Information Science

Published 15 March 2009

Connotations of Scientific Information

Emilia Curras
University Professor
AHDI. Honorary Member 2003. IIS Fellow
Medalla de Oro. Foundation Prof. Kaula
SEI, Honorary Professor

SCIENTIFIC Information (SI), according to Morcillo Corvetto, is characterized by eliminating the difference between a state of uncertainly and another that follows immediately. This affirmation assumes an increase in knowledge, because the human being is in a perpetual and continuous state of uncertainly. He does not know the truth. He can only vaguely divine distorted projections of the truth based of facts that are real by chance, because he can perceive them only through his highly imperfect human senses which are subject to the idiosyncrasies of the individual perceiver and his surroundings.

Ortega y Gasset referred to “man and his circumstances”, and Karl Popper places man in a intimate relationship with his environment. In the modest opinion of the present writes, man can be considered as an individual and unrepeatable being in the “midst of a process which, based on the macrocosmos and the microcosmos, transforms and assimilates these to create a mesocosmos in which his psychic or spiritual component will act, supported by his material component”.

The idea of increasing the state of knowledge by means of SI is an optimistic posture. What might well happen is that the state of uncertainly will increase. This undoubtedly happens after certain discoveries.

It would perhaps be more suitable to refer to a “modification” in the state of knowledge. This is,, in reality, the mental impact of useful information.

According to A. I. Mikhailov, SI has the power to transform human activities and attitudes, hence giving it a social and moral dimension. Note that the concept of “human attitude” necessitated the assumption that information is a “phenomenon”.

Martin Leupolt defines information as an ideal reflection upon objective reality. The concept of “ideal” refers to that part of the human mind concerned with cognition; whereas “objective reality” means the outside world in which the human being is immersed.

Likewise, mention should be made of the definition of Silveira who considers information to be a physical act accompanied by a psychic act. The physical act refers to the data, message or informative unit. The psychic act is undertaken by the mind in elaborating upon and grasping the physical act.

Also of interest is the definition of Klitke who speaks of parts of a whole which, when united, allow research and future tasks to be carried out.

We can also mention Alfred Marshall. He tells us that the best inheritance one generation can leave to the next is ideas transformed into information. Foskett also emphasizes the societal facet of the issue in staling that information is the social memory mankind.

In a recent talk, Brian Vickery affirmed that information is an end, not a means. He perhaps gave this too much emphasis. However, it can be assumed from this that information is a mean to science and truth.

By extrapolation, all these definitions can be applied to SI and can be adapted perfectly to the concepts described above.

From the aforementioned, we can deduce that SI is dynamic: “the conformation of facts to make them intelligible”, and has an ontogenic properly, at is governs man´s mental activity, and consequently, his evolution to a human state in his social and universal projection. We should consider the pluralistic aspect of SI: it is not unique, it is plural, diverse and evolutionary.

All these characteristics of SI should be taken into account when carrying out a study of its positive and advantageous use for man and where its processing has to be considered with the aid of science.

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