Notes sur la structure informationnelle de la photographie

if you read French Patrick Peccatte has posted an interesting article about the Philosophy of Information and and photography theory on his blog:
http://blog.tuquoque.com/post/2008/08/05/Notes-sur-la-structure-informationnelle-de-la-photographie

A sequence of three books or the aesthetics of the reading lists

As anyone acquainted with film editing or the order in which food and wine should be served knows too well, how you put together words, sounds or pictures is essential to the overall meaning of the whole. Sometimes, syntax is everything. After all, all the colours are already in the rainbow, all the sounds already silently vibrate in the chord of a violin, and all the words may be found in the OED. It is how you put them together that makes the difference.

With this proviso, it is easy to see that the order in which we read macro-blocks of words - also known as books - makes a difference and sometimes a big one in our insights and appreciation. A reading list is not just a list, it is, in film jargon, a sequence, and as such it acquires a sense of its own.

The book-sequence that I have in mind in this blog may seem rather peculiar, but then, sometimes, it is the unexpected juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated elements that represents the pleasant novelty.

Here it is. It starts with Horton Hears a Who!, a 1954 book by Dr. Seuss. It then continues with Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, a 1884 science fiction novel by Edwin A. Abbott, And it ends with Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death, a 1969 novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

Each book is a gem. All of them are metaphors-against. Each of them is based on a different perspective about the space-time conditions of our lives. From a story on the smallest dimension, to a story of a new dimension in space, to a story on a different dimension in time. Only the sequence is my own.

I won't spoil your pleasure by revealing the plots. So let me add a last comment: one day I'd like to write a piece on the aesthetics of reading lists. Letters (alphabetic order) and numbers (chronological order) are misleading curtains behind which dramatic sequences hide their meaning.

WPE-2008 Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering

Following the first successful Workshop on Philosophy and Engineering at the University of Delft last year, WPE-2008 will be held at The Royal Academy of Engineering, Carlton House Terrace, London, from November 10-12 2008.

This is a multi-disciplinary conference for philosophers, ethicists and engineers interested in the philosophical and ethical issues surrounding engineering and technology. Extended abstracts are now being invited on the following three ‘demes’: Philosophy, Ethics and Reflections from Practitioners.

The deadline for abstracts is August 18 2008.

For the call for papers click on the title.

Further information is online.

For further information, contact Natasha McCarthy on natasha.mccarthy@raeng.org.uk or David Goldberg on deg@uiuc.edu

NA-CAP 2008 Conference

NACAP is a great success this year, don't miss the booklet with the abstracts.

The talks are all very interesting, Bloomington is lovely, Indiana University is great and the steaks are fabolous. Let us hope NACAP 2009 will also be hosted there!

Lively, Google's Second Life

Second Google? The giant is planning to find its space in web-based virtual environments.

Here is a wiki article. You may wish to contribute to improve it.

Unfortunately, expect more fragmentation. They say cats' have seven lives but they (the lives) all belong to them and they (the cats) are the same in all of them. Not so with virtual environments and ourselves. Yet, one day, changing avatars depending on the environment will seem a odd as it would be today to change car depending on the road on which you're driving. One day.

The relevance of Information

The following article: "Understanding Epistemic Relevance", Erkenntnis, 2008, 69.1, 69-92, is now in print.

Here is the abstract. You may click on the title for the preprint.

Agents require a constant flow, and a high level of processing, of relevant semantic information, in order to interact successfully among themselves and with the environment in which they are embedded.

Standard theories of information, however, are silent on the nature of epistemic relevance. In this paper, a subjectivist interpretation of epistemic relevance is developed and defended.

It is based on a counterfactual and metatheoretical analysis of the degree of relevance of some semantic information i to an informee/agent a, as a function of the accuracy of i understood as an answer to a query q, given the probability that q might be asked by a.

This interpretation of epistemic relevance vindicates a strongly semantic theory of information, according to which semantic information encapsulates truth. It accounts satisfactorily for several important applications and interpretations of the concept of relevant information in a variety of philosophical areas. And it interfaces successfully with current philosophical interpretations of causal and logical relevance.

Understanding who we are, online? offline? onlife!

Click on the title and you will be sent to a short, insightful piece on interpersonal perception (part of the wider phenomenon of interpersonal relationship), that is, how we go about grasping each others' profiles, identities and personalities online (including ours'), and what the constants and variables are that make a difference in this process. Absolutely worth reading.

A quick comment on aside: many of the points made are applicable to our life offline as well, and this is not surprising, if the threshold between the two is becoming increasingly porous. Ultimately, it will be onlife interpersonal relationship that will matter. When you apply for a job, don't forget to update your Facebook files.