize it as a mode of thinking bridging different modes of thinking and types of cognitive activity. It explores the application of this framework for the design of human and computer-guided tools and strategies, or ‘Other’ Intelligences (OI), including AIs, which, coupled with a given observer/intervenor, would support and augment the enactment of Complex Thinking. This paper raises questions regarding the morphological constraints, challenges, and implications associated with the design of systems of (Co)Augmented Intelligences informed by Complex Thinking which aim to promote it. Full article

Recent advances in genomics, neuroscience, and the general theory of information herald a new understanding of how information processing structures in nature operate. Living organisms use autopoietic and cognitive behaviors to manage the business of sensing, modeling, analyzing, predicting, and taking action to maintain stability in the face of non-deterministic and rapid fluctuations while dealing with finite resources. Autopoiesis provides self-management of the organism with an identity, and the ability to reconfigure its structure to maintain stability. Cognition allows sensing, analyzing, predicting, and acting to mitigate risk. This paper examines the key ingredients required to infuse autopoietic and cognitive behaviors into digital automata and make them self-managing to maintain stability in the face of fluctuations and mitigate risk in dealing with the external world. Full article

The basic idea of natural computing is learning from nature. Naturalist framework provides info-computational architecture for cognizing agents, modelling living organisms as informational structures with computational dynamics. Intrinsic natural information processes can be used as natural ecosystem services to perform resource-efficient computation, instead of explicitly controlling every step of computational process. In robotics, morphological computing is using inherent material properties to produce behavior like passive walking or grasping. In general, morphology (structure, shape, form, material) is self-organizing into dynamic structures resulting in growth, development, and decision-making that represent processes of embodied cognition and constitute naturalized basis of intelligent behavior. Full article

Reconciling determinism with adaptability and resilience in the design of complex distributed system is a difficult task. In this paper, we argue that theoretical biology, especially biosemiotics and morphogenesis, gives a new perspective into this problem and presents us with new concepts that have been barely studied in the distributed systems literature. Current solutions for real-time systems are based on two simple assumptions, Positional Information and the B-series Time Code, which are only a small portion of the mechanisms used by living organisms. Investigating the application of alternative concepts on deterministic communication systems, such as inter-agential time (the E-series Time Code) and reaction–diffusion mechanisms, represents a promising path forward. Full article

The Special Session “Information in Natural Sciences” of the conference “Theoretical and Foundational Problems in Information Studies” (TFP) at the 2021 IS4SI Summit focused on information in Natural Sciences. Seven authors contributed extended abstracts based on their results, which are introduced in brief in this overview article. The topics presented for TFP session 3 have spanned a rather wide range of contributions, including discussions on the concept of quantitative information applied in Natural Sciences (NS), the dynamics of physical information in NS, and information epistemology and knowledge on neuronal information processing, which help in understanding the effects of information in human cultural and political decision making. Full article

The social and cultural context after the COVID-19 pandemic is on many levels very different from the previous context. Studies carried out during 2020 and 2021 point to an unprecedented increase in the use of social media. This research delves into this new paradigm to take advantage of it in the teaching and learning of university studies of communication, studying in particular audiovisual pills and their possibilities. The main hypothesis is that they are a challenge but also an opportunity, in terms of: (1) updating and supporting teachers; (2) motivation and development of a professional portfolio for students; and (3) breaking the digital divide. This article focuses on the results of the qualitative questionnaires, which collected the students’ opinion about the project. Full article

The main goal of this presentation is to explain that classical mathematics is a special degenerate case of finite mathematics in the formal limit p→∞, where p is the characteristic of the ring or field in finite mathematics. This statement is not philosophical but has been rigorously proved mathematically in our publications. We also describe phenomena which finite mathematics can explain but classical mathematics cannot. Classical mathematics involves limits, infinitesimals, continuity, etc., while finite mathematics involves only finite numbers. Full article

This paper will lay out a series of research areas and topics related to Neosentience research and the Insight Engine 2.0. The goal is to create a model for an autonomous robotic system via transdisciplinary information processes and information exchanges. Neosentience is a new approach to AI that is informed by the functionality of the human body through biomimetics and bio-abstraction. The long-term goal of this model is to potentially enable Neosentience to arise via the system’s functionality. Transdisciplinary research is explored through the use of a unique intelligent database and AI driven search engine, The Insight Engine 2.0 (I_E) working in conjunction with differing researchers from multiple disciplinary domains. This paper seeks to point toward the breadth of foci that inform the ongoing research and the information-oriented processes involved. Full article

This paper demonstrates the need for the structural analysis of information as a distinctive methodological tool for two reasons. The first is that this form of inquiry is underrepresented and inadequate in the study of information. The second, a closely related reason, is that there are many misconceptions about the distinction between different forms of inquiry reduced to only two, characterized as qualitative and quantitative, with surprisingly little attention paid to the role of structural analysis, not only in the study of information, but in all scientific and intellectual domains. Since the first step towards this structural analysis is in defining concepts in structural terms, the established structural methodology may also contribute to choosing a satisfactory-for-all definition of information and to develop its uniform theory. Full article

Floating-point arithmetic is a common computational method, used to represent large or infinite space in software, such as game engines. This paper explores floating-point arithmetic in the game engine Unity, as it renders an infinitely falling object. Working through Reza Negarestani’s proposition that an observer’s linguistic description can reconstruct an automaton’s artificial general intelligence, this paper argues that an observer’s linguistic description of an automaton, such as Unity’s calculation of an infinitely falling object, may reorder or disorder the observer’s semantic and syntactic linguistic structure, through a process I am calling “machine performance”. Full article

It is undeniable that information flow is crucial for the dissemination of information and knowledge. However, information flows in a vague environment; that is, an environment full of noise. Starting from a “pure” model of information flow, I propose a model that incorporates vagueness. This model has the capacity to describe information loss, and this is something that is briefly explored. Full article

This paper argues that life is best understood in light of a physics of the immaterial. Life is not properly seen or touched, for instance, but conceived, imagined, intuited. In order to rightly grasp life in general, we need not reduce it in any sense, hence its counterintuitive character. The claim is based on five arguments: life is much more a process than a series of components; the first law of thermodynamics is important in thinking about processes; life entails a twofold perspective that opens up the window, so to speak, to the possible rather than only the actual; living beings are not machines in any sense of the word (biological hypercomputation); and life is an autopoietic or self-organized phenomenon. Some conclusions are drawn at the end. Full article

A novel methodological approach requires the observer to investigate the information accessible outside the object under scrutiny. The object becomes an “hole” devoid of information, surrounded by a container that is no longer a passive structure. We use this container-framed attitude for a mathematical attempt to take a step towards the unexploited unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics. We show that the tenets of quantum mechanics, i.e., the observable A, the autostates ψa, and the Schrodinger equation for the temporal evolution of states, can be described in terms of oscillatory paths taking place on negative-curvature Poincaré disks. Full article

This paper presents the properties of ontological information. We claim that ontological information is characterized by epistemic neutrality (EN), physical embodiment (PE), and formative nature (FN). We also have formulated the following two corollaries for ontological information: (C1) information is quantifiable; (C2) changes in the organization of physical objects are denoted as computation or information processing. Full article

We propose the concept of a semantic numeration system (SNS) as a certain class of context-based numeration methods. The development of the SNS concept required the introduction of fundamentally new concepts such as a cardinal abstract entity, a cardinal semantic operator, a cardinal abstract object and a numeration space. The focus is on the key elements of semantic numeration systems—cardinal semantic operators. A classification of semantic numeration systems and suggestions for their possible application are given. Full article

Natural complex adaptive systems arise, live, and eventually, die. One could say that they became unfit for their environment. The science of complexity puts it differently: the equilibrium states of a system are changing all the time, as adjustments to external fluctuations. Down the road, when facing positive feed-back loops, equilibria can drift across the edge of chaos. Applied to the digital world, where control is in our hands, we can imagine steering equilibria to areas where beneficial emergence arises while avoiding collapse. This paper deals with the ground principles to reach such control. Full article

Although the interpretation of the concept of information is not clear, even in the classical framework, new interpretive problems have arisen with the advent of the so-called quantum information, which combine the difficulties in understanding the concept of information with the well-known foundational puzzles derived from quantum mechanics itself. The aim of this paper is to consider some arguments traditionally put forward to support the idea that quantum information is qualitatively different from classical information. The final conclusion is that there are no reasons to admit the existence of quantum information as qualitatively different from classical information: there is only one kind of information, physically neutral, which can be encoded by means of classical or quantum states. Full article

For the first time in human history, a strategy operationalized in the social system to reward the growth in energy consumption was implemented. This fundamentally questions our urge to expand and thus our self-image. A deterministic worldview based on steering and control was established. We show that this deterministic worldview undermines the ability to be touched and thus our basic moral orientation. A “logic of touch in indeterminacy” is being developed, which is based on a new, logical–physical model of neurobiology and introduces this touchability as a conceptual core element. The proposed new methodology is itself based on simplicity and “scientific touchability.” For this purpose, our own research results were reassessed, and appropriate options for action are presented. Full article

This paper proposes an informational approach to probability based on a non-semantic, non-propositional and non-truth-functional logic of real processes and systems, according to which they interact and evolve—Logic in Reality, LIR. Its fundamental principle is that the contradictory or opposing informational elements of complex real processes move from states that are primarily potential to ones that are predominantly actual, alternately and reciprocally, without going to the abstract, ideal limits of zero or one. LIR provides a thread between the different sciences and constitutes a bridge between the ontological aspects of logic, science and philosophy. Full article

By combining the information-oriented and theoretically proven method with the construction of the realized SI, it is possible to formulate the accuracy limit of any physical law or formula describing the observed phenomenon. This has never been described in the literature. Example is given. Full article

We present two classes of abstract prearithmetics, ${\left\{{\mathbf{A}}_M\right\}}_{M\ge 1}$ and ${\left\{{\mathbf{B}}_M\right\}}_{M>0}$. The first one is weakly projective with respect to the nonnegative real Diophantine arithmetic ${\mathbf{R}}_{+}=({\mathbb{R}}_{+},+,\times ,{\le }_{{\mathbb{R}}_{+}})$, and the second one is projective with respect to the extended real Diophantine arithmetic $\overline{\mathbf{R}}=(\overline{\mathbb{R}},+,\times ,{\le }_{\overline{\mathbb{R}}})$. In addition, we have that every ${\mathbf{A}}_M$ and every ${\mathbf{B}}_M$ is a complete totally ordered semiring. We show that the projection of any series of elements of ${\mathbb{R}}_{+}$ converges in ${\mathbf{A}}_M$, for any $M\ge 1$, and that the projection of any non-indeterminate series of elements of $\mathbb{R}$ converges in ${\mathbf{B}}_M$, for all $M>0$. We also prove that working in ${\mathbf{A}}_M$, for any $M\ge 1$, and in ${\mathbf{B}}_M$, for all $M>0$, allows to overcome a version of the paradox of the heap. Full article

This research defines a method for detecting the source of thermal heating in a cargo container by monitoring surface temperature and through reverse engineering of the thermal process. A simplified heat direct model in 3D space was formulated and the inverse model wa olved using the theory of hypernumbers. Full article

The field of consciousness displays a striking lack of consensus on many important issues, one of which is the possibility of consciousness in machines and software. However, consciousness in machines has dramatic ethical implications, regardless of which ethical framework is used. This suggests that the best course of action would be to try not to create conscious machines until we better understand the issue. However, understanding machine consciousness without building it might not be possible. Full article

Information is not a fundamental quantity of the Universe. However, in denying the fundamental nature of information, we assert its importance for living beings in their environment. Living beings use their sensory organs to discover the non-living and those living in their environment. Through their sensory organs, they discover the bountifulness of matter and/or energy as expressions of their environmental spatial/temporal motion/change, as information or differences which make a difference. This paper begins the discovery of a phenomenology of information, or the fundamental study of information as an expression of how ‘we experience things; thus, the meanings things have in our experience.’ This brings to the forefront the process of info-autopoiesis, or the self-referenced, recursive process of information self-production that engages all living beings in their efforts to satisfy their physiological and social needs. Elucidating how living beings interact with their environment and how these interactions are constitutive of information generation, information exchange, information relations and life. Information cannot be the primary element that allows living beings their unique existence. Full article

While more Latinx students continue to enroll in higher education, physical, intellectual, and socio-cultural barriers to information may continue to impede their success and inclusion. A tripartite theoretical model that examines physical, intellectual, and socio-cultural information access provides insights for academic libraries to better meet Latinx students’ information needs and include them in campus life. This paper gives an overview of the theoretical framework along with practical steps libraries can take to improve information equity. Full article

This paper introduces a new computational approach for fast deblurring non-blind imaging. The method implementation reveals how to solve image deblurring integrals with arbitrary kernels using the Theory of Hypernumbers. The method is applicable for real-time event recognition when kernel parameters can be defined by monitoring camera vibration and kernel–vibration association algorithms. Full article

An important problem for databases is the unification of utilized data structures and amplification of operation tools. Here, after a brief overview and analysis of database models, we demonstrate that all considered data can be reduced to systems of named sets allowing representation of the described database models as special cases of the named-set database model, which provides efficient operations for data mining, information extraction, and database management. Full article

Classical computer science (CCS) based on the universal Turing machine has given us tools to decipher the mysteries of physical, chemical, and biological systems in nature. Symbolic computing and sub-symbolic computing have allowed us to model and analyze various observations (including both mental and physical processes) and optimize our interactions with each other and with our environment. In this paper, we present the limitations of CCS to model the autopoietic and cognitive behaviors of living organisms. We discuss the new science of information processing structures (SIPS), which allows us not only to model but also implement digital automata with these behaviors. Full article

Humans have always been inspired by the living, representing, simulating, and emulating it. Today we are witnessing the extension of life into a “Third Life”—the “First Life” being the biological life and the “Second Life” the life in the symbolic dimension—that expands Nature. This process is consistent with the progressive externalisation outside the body of human functions and activities, in the beginning of body parts, then of knowledge and memory, then of activities and labor, and finally of some narrow reasoning and autonomous action. In the future, increasingly human activities will be externalised, evolving into Third Life. Full article

The general theory of information (GTI) tells us that information is represented, processed and communicated using physical structures. The physical universe is made up of structures combining matter and energy. According to GTI, “information is related to knowledge as energy is related to matter.” GTI also provides tools to deal with transformation of information and knowledge. We present here the application of these tools for the design of digital autopoietic machines with higher efficiency, resiliency and scalability than the information processing systems based on the Turing machines. We discuss the utilization of these machines for building autopoietic and cognitive applications in a multi-cloud infrastructure. Full article

Mixing and interference are respectively the nonlinear and the linear part of combining wave frequencies and it is proposed here that they, together with other processes of wave dynamics, should be considered a lot more in the study of information. From a perspective of physical information—and it is proposed here that basic information is physical—nonlinear mixing processes are important since they first allow the generation of novelty (new frequencies). Second, mixing as in modulation and heterodyning is interesting in that it gives a hint on how similarity and relatedness are represented in wave dynamics. Third, mixing and other processes enabled by nonlinear properties of wave carrying media in balance with the natural dispersive properties of waves can lead to the emergence of solitary waves and localized structures, both of which are genuine wave objects with particle-like properties and interesting behavior, interacting with the matter of their medium and possibly each other. The strongly technical language of the field is translated to arrive at a description as pictorial as the current state of trusted experimental observations allows, based on a thorough literature research. Full article

This paper describes analytical methods used for the elaboration of the fast algorithm for detecting unknown sources of contamination release into water and/or air network systems. In addition, an analysis of existing theoretical approaches to computing pollutants released into water parameters is given and the necessity for a new methodology to solve multiple problems related to the real-time source identification is demonstrated. Full article

Many researchers believe that information is physical. The goal of this paper is to show thatthis is only a grand illusion while in reality information in the strict sense belongs to the World of Structures, which is the scientific interpretation of the World of Plato Ideas or Forms. In addition, it is studied how the ideal information acquires a physical representation and is embedded in a physical carrier in the process of materialization. The process of idealization, which is inverse to materialization and in which information is extracted from its physical carrier as an ideal essence, is also discussed. People do not often make a distinction between abstract and ideal objects. That is why, herein, it is explicitly defined what an abstract object is and how an ideal object comes into being elucidating the difference between these entities. Full article

Vladimir Lerner’s Information Macrodynamic (IMD) formalism is the first full application of John Archibald Wheeler’s “It from Bit” approach to physical Information processes. The IMD formalism accounts for the evolution of Information physics from quantum to classical regimes, showing how intelligence and Wheeler’s Observer-Participator are naturally emergent. Distinct from “digital physics” or simple coding-decoding schemes, the IMD formalism presents a continuous step-by-step physics of natural Information processes, from the first distinction to the emergence of the self-aware Information Observer. Full article

Our understanding of genomics, neuroscience, cognitive behaviors of biological systems, and theoretical understanding of information from the general theory of information (GTI) is throwing new light on information processing structures both in nature and the digital information systems. The session on “New Directions in Information Processing” in the “Theoretical and Foundational Problems in Information Studies” conference at the 2021 IS4SI Summit was devoted to bringing different views from experts in multiple disciplines. We present here an overview of the session and highlight some of the observations discussed in various presentations. These include the nature of computation, the relationship between data, information and knowledge, nature of information processing structures in biology, classical and quantum computations, and their relationship with the Church-Turing Thesis, etc. in addition to the individual presentations of their papers, a plenary talk discussed not only how information processing structures operate in biological systems, but also pointed to a novel approach to design and build a new class of digital machines that enhance the sentience, resilience, and intelligence of current generation information technologies. Full article

The goal is to create a model for an autonomous robotic system via transdisciplinary information processes and information exchanges. Neosentience is a new approach to AI that is informed by the functionality of the human body through biomimetics and bio-abstraction. The long-term goal of this model is to potentially enable Neosentience to arise via the system’s functionality. Transdisciplinary research is explored through the use of a unique intelligent database, search engine, a natural language API, a dynamic set of visualization modes, and a series of independent AI collaborators (what we call Micropeers)—The Insight Engine 2.0 (I_E) working in conjunction with differing researchers from multiple disciplinary domains. Full article

We mean to reflect on the divide extant between theoretical studies on information and the knowledge of information shared by ICT (information and communication technologies) professionals. For example, many believe that Shannon’s work provides significant support to ICT practitioners while this myth is fading. We put forward a new vein of research more adherent to the perspectives of practitioners. Full article

The ambition to invent a machine for the “perfect imitation” of the mind appears to flow, by logical consequence, from the invention of machinery for the “perfect imitation” of nature. From perspective drawing to photography, the Western science of art has taken advantage of mechanical means, such as lenses and mirrors, to replicate our visual experience of nature. Its main concern has always been to capture the “magic” of nature into the “synthetic instant” of a picture. Indeed, the main achievement of visual art might be described as sight enhancing. In a similar way, the science of logic has taken outstanding advantage of computing machines to simulate our experience of thought, where the main goal appears to be nothing more than to recreate the nature of the mind in the form of a sort of artificial magic. How else might we pursue the simulation of human thought, and to what extent can the cognitive experience of information processing be regarded as thought enhancing? Full article

Fuzzy logic models human capacity to make decisions using natural language, and it is widely used in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This contribution supports the hypothesis that the effectiveness of fuzzy logic in mimicking human capability to compute with words is due to the structural and functional analogies between the human nervous system and fuzzy logic systems. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that fuzzy logic can be processed by molecules and chemical reactions in wetware beyond the traditional methods based on electronic circuits and software. This innovative way of processing fuzzy logic allows the development of Chemical Artificial Intelligence and the design of new computational machines, more similar to the brain rather than electronic computers, both in composition and performance. Full article

This paper evaluates artificial texts produced by the GPT 2 and GPT 3 language models and proposes to use hermeneutic tools for their analysis, putting them on an equal footing with man-made texts. This decision is due to the intelligibility of these texts and the implicit knowledge on which they are based. Since the base of these language models is always the language corpus, it can be assumed that it is the source of this knowledge and that tools such as discourse and, in particular, the theory of discursive space can be used for its analysis. Full article

In the actual panorama of machine learning (ML) algorithms, the issue of the real-time information extraction/classification/manipulation/analysis of data streams (DS) is acquiring an ever-growing relevance. They arrive generally at high speed and always require an unsupervised real-time analysis for individuating long-range and higher order correlations among data that are continuously changing over time (phase transitions). This emphasizes the infinitary character of the issue, i.e., the continuous change of the signifying number of degrees of freedom characterizing the statistical representation function, challenging the classical ML algorithms, both in their classical and quantum versions, as far as all are based on the (stochastic) search for the global minimum of some cost/energy function. The physical analogue must be studied in the realm of quantum field theory (QFT) for dissipative systems as biological and neural systems, which are able to map between different phases of quantum fields, using the formalism of the Bogoliubov transform (BT). By applying the BT in a reversed way, on the system-thermal bath energetically balanced states, it is possible to define the powerful computational tool of the “doubling of the degrees of freedom” (DDF), making the choice of the signifying finite number of the degrees of freedom dynamic and then automatic, so to suggest a different class of unsupervised ML algorithms for solving the DS issue. Full article

New technologies, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, are dynamic in transforming creative space. AI-enabled programs are rapidly contributing to areas such as architecture, music, the arts, science, and so on. The recent Christie’s auction on the Portrait of Edmond has transformed the contemporary perception of AI art, giving rise to questions related to the creativity involved in this art. This research paper acknowledges the persistent problem, “Can AI art be considered as being creative?” In this light, this study draws on the various applications of AI, varied attitudes on AI art, and the processes of generating AI art to establish an argument that AI is capable of achieving artistic creativity. Full article

This presentation sketches out three scenarios of information suppression in social environments ravaged by pervasive feelings of insecurity and looming breakup. While containment (common in totalitarian regimes) strives to decrease the amount of information in the system by encouraging redundancy and semantic inflation, escape (typical for populist milieus) results in informational nihilism (information = noise). Inversely, tolerance (common for conspiracy adepts) interprets all signs—and even non-signs—as meaningful cues reinforcing pre-existing beliefs (noise = information). It is argued that these attempts at uncertainty reduction typically lead to pathological states, failing to reduce the overall amount of information within the systems in question. Full article

The theory of the pseudo-analysis is based on a special real semiring (called also tropical semiring). This theory enables a unified approach to three important problems as nonlinearity, uncertainty and optimization, with many applications. There are presented applications in fuzzy logics and fuzzy sets, utility theory, Cumulative Prospect theory of partial differential equations. Full article

The Special Session “Information Phenomenon” (SSIP) at the conference “Theoretical and Foundational Problems in Information Studies” (TFP), a part of the 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), was dedicated to the foundational problems in information studies. The abstract (theoretical) models presented in this session addressed the problems of information definition, information quality, hylomorphic theory, structural analysis, phenomenology and ontology of information. In this overview, we outline the models presented in SSIP and published in the Proceedings of the IS4SI Summit 2021 based on the short abstracts submitted by the authors. Full article

It seems that intelligent complex systems will require formalisms having richer behavior than Turing machines. Very little is known about the relations (e.g., the expressiveness and/or effectiveness) between new super-Turing models of computation. The objective of this paper is an attempt to establish a hierarchy of expressiveness of super-Turing models. Truly, a new theory of undecidability and complexity for super-Turing models has to be developed. Some preliminary steps have been done in this paper by introducing a-decidable and i-decidable algorithms and U-complete, D-complete, and H-complete complexity classes that were inspired by NP-complete and PSPACE-complete classes for intractable problems. This paper should be understood as a preliminary step leading to feasible approximate solutions of Turing machine undecidable problems, in a similar way as approximate, randomized, and parallel algorithms allow for feasible solutions for intractable problems. Full article

This paper argues that generative music and art techniques have much to tell us about the politics of operations in infrastructural and political contexts, that generative techniques are an unavoidable aspect of informatic operations, and that an artistic and materially-grounded sensibility toward the manipulation of the inherent biases of operations is necessary, if not sufficient, for creating high-stakes automated systems that take an ethics of care as foundational to their becoming. This paper does so through concepts from mid-twentieth century philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon’s On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects alongside critical readings of a pair of software artifacts—namely the predictive policing platform Geolitica (formerly PredPol) and the procedurally-generated videogame No Man’s Sky. The analysis is supplemented by the author’s experience as an experimental electronic musician, media artist and software product developer. Full article

In this essay, we use the provocation of the possibility of artificial intelligence involving the physical merger of humans and machines to explore cognitive extension and the co-evolution of humans and technology. Our aim is to show that far from the stereotypical vision of cyborgs requiring chips in their brain, we are already becoming cognitively extended by the internet, and this is the product of a co-evolutionary development of the internet itself. Full article

Displaying search results in a vertical list, existing academic search engines do not reveal deeper insight into searched topics such as their connections with other topics. To address this issue, this paper proposes two interactive information visualization interfaces where users can discover networks of authors in computer science and interdisciplinary connections among research topics in philosophy, art, and history. The first interface presents collaboration relationships among authors and the authors’ publications, using author name and publication title data extracted from more than two million papers published in the ACM journal until 2016. This interface, to our knowledge, is the first search engine that was built with a game engine, which sheds light on a novel use of a game engine as a search tool. The second method uses a web interface to show connections among seemingly unrelated concepts. Being the first digital implementation of Bill Seaman’s poly-association, the interface possesses potentials as a widely available tool that can be used for discovering unexpected interdisciplinary relationships among research topics. Full article

Contemporary natural language processing (NLP) emphasizes comparing machine language performances to standards defined by static corpora of human text. However, despite some successes, current models remain weak in areas such as pragmatics. Using scholarship on neosentience as a foundation, this essay proposes an alternative view of machine language that emphasizes generativity rather than stasis and draws on historical work on computational reflection in artificial intelligence to outline an alternative architecture for conversational systems. It concludes by proposing an “android linguistics” that takes human-machine linguistic communication as its object of study. Full article

In living cells, signal chains process the information that flows between the signal reception and the gene usage. This paper investigates the conjecture that logic gates play a role. In the mammalian preimplantation embryo, cells either become part of the placenta, or part of the embryo proper; i.e., they enter either the trophectoderm (TE) line, or the inner cell mass (ICM) line. TE cells express a caudal-related homeogene (CDX2), whose induction is regulated by two signal chains. A logic AND gate was mapped to the regulative DNA region of the CDX2 gene, which integrated the signaling from both chains. The gate accounts for all of the available experimental findings, which suggests that it is instrumental for CDX2 induction. Full article

This is an outline of the contributions from the Symmetry, Structure, and Information Conference organized by the International Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Symmetry which was one of the ten conferences of the 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information held online 12–19 September 2021. Each of the ten conferences contributing to the summit had a 3–6 h block of plenary time with the program (usually invited lectures and panel discussions) intended for all participants of the summit. Outside of the assigned plenary time, conferences had parallel programs of more specialized, technical, or focused presentations. All plenary events and some parallel, internal events of the conferences federated into the summit were recorded. Links to several of these recordings and extended abstracts of all presentations are available at the website of IS4SI. The conference had fifteen presentations (including a plenary invited lecture) and a panel discussion. Full article

There are several apparent antinomies within the studies of information, symmetry, and the mutual relationship between symmetry and information. These antinomies are only apparent as the antinomial opposition of statements about information, symmetry, and their mutual relationship is a result of differences between the use of these fundamental concepts in the narrow contexts of their early applications or the common-sense discourse and more rigorous and general study. When information and symmetry are conceptualized at a sufficiently high level of generality and with sufficient precision, the apparent antinomies are eliminated together with the causes of misconceptions within them. In this paper, a selection of examples of such antinomies is followed by a nutshell overview of their solutions, achieved mainly through the clarification of conceptual confusion without the need for revision of the already existing methodology. Full article

This is an outline of contributions from the 13th International Workshop on Natural Computing (IWNC), which was one of the ten conferences of the 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information held online on 12–19 September 2021. Each of the ten conferences contributing to the summit had a 3–6 h block of plenary time with the program (usually invited lectures and panel discussions) intended for all participants of the Summit. Outside of the assigned plenary time, conferences had parallel programs of more specialized, technical, or focused presentations. All plenary events and some parallel internal events of the conferences federated into the summit were recorded. Links to several of these recordings and extended abstracts of all presentations are available at the IS4SI website. Five of the papers presented at the IWNC were submitted and accepted for publication in the Special Issue of Proceedings. Full article

A “triune approach” to the three main domains of intelligence is advocated. It would be the most cogent way to understand the uses and impact of artificial intelligence in its intrinsic relation with human nature and social structures. The enormous technological success of artificial intelligence and the widespread social applications, impinging both in individual lives and in multiple economic and social structures, are making necessary a reflection on the wider dynamics of intelligence, interconnecting the artificial information pathways with the natural information flows and the social structural substrates. As a telling instance, the traditional poor understanding and management of “social emotions” is dangerously amplified in today’s social networks, contributing to unrest, polarization, and widespread desocialization processes. In contemporary societies, the essential link between intelligence and life has to be plainly revealed as a counterpoint to the link between artificial intelligence and computation. Full article

Humans mainly learned from other human beings for thousands of years. Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) seem to have changed this setup. Due to deep learning, we now have access to automatically generated high-quality statistical knowledge beyond human expert intuition in many fields. However, the representation is not human-friendly: an opaque mass of pure associations instead of narrative, causal explanations. Here, we investigate the epistemological problem of using AI data for human understanding and suggest an active approach based on the scientific method. Following tradition in AI, we focus on a game. Go is a well-defined problem domain that is complex enough that our approach may provide solutions in other fields of knowledge, too, where AI technology outperforms humans. Full article

Information integration has been considered the key characteristic of the mechanism of consciousness. However, the mechanism of integration remains unknown. Integration can be considered in terms of the factorization of mathematical structures. This paper presented information integration as a mode of encoding information. The level of integration is reflected in the logic of encoding. The frequent occurrence of Klein’s Four-Group in relevant contexts provides some clues about the integrating logic of encoding information. Full article

We construct a natural computing system based on the sense of touch. The natural computing system we construct does not depend on the conventional category of computer science. The computing consists of a computing entity and an algorithm. We define an algorithm as “a list of instructions for solving a problem” and a computing system as “the act or process of calculating an answer or amount by using an algorithm”. Full article

The goal of this paper is to develop the novel automaton model of learning processes called a selective machine and to study the properties of these machines. The model is based on the analysis of the process of language acquisition by people, although it correctly reflects how learning occurs in nature when animals, birds and even fish learn. A selective machine is an abstract automaton that has processors that can belong to different classes of conventional abstract automata. This creates various classes of selective machines. It is proved that in a general case, a selective machine can have higher learning abilities than any of its processors. This shows how synergy emerges in the technological sphere and explains why computer networks are able to outperform separate computers. Full article

What is meant by ritual (li) in the Confucian tradition—mostly Xunzi—might be said to be the root of three different concepts-“stages” or concept-“developments” in European philosophy. The first stage is the concept of habit, from the Aristotelian “hexis” to Bourdieu’s “habitus”. The second is the sign, as developed by the American Pragmatists and, in Europe, by Saussure. There is a third, relatively recent stage, as I would classify it, which is Paul Weiss’ surrogate. Weiss uses the pragmatist theorization of habit to construct his original concept of the surrogates. The above stages might be chronological in the way they appear (habit, sign, surrogate), but one does not erase the other. They have the same root—which I would like to argue is the ritual—and they build on it, while each differentiates ritual in its own way. They are distinctive concepts but, at the same time, are related to one another. Full article

This article discusses the Fastnacht Carnival celebrations in the village of Büßlingen in Baden-Württemberg (Southern Germany) which has both a rich local tradition and a multi-faceted history. The authors present the social practice of German Carnival from four perspectives: the first one shows the historic-religious background of Fastnacht, the second presents the social-political aspect, the third one is the music that people listen to during the celebration of Fastnacht and which is an important element of the celebrations. Finally the fourth and the last perspective deals with the Fastnachtsvereine, the associations which plan and execute the celebrations. In times of globalism Fastnacht keeps its traditional local character as the participants speak in their regional dialect in all the activities which take place, as well as identifying strongly with the region they live in. The authors gathered the ethnographic data in February and March 2019 in Büßlingen and in Singen, Germany, through participant observation and in-depth interviews. Full article