Abstract
It is argued that a true transdisciplinary information science going from physical information to phenomenological understanding needs a metaphysical framework. Three different kinds of causality are implied: efficient, formal and final. And at least five different levels of existence are needed: 1. The quantum vacuum fields with entangled causation. 2. The physical level with is energy and force-based efficient causation. 3. The informational-chemical level with its formal causation based on pattern fitting. 4. The biological-semiotic level with its non-conscious final causation and 5. The social-linguistic level of self-consciousness with its conscious goal-oriented final causation. To integrate these consistently in an evolutionary theory as emergent levels, neither mechanical determinism nor complexity theory are sufficient because they cannot be a foundation for a theory of lived meaning. C. S. Peirce's triadic semiotic philosophy combined with a cybernetic and systemic view, like N. Luhmann's, could create the framework I call Cybersemiotics.
Highlights
IntroductionI do not think that we can make a Foundation for a Transdisciplinary Information Science (TFIS) without relating it to theories of cognition, communication, mind and meaning on one hand, and classical science plus a theory of evolution on the other [1]
I do not think that we can make a Foundation for a Transdisciplinary Information Science (TFIS) without relating it to theories of cognition, communication, mind and meaning on one hand, and classical science plus a theory of evolution on the other [1].As Prigogine and Stengers have argued, one cannot base a through-going evolutionary theory from the physical and the chemical level, up to the level of living organisms on a mechanistic foundation [34]
The social-linguistic level of self-consciousness with its conscious goal-oriented final causation. To integrate these consistently in an evolutionary theory as emergent levels, neither mechanical determinism nor complexity theory are sufficient because they cannot be a foundation for a theory of lived meaning
Summary
I do not think that we can make a Foundation for a Transdisciplinary Information Science (TFIS) without relating it to theories of cognition, communication, mind and meaning on one hand, and classical science plus a theory of evolution on the other [1]. We need some kind of reflective metaphysical frame going beyond the Plato-inspired mathematical determinism in physics that is the source of much thinking in cognitive science and artificial intelligence It lacks a profound theory of the relation between life and meaning. As to the problem (1), it is clear that the idea of FIS is an attempt to make a theory where the physical universe as classically understood is opened theoretically by adding the concept of information that helps to explain how matter self-organize to life into the evolution of the universe and how communication is possible This is a great step forward, but the theory of information does not really include a theory of the “inner aspects of mind and emotion” and its causal effects on the body on animal level not to speak of human consciousness level. Even if this means that we do not have a completely independent free will initiating things, we still have a “free won’t” that can say no to some of our impulses, and that does not rule out that logical thinking can initiate decisions moving the body
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