bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
"What happened was foremost an assault by interests of the big capital." An interview with Breda Pavlič.
Authors: Slaček Brlek Sašo , Amon Prodnik Jernej
Published: May 2018

Interview with Breda Pavlič, critical researcher and former staff member of UNESCO’s Division of Free Flow of Information and Communication Policies in the 1980s (1984-1989). We discussed her path towards the critical-analysis approach to information and communication problems, the role of such analyses in the academic field of the time, as well as within the political context of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, and their initiative in UNESCO and in the United Nations Organization for a New international information and communication order (NIICO).
The Alternative to Occupy: Radical Politics Between Protest and Parliament
Authors: Husted Emil , Hansen Allan Dreyer
Published: May 2018

In this paper, we compare the political anatomy of two distinct enactments of (leftist) radical politics: Occupy Wall Street and The Alternative, a recently elected political party in Denmark. Departing from Ernesto Laclau’s conceptualization of ‘the universal’ and ‘the particular’, we show how the institutionalization of radical politics (as carried out by The Alternative) entails a move from universality towards particularity. This move, however, comes with the risk of cutting-off supporters who no longer feel represented by the project. We refer to this problem as ‘the problem of particularization’. In conclusion, we use the analysis to propose a conceptual distinction between radical movements and radical parties: While the former is constituted by an infinite chain of equivalent grievances, the latter is constituted by a prioritized set of differential demands. While both are important, we argue, they must remain distinct in order to preserve the universal spirit of contemporary radical politics
Who is Actually Harmed by Predatory Publishers?
Authors: Eve Martin Paul , Priego Ernesto
Published: May 2018

“Predatory publishing” refers to conditions under which gold open-access academic publishers claim to conduct peer review and charge for their publishing services but do not, in fact, actually perform such reviews. Most prominently exposed in recent years by Jeffrey Beall, the phenomenon garners much media attention. In this article, we acknowledge that such practices are deceptive but then examine, across a variety of stakeholder groups, what the harm is from such actions to each group of actors. We find that established publishers have a strong motivation to hype claims of predation as damaging to the scholarly and scientific endeavour while noting that, in fact, systems of peer review are themselves already acknowledged as deeply flawed.
Digital Self-Evaluation and the Cybernetic Regime: A Sketch for a Materialist Apparatus Analysis
Authors: Schaupp Simon
Published: May 2018

Using the example of self-tracking, this paper develops a materialist approach to the methodology of apparatus analysis. It builds on the Foucauldian concept of the apparatus, which it then subdivides into micro apparatus, as a concrete digital technology, and macro apparatus, as the superordinate regime to which the micro apparatus contributes. To bridge these two concepts, the term of the “urgent need” is used for asking to which broader social problems a given apparatus reacts. Contrary to approaches of “new materialism”, this paper insists on an analytical divide between discourse and matter on the one hand and action structure on the other hand, to be able to consider politico-economic power relations. Using this methodology, the relationship between the techno-practice of self-tracking and a broader cybernetic regime, is illustrated.
Book Review: ‘Ctrl-Alt-Del’, A Review of Language Put to Work by Enda Brophy
Authors: Bove Arianna
Published: May 2018

Arianna Bove reviews Enda Brophy’s Language Put to Work: The Making of the Global Call Centre Workforce (2018). Palgrave Macmillan.
Theorising and Analysing Academic Labour
Authors: Allmer Thomas
Published: May 2018

The aim of this article is to contextualise universities historically within capitalism and to analyse academic labour and the deployment of digital media theoretically and critically. It argues that the post-war expansion of the university can be considered as medium and outcome of informational capitalism and as a dialectical development of social achievement and advanced commodification. The article strives to identify the class position of academic workers, introduces the distinction between academic work and labour, discusses the connection between academic, information and cultural work, and suggests a broad definition of university labour. It presents a theoretical model of working conditions that helps to systematically analyse the academic labour process and to provide an overview of working conditions at universities. The paper furthermore argues for the need to consider the development of education technologies as a dialectics of continuity and discontinuity, discusses the changing nature of the forces and relations of production, and the impact on the working conditions of academics in the digital university. Based on Erik Olin Wright’s inclusive approach of social transformation, the article concludes with the need to bring together anarchist, social democratic and revolutionary strategies for establishing a socialist university in a commons-based information society.
On the Alienation of Academic Labour and the Possibilities for Mass Intellectuality
Authors: Hall Richard
Published: May 2018

As one response to the secular crisis of capitalism, higher education is being proletarianised. Its academics and students, increasingly encumbered by precarious employment, debt, and new levels of performance management, are shorn of autonomy beyond the sale of their labour-power. Incrementally, the labour of those academics and students is subsumed and re-engineered for value production, and is prey to the twin processes of financialisation and marketisation. At the core of understanding the impact of these processes and their relationships to the reproduction of higher education is the alienated labour of the academic. The article examines the role of alienated labour in academic work in its relationship to the proletarianisation of the University, and relates this to feelings of hopelessness, in order to ask what might be done differently. The argument centres on the role of mass intellectuality, or socially-useful knowledge and knowing, as a potential moment for overcoming alienated labour.
University Transformations and the New Knowledge Production Regime in Informational Capitalism
Authors: Ouellet Maxime , Martin Éric
Published: May 2018

This article examines undergoing transformations in universities in the context of the structural crisis of capitalism, which began more than 40 years ago. This crisis is at the heart of one of the main contradictions of capitalism: while capital needs living labour to produce value, the dynamic of accumulation requires the replacement of human labour by machines. We will show how capital attempts to overcome this contradiction by modifying the nature of knowledge, learning institutions and human beings to turn them into productive investments, whose profitability can be measured. The contemporary mutations of universities are linked to the globalization, financialization and commodification of knowledge. We also observe transformations in universities’ institutional arrangements and in individual human consciousness. Our perspective combines institutionalist political economy and Marxian critique of value, showing how material, institutional and cultural transformations are dialectically articulated in a new form of social regulation. We will show how there is a complementarity between the transformations of political, economic and learning institutions and their linkage with a new mode of knowledge production. The general goal being that advanced mastery of knowledge and information will increase the efficiency of the technological and economic system and its endless acceleration.
Higher Education as a Gift and as a Commons
Authors: Wittel Andreas
Published: May 2018

This paper takes as a starting point Lewis Hyde’s (2007, xvi) assertion that art is a gift and not a commodity: “Works of art exist simultaneously in two ‘economies’, a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without a market, but where there is no gift there is no art.” I want to argue that the same claim should be made for those aspects of academic labour that refer to teaching and education. Education can survive without a market, but where there is no gift there is no education. However the gift that is part of all educational processes gets rather obscured in regimes where higher education is either a public good or a private good. In regimes of higher education as public good the gift gets obscured by the provision of a service by the state. In regimes of higher education as a private good (e.g. higher education in the UK) the gift gets even more obscured, obviously so. It is only in a third educational regime, where education is a common good (e.g. the recent rise of the free universities), that the gift character of education can properly shine. Whilst this should be celebrated, the notion of a higher education commons poses some severe challenges. The paper ends with an examination of possibilities of academic activists to rescue or even strengthen the gift-like character of education.
Metric Power and the Academic Self: Neoliberalism, Knowledge and Resistance in the British University
Authors: Feldman Zeena , Sandoval Marisol
Published: May 2018

This article discusses the experience of being an academic in the UK in the contemporary climate of neoliberal capitalism and ‘metric power’ (Beers 2016). Drawing on existing literature and our own practice, the first portion of the paper explores the relationship between neoliberalism, metrics and knowledge. We then examine how neoliberal mantras and instruments impact the university’s structures and processes, and reflect on consequences for the academic self. We take as a starting point the context of increasing workloads and the pressure on academics to excel in multiple roles, from ‘world-leading’ researchers to ‘excellent’ teachers and ‘service providers’ to professional administrators performing recruitment and (self)marketing tasks. Neoliberal academia, we suggest, promotes a meritocratic ideology of individual achievement that frames success and failure as purely personal ‘achievements’, which encourages a competitive ethos and chronic self-criticism. This article insists that these problems need to be understood in the context of neoliberal policy-making and the corporatisation of knowledge, including funding cuts and grant imperatives, the low status of teaching, the cynical instrumentation of university league tables, and increased institutional reliance on precarious academic labour. The article goes on to focus on responses that resist, challenge or, in some cases, compound, the problems identified in part one. Responses by dissatisfied academics range in style and approach – some decide against an academic career; others adopt a strategy of individual withdrawal within the system by trying to create and protect spaces of independence – for example, by refusing to engage beyond officially required minimums. This article argues that opportunities for positive systemic change can be found in collective efforts to oppose the status quo and to create alternatives for how academic labour is organised. Therein, solidarity can act as an instrument of opposition to the individualisation of the neoliberal academic self.
Smileys Without Borders. A Critique of Transboundary Interaction Between Politicians, Journalists and PR Practitioners on Social Media
Authors: Berglez Peter
Published: May 2018

The purpose of the article is to contribute a critical theoretical understanding of cross-professional relations on social media, focusing on politicians, journalists and PR practitioners. It is well known that these professional groups establish personal and close relations in offline contexts, but more attention needs to be paid to the role of social media. Here, it is argued that, in the context of digital media use, semi-private chatting, humour, and mutual acknowledgement, including the use of likes, smileys, heart symbols, etc. are evidence of a 'neoliberalization' of cross-professional relations. The underlying idea is that the common practice of self-branding undermines representations of professional belonging and exacerbates the blurring of professional boundaries. The critical conceptualization of such 'transboundary' interaction between politicians, journalists and PR practitioners, which is guided by a cultural materialist approach, includes the presentation of examples deriving from the Swedish Twittersphere, and suggestions for empirical research.
Commons Praxis: Toward a Critical Political Economy of the Digital Commons
Authors: Birkinbine Benjamin J
Published: May 2018

The concept of the commons has provided a useful framework for understanding a wide range of resources and cultural activities associated with the creation of value outside of the traditional market mechanisms under capitalism (i.e., private property, rational self-interest, and profit maximization).  However, these communities often continue to intersect with capital and the state attempts to appropriate their resources. Recent scholarship has sought to unpack some of the contradictions inherent in the claims made about the revolutionary potential of the commons by offering conceptual frameworks for assessing commons-based projects.  This paper builds upon this research by developing a two-pronged argument.  First, by drawing examples from the free software movement, I argue that critical political economy provides the most useful analytical framework for understanding the contradictions inherent in the relationship between capital and the commons. Second, I argue for a commons praxis that attempts to overcome some of these contradictions.  Within this discussion, I build on the notion of ‘boundary commoning’ to understand organisational form, and I develop the concept of ‘subversive commoning’ for understanding various forms of commoning that seek to undermine the capitalist logics of the digital commons.
Reflections on Luis Suarez-Villa’s Corporate Power, Oligopolies and the Crisis of the State
Authors: Burakov Dmitry Vladimirovich
Published: May 2018

Book review of Luis Suarez-Villa’s Corporate Power, Oligopolies and the Crisis of the State (20Book review of Luis Suarez-Villa’s Corporate Power, Oligopolies and the Crisis of the State (2015). State University of New York, ISBN: 978-1-4384-5485-6.15)
Book Review: Revolutionary Keywords for A New Left by Ian Parker
Authors: Clyne Eyal Z
Published: May 2018

Eyal Clyne reviews Ian Parker's "Revolutionary Keywords for A New Left" (Winchester and Washington: Zero books ISBN: 978-1-78535-642-1), a book that unlocks complex Left-struggle issues in short and accessible essays.
Information: Problems, Paradoxes, and Solutions
Authors: Burgin Mark
Published: May 2018

The information age is upon us and the main paradox is that there is no satisfactory and commonly accepted answer to the crucial question what information is. This results in a quantity of contradictions, misconceptions, and paradoxes related to the world of information. We consider the existing situation in information studies, which is very paradoxical and inconsistent, in the first part of this paper. To remedy the situation, a new approach in information theory, which is called the general theory of information, is developed. The main achievement of the general theory of information is explication of a relevant and adequate definition of information. This theory is built on an axiomatic base as a system of two classes of principles and their consequences. The first class consists of the ontological principles, which are revealing general properties and regularities of information and its functioning. Principles from the second class explain how to measure information.
The Cybersemiotic Model of Communication: An Evolutionary View on the Threshold between Semiosis and Informational Exchange
Authors: Brier Søren
Published: May 2018

This paper discusses various suggestions for a philosophical framework for a trans-disciplinary information science or a semiotic doctrine. These are: the mechanical materialistic, the pan-informational, the Luhmanian second order cybernetic approach, Peircian biosemiotics and finally the pan-semiotic approach. The limitations of each are analysed. The conclusion is that we will not have to choose between either a cybernetic-informational or a semiotic approach. A combination of a Peircian-based biosemiotics with autopoiesis theory, second order cybernetics and information science is suggested in a five-levelled cybersemiotic framework. The five levels are 1) a level of Firstness, 2) a level of mechanical matter, energy and force as Secondness, 3) a cybernetic and thermodynamic level of information, 4) a level of sign games and 5) a level of conscious language games. These levels are then used to differentiate levels of information systems, sign and language games in human communication. In our model Maturana and Varela’s description of the logic of the living as autopoietic is accepted and expanded with Luhmann’s generalization of the concept of autopoiesis, to cover also to psychological and socio-communicative systems. Adding a Peircian concept of semiosis to Luhmann’s theory in the framework of biosemiotics enables us to view the interplay of mind and body as a sign play. I have in a previous publication (see list of references) suggested the term “sign play” pertaining to exosemiotics processes between animals in the same species by stretching Wittgenstein's language concept into the animal world of signs. The new concept of intrasemiotics designates the semiosis of the interpenetration between biological and psychological autopoietic systems as Luhmann defines them in his theory. One could therefore view intrasemiotics as the interplay between Lorenz' biological defined motivations and Freud's Id, understood as the psychological aspect of many of the natural drives. In the last years of the development of his theory, Lorenz worked with the idea of how emotional feedback introduced just a little learning through pleasurable feelings into instinctive systems because, as he reasoned, there must be some kind of reward of going through instinctive movements, thus making possible the appetitive searching behaviour for sign stimuli. But he never found an acceptable way of modelling motivation in biological science. I am suggesting a cybersemiotic model to combine these approaches, defining various concepts like thought-semiotics, phenosemiotic and intrasemiotics, combining them with the already known concepts of exosemiotics, ecosemiotics, and endosemiotics into a new view of self-organizing semiotic processes in living systems. Thus a new semiotic level of description is generated, where mind-body interactions can be understood on the same description level.
Internet as System and Environment in Cyberspace: Preliminary Ideas from an Ongoing Research
Authors: Palacios Marcos
Published: May 2018

The paper discusses the applicability of a pair of concepts - System/Environment - to Internet and Cyberspace. A central point in the discussion is that the pair System/Environment should not be viewed as static analytical poles, but rather as dynamic and interchangeable elements, so that Internet can be conceived both as System and/or Environment, depending on the type of phenomenon one is observing. As a counterpoint to this proposition, the recurrent and “common-sense” notion of Internet as a new medium is presented and criticized. The article also discusses and puts under critical scrutiny the role usually assigned to Internet as a change catalyst or accelerator and the implicit or explicit acceptance of an evolutionary new step in social organization represented by the generalization of New Technologies of Communication. The paper is part of an ongoing research on Digital Cities and Local Networks and proposes some initial steps towards the construction of a model of interpretation based on systems analysis adapted to the particularities of Internet and Cyberspace. The research is anchored on observations of Digital Cities and Local Networks projects at Internet, with special attention to the Aveiro Digital City Project (Portugal).
Information and Life: Towards a Biological Understanding of Informational Phenomena
Authors: Marijuán Pedro C.
Published: May 2018

This work explores a new understanding of informational phenomena based on the molecular organization of life. One of the central ideas is that the interrelationship among the recently framed fields of genomics, proteomics, and signaling science (crucial elements of the bioinformatic whole enterprise) may provide fundamental aspects of a new information synthesis. Thus, the new knowledge gained on the functionality and “existential flow” of the phenotypic molecular elements (basically the production and degradation of constituent enzymes and proteins—the transient proteome of the cell), which is intimately coupled with the intrinsic dynamics of the “DNA world” and with the communicational events stemming from the cell environment, could represent a microcosm for the whole in-formation phenomena. The variant in-formation spelling emphasizes that the cellular coupling among constitutive (proteomic), generative (genomic), and communicational (signaling) information genera produces a differentiated mode of existence, the living state, which is always in the making, perpetually in formation. The in-formability of the living supports the emergence of a completely new realm of ‘cognitive’ autonomous causality —and implies, in other regards, the emergence of meaning and of agency, and the foundation upon which far more complex, organismic, neuronal, and social events have been evolutionarily deployed. There follows a fundamental break with respect to the mechanistic chains of causality (and explanation) afforded by the reductionist vision. There is also, in this biological approach to informational phenomena, a compelling need for the development of a new communication theory of non-conservative nature. New logical principles are discussed which could guide biological systems in their inner choices between information ‘factories’ and information ‘garbage camps’. Finally, this bottom-up approach to the nature of information, molecular-biologically grounded as it is, does not militate against the top-down strategies. Conversely, it aims at a complementarity with germane conceptualizations that are currently being addressed in theoretical science, philosophy, neurosciences, and in social and technological disciplines.
A Rational Model In Theoretical Genetics
Authors: Javorszky Karl
Published: May 2018

This model connects information processing in biological organisms with methods and concepts used in classical, technical information processing. The central concept shows copying and regulatory interaction between a logical sequence consisting of triplets and the amount of constituents of a set. The basic mathematical model of information processing within a biological cell has been worked out. The cell in the model copies its present state into a sequence and reads it off the sequence. The sequence comes in triplets and is not one sequence but appears in two almost identical varieties. We treat consecutive and contemporary assemblies of information carrying media as equally suited to contain information. Methods used so far utilised the consecutive property of media, while in biology one observes the concurrent existence of specific realisations of possibilities. Genetics connects the two approaches by using an interplay between consecutively (sequentially) ordered logical markers (the DNA) and the state of the set engulfing the DNA. Several mathematical tools have been evolved to assemble an interface between sequentially ordered carriers and the same number of carriers if they arrive contemporaneously. Using linguistic theory and formal logic one concludes that measurement(s) on a cell are a (set of) logical sentence(s) relating to an assembly of n objects with group structures among each other. We linearise and count all possible group relations on a set of n objects and introduce the concept of multidimensional partitions hitherto left undefined. We introduce the concept of a maximally structured set by establishing an upper limit to the information carrying capacity of n objects used commutatively and sequentially at the same time (like genetics does). The copying and re-copying mechanism which is the core matter with genetics appears in the model as differing transmission efficiency coefficients of media if the media are used once sequentially and once commutatively. In dependence of the strength of the assembly, one can transmit up to several hundred % more information using n carriers if the carriers are used commutatively, as long as the number of the objects remains within some limits.
System Ontology and Descriptionism - Bertalanffy's View and New Developments
Authors: Kornwachs Klaus
Published: May 2018

After a first historical sketch about the rise of system ontology, some problems with naturalizing the system concept are worked out: –In different ontological positions the danger of essentialism is actual. This holds also for a certain interpretation of evolution that is suspected to be an essentialism? Bertalanffy´s view is set into contrast to this positions –the constructivist approach. This gives rise to introduce the authors notion of descriptionisms as it is proposed and revisited here. The notions of system surface, of the processes of system modeling and system control serve to contrast the reality of descriptions with unnecessary ontological commitments.
The Dialectics of Maria Zlotina
Authors: Myelkov Yuriy
Published: May 2018

In this paper I review the system of dialectical philosophy of Maria Zlotina, one of representatives of Kiev school of Russian and Ukrainian philosophy of the 20th c. That philosophy is an original conception of materialist dialectics, where the process of cognition appears as the reflection of objective development process of the reality. Development is presented as self-motion of the object out of its inner contradiction, in which process oppositions of chance and necessity, whole and part, determination and indetermination, singular and general are being dialectically resolved. It is stressed that universality of dialectical method lies in it demanding to consider each specific moment in concrete way. The conclusion is made that dialectical method of cognition is in demand and is presumed by contemporary science of self-organization and general current of contemporary philosophical thinking, particularly, in order to understand specificity of situations of complexity and instability.
About the Potential of E-democracy in Cooperative Organisations
Authors: Neto José Monserrat
Published: May 2018

This paper develops a reflection on the potential of e-democracy to strengthen society's democratization exploring historically and technically the possibilities of cooperative organisations. From Singer's historical view about the rise of capitalism it is conjectured that Internet and e-democracy could be the technological innovations capable to trigger off the creation of a virtual network of cooperative organisations and thereby the development of a new economic system, based more on humanitarian values than the present ones.
On the Subject of Objects: Four Views on Object Perception and Tool Use
Authors: Susi Tarja , Ziemke Tom
Published: May 2018

This paper addresses the relation between an agent and its environment, and more specifically, how subjects perceive object/artefacts/tools and their (possible) use. Four different conceptions of the relation between subject and object are compared here: functional tone (von Uexküll), equipment (Heidegger), affordance (Gibson), and entry point (Kirsh). even as these concepts have developed within different disciplines (theoretical biology, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science) and in very different historical contexts, they are used more or less interchangeably in much of the literature, and typically conflated under the label of ‘affordance’. However, at closer inspection, they turn out to have not only similarities, but also substantial differences, which are identified and discussed here. Given that the relation between subjects and their objects is crucial to understanding human cognition and interaction with tools and technology, as well as robots’ interaction with their environment, we argue that these differences deserve some more attention than they have received so far.
From Biosphere to Semiosphere to Social Lifeworlds. Biology as an Understanding Social Science
Authors: Witzany Günther
Published: May 2018

The change could not be more radical. Biology, as a classical natural science, has celebrated numerous successes. Examining its subject matter from a reductionistic, materialistic point of view has led to exceptional knowledge and given rise to dozens of sub-disciplines. Unfortunately, by pursuing such detail, satisfactory answers to central questions – What is life? How did it originate and how do we view ourselves as living beings? – have been lost in a universe of analytical units. Yet not entirely! A transdisciplinary network is evolving: it goes beyond reductionistic biology, beyond vitalism or a rekindled (metaphysical) enchantment of nature. It is increasingly able to provide better answers to these questions than firmly established, traditional, mechanistic biology: (1.) a semiotics that transcends Peirce, James and Morris to serve as a basis for the interpretation of sign processes in biosemiotics (Kull 2005), (2.) developmental biologists, embryologists and epigeneticists who have turned the paradigm “DNA-RNA-Protein-everything else” (Arthur Kornberg) on its head and who try to understand protein bodies as context-dependent interpreters of the genetic text, (3.) a philosophy that reconstructs biology as an understanding social science which describes the rule-governed sign-mediated interactions of cell individuals to mega-populations in their lifeworlds.
The Second Scientific Revolution in Capital Letters: The Informatic Turn
Authors: Yoshida Tamito
Published: May 2018

Tamito Yoshida is Member of the Japan Academy, Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo and the Chuo University. He was Vice-President of the Science Council of Japan. The text published here forms the basis of the keynote speech he delivered at the First World Congress of the International Federation for Systems Research held November 14–17, 2005, in Kobe, Japan. This was Yoshida’s first (!) presentation in English to an international scientific audience. It is an outstanding resumé of his lifework worth taking into consideration outside Japan.It was no later than 1993 when during his participation in a Japanese project aimed at clarifying information concepts, Yoshida introduced what he calls the “informatic” turn – an idea the origins of which date back as early as the late 1960ies. According to the paper presented here, it comprises a “genomic turn” of biological science, a “linguistic turn of the human and social sciences” and an “IT turn of engineering”. The “informatic” turn marks a second scientific revolution compared to the revolution in which modern science itself was formed. This revolution leads to a new paradigm of science: science is fundamentally made for design, and it is fundamentally based upon the categories of “information” and “programme” which are defined in a fresh way to link philosophy-of-science considerations with semiotics.Regarding the references, this paper may represent an exception from normal standards of scientific writing. Only a few Japanese sources are given. But we decided to publish it anyway, since the scientificity of the paper is beyond any doubt.This paper was printed in the International Journal of Knowledge and Systems Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 2, September 2005. We publish this paper here in electronic form with kind permission of JAIST Press. Slight changes as to style and wordings are due to the editor. (Wolfgang Hofkirchner)
Some Assumptions about Problem Solving Representation in Turing’s Model of Intelligence
Authors: Morado Raymundo , Hernández-Quiroz Francisco
Published: May 2018

Turing machines as a model of intelligence can be motivated under some assumptions, both mathematical and philosophical. Some of these are about the possibility, the necessity, and the limits of representing problem solving by mechanical means. The assumptions about representation that we consider in this paper are related to information representability and availability, processing as solving, nonessentiality of complexity issues, and finiteness, discreteness and sequentiality of the representation. We discuss these assumptions and particularly something that might happen if they were to be rejected or weakened. Tinkering with these assumptions sheds light on the import of alternative computational models.
The Genesis of Representation
Authors: Cameron W. A.
Published: May 2018

In language, humans describe their world and can construct a narrative of their own becoming. But the concepts within which the emergence of linguistic man may be described are, themselves, contingent on thee accidents of that emergence. The human world is objective but the terms of that objectivity are contingent on human morphology and the accidents of its evolution.
Approaching Artificial Intelligence for Games – the Turing Test revisited
Authors: Eriksson Lundström Jenny , Karlsson Stefan
Published: May 2018

Today's powerful computers have increasingly more resources available, which can be used for incorporating more sophisticated AI into home applications like computer games. The perhaps obvious way of using AI to enhance the experience of a game is to make the player perceive the computer-controlled entities as intelligent. The traditional idea of how to determine whether a machine can pass as intelligent is the Turing Test. In this paper we show that it is possible and useful to conduct a test adhering to the intention of the original Turing test. We present an empirical study exploring human discrimination of artificial intelligence from the behaviour of a computer-controlled entity used in its specific context and how the behaviour responds to the user's expectations. In our empirical study the context is a real-time strategy computer game and the purpose of the AI is merely to pass as an acceptable opponent. We discuss the results of the empirical study and its implications for AI in computer applications.
Machinery, Intelligence and Our Intentionality. Grounds for Establishing Paradoxical Discourses
Authors: Schmidt Colin T. A.
Published: May 2018

Attaching the robotic body to the artificial brain (the computer) is a poor way of going about constructing autonomous mentality. It represents nothing more than an extension of the brain and succumbs to using experience as a confirmation of the scientist's belief that he may speak in artificial terms of mind of mentality. This naturally leads to producing a paradoxical discourse on the subject of robotics and thereby leads to confusion. The author indicates readings of paramount importance for disentangling the language involved in this special form of evolutionary computation.
The Cognitive Management of E-Testimony
Authors: Traiger Saul
Published: May 2018

This paper explores the the justificatory status of etestimony, the electronic transmission of testimony through such electronic media as e-mail, the web, instant messaging, and file-sharing. I argue that e-testimony introduces complexities in justification and cognitive management generally which should be of special interest to epistemologists and cognitive scientists. In contrast to ordinary non-technology mediated testimony, e-testimony is an impoverished stimulus. Users have to assess the epistemic and non-epistemic risks of accessing e-testimony with very little supporting information. This raises the cognitive overhead of such judgments. The paper explores mechanisms for reducing this cognitive overhead and more effectively managing e-testimony, including automated filtering and automated censorship of the incoming e-testimony stream. It is argued that such solutions may not reduce cognitive load, since epistemic responsibility still resides with the individual recipient of e-testimony.
Expected Influence of Ethics on Product Development Process
Authors: Larsson Stig
Published: May 2018

Product development efficiency and effectiveness is depending on a process being well executed. The actions of individuals included in the processes are influenced by the ethical and moral orientations that have been selected by each individual, whether this selection is conscious or not. This paper describes different ethical choices and the expected effects they may have on the development process exemplified by the product integration process for software products. The different frameworks analyzed are utilitarianism, rights ethics, duty ethics, virtue ethics and ethical egoism. The expected effects on the goals for product integration may be debated. This is a result in it self as it triggers discussions about ethical considerations and increase the awareness of the influence of moral decisions. Our conclusion is that the adherence to specific moral frameworks simplifies the alignment of actions to the practices described in product development models and standards and through this supports a more successful execution of product development projects. This conclusion is also confirmed through a comparison between the different directions and several codes of ethics for engineers issued by organizations such as IEEE as these combine features from several of the discussed ethical directions.
Artificial Intelligence and Moral intelligence
Authors: Pana Laura
Published: May 2018

We discuss the thesis that the implementation of a moral code in the behaviour of artificial intelligent systems needs a specific form of human and artificial intelligence, not just an abstract intelligence. We present intelligence as a system with an internal structure and the structural levels of the moral system, as well as certain characteristics of artificial intelligent agents which can/must be treated as 1- individual entities (with a complex, specialized, autonomous or selfdetermined, even unpredictable conduct), 2- entities endowed with diverse or even multiple intelligence forms, like moral intelligence, 3- open and, even, free-conduct performing systems (with specific, flexible and heuristic mechanisms and procedures of decision), 4 – systems which are open to education, not just to instruction, 5- entities with “lifegraphy”, not just “stategraphy”, 6- equipped not just with automatisms but with beliefs (cognitive and affective complexes), 7- capable even of reflection (“moral life” is a form of spiritual, not just of conscious activity), 8 – elements/members of some real (corporal or virtual) community, 9 – cultural beings: free conduct gives cultural value to the action of a ”natural” or artificial being. Implementation of such characteristics does not necessarily suppose efforts to design, construct and educate machines like human beings. The human moral code is irremediably imperfect: it is a morality of preference, of accountability (not of responsibility) and a morality of non-liberty, which cannot be remedied by the invention of ethical systems, by the circulation of ideal values and by ethical (even computing) education. But such an imperfect morality needs perfect instruments for its implementation: applications of special logic fields; efficient psychological (theoretical and technical) attainments to endow the machine not just with intelligence, but with conscience and even spirit; comprehensive technical means for supplementing the objective decision with a subjective one. Machine ethics can/will be of the highest quality because it will be derived from the sciences, modelled by techniques and accomplished by technologies. If our theoretical hypothesis about a specific moral intelligence, necessary for the implementation of an artificial moral conduct, is correct, then some theoretical and technical issues appear, but the following working hypotheses are possible: structural, functional and behavioural. The future of human and/or artificial morality is to be anticipated.
Information in Plant Life and Development: A Biosemiotic Approach
Authors: Barlow Peter W.
Published: May 2018

Plant cells, organs and organisms develop via a succession of transformations of their state mediated by the prevailing systems of metabolism and morphology. These transformations are facilitated by the perception of, and response to signs and signals generated either from within, or received from an external source – the abiotic environment, for example. The perception of signs and their subsequent transformation and integration in the form of plant-specific information, may depend upon a channel which has features of a ‘nervous’ system and which employs some of the molecular components and organ-elles familiar in animals. Developmental transformations can also be described in symbolic form by means of L-system algorithms (after A. Lindenmayer) whose elements have coun-terparts corresponding to the boundaries of cells and multicellular societies. The cell maps resulting from these algorithms enable retrospective inferences and future predictions about the behaviour of the cellular systems con-cerned. L-systems therefore offer a means of encapsulating the elements of the ‘living algorithms’ which may be supposed to be already embedded within an organism and which are respon-sive to signs which are an integral part of the already formed construction. Another class of sign system in plants is sug-gested as being based on gradients of biochemical agents, or morphogens, which promote cell determination and hence lead to distinctive patterns of tissue differentiation.
Packages: The Atoms of Communication
Authors: Dimitrov Assen I.
Published: May 2018

A simple model of communication, the problems it poses and the conclusions at which it arrives are proposed. The following items are discussed. 1. The model: What interacts during communication are wrapped up objects, packages; packages can communicate only through signals; agents can respond only to their own interpretation of the signal that reaches them, i.e. to the meaning they assign to it. 2. Thus, some problems of communication, engendered by this model are: What is inside the partner package? Is communication just a discourse between the partners, or is it a real interac-tion, after all? 3. Finally, some implications of the model: Through communication, reality is inserted into semiotic (linguistic) settings; hence, reality turns into a proposition (sentence), rather than a physical-chemical structure; ‘states of affairs’ turn into statements; situations are stated, commu-nicated, problematised and resolved; reality, likewise the proposition, acquires meaning.
Axiological Systems Theory: a general model of society
Authors: Parra-Luna Francisco
Published: May 2018

Societal problems can be defined as some kind of axiological disequilibrium since values can be considered to be the raw material, which founds social phenomena. If “values” is the “degree of usefulness or suitability of things to satisfy necessities”, or to use more sociological terms, If “value is an element of a shared symbolic system which serves as the criterion for choosing between alternatives for orientation";, then, it can be extrapolated that everything, or almost everything in the field of human relations, can be considered as an enormous and complex framework of necessities and interests which can only be satisfied through the achievement of values. Thus the worker tends to aim for an adequate standard of living, security and personal satisfaction; the student looks for knowledge and preparation for the future; the sportsman for health and perhaps glory and prestige; and so on. This can also be seen in institutions: Education stresses knowledge; Economy the material side of living; the Armed Forces, security and order; etc. The reason for existence of institutions, the aim of all human association, from the two lovers or two friends, to the United Nations Organization, passing through the family, the firm, or the State, is solely due to the need for carrying out and attaining values which will satisfy original or derived necessities. A central hypothesis in this paper is to support that any systemic theory of society could not avoid to deal with values as the basic raw material for defining and measuring its performance and for achieving the best possible solution of societal problems.
Biocommunication of Unicellular and Multicellular Organisms
Authors: Witzany Günther
Published: May 2018

Far from being mechanistic interactions, communication processes within and between organisms are sign-mediated interactions. Such interactions are the precondition for all cooperation and coordination between at least two biological agents such as organisms, organs, tissues, cells and even subcellular components. In most cases these communication processes are of a fine-tuned interconnected structure within a highly sophisticated hierarchical order. Signs of biocommunicative processes in most cases are chemical molecules. The signs that are used in a great variety of signaling processes follow syntactic, pragmatic and semantic rules. These three levels of semiotic rules are helpful tools in the investigation of the communication processes of unicellular and multicellular organisms. This article demonstrates a coherent biosemiotic categorization of communication processes found in the kingdoms of bacteria, fungi and plants. The investigation further shows that, apart from biotic sign use, a common trait is to interpret abiotic influences as indicators to generate appropriate adaptational behavior.
Online News Sites and Journalism 2.0: Reader Comments on Al Jazeera Arabic
Authors: Abdul-Mageed Muhammad M.
Published: May 2018

The current paper investigates reader commenting on news sites as one facet of journalism 2.0. Specifically, the themes, frequency, and regional coverage of readers’ comments—and in general, their activity levels and distribution—are considered, with a goal to increase knowledge of convergent media and computer-mediated communication (CMC), as well as shed light on the interactivity strategies adopted by influential news producers. The corpus is collected from the Arabic news site of the controversial Middle East-based, bilingual network Al Jazeera. Reader commenting was found to be a regular occurrence on the site but distributed unevenly across stories. The stories focused mostly on themes related to military and political violence, politics, and foreign relations, and covered events related to the Arab world more than other regions. Also, patterns of commenting varied according to day of the week and position of the story on the web page. Overall, these findings suggest that citizen journalism—journalism is performed by lay persons—on Al Jazeera tends to be shaped by the coverage and layout of the news site. Moreover, citizen participation in online news sites such as Al Jazeera is still far from ideal, in that commenters are given neither the access nor the facilitation to use modalities other than written text. These limitations are critiqued in light of contemporary discourses about media convergence and journalism 2.0.