Colloquium BITae

On 20 questions concerning the information concept

November-December 2009 | Sierra-Plambley | 
León, Spain

With the occasion of the visiting stay of Wolfgang Hofkirchner at the University of León (Spain) during the last quarter of 2009, BITrum project celebrated a colloquium (named Colloquium BITae) spinning around the feasibility of a unified approach to information. As a basis for discussion, the Professor Hofkirchner posed an outline of a Unified Theory of Information, articulated in 20 questions, which in turn constitutes the core of the book he was writing during his stay as visiting professor at the University of León -to be published in 2010 by World Scientific Publishing-.

The colloquium was structured in 7 sessions, each of them devoted to a different set of questions gathered in the following topics:

(i)      What might be included in a Unified Approach? (Questions 1 to 3), 4/11/2009 at 17:00
(ii)   Problems and methods (Questions 4 to 6), 11/11/2009 at 17:00
(iii)  Promises for a new science (Questions 7 to 9), 18/11/2009 at 17:00
(iv)  The appearing of life. From difference to action (Questions 10 to 12), 25/11/2009 at 17:00
(v)   The appearing of society. From patterns to social sense (Questions 13 to 15), 2/12/2009 at 17:00
(vi)  Communication-Cognition-Cooperation (Questions 16 to 18), 9/12/2009 at 17:00
(vii) Is a Sustainable Information Society feasible? (Questions 19 to 20), 16/12/2009 at 17:00

The colloquia were held on Wednesdays between 17:00 and 20:00 in the pleasant atmosphere of Sierra Pambley’s House, where BITrum group was founded in 2008. Discussions took as a basis the text proposed by Professor Hofkirchner A Unified Theory of Information. An outline.

Aiming at strengthening BITrum's scientific core, discussions addressed scientific and methodological foundations of both the unifying programme and our project. And also the following issues were considered:

  • organising Domus BITae initiative;
  • with the participation of INTECO in one of the sessions, we had the occasion to analyse the trustworthiness of ICTs under the frame of a "Sustainable Information Society".

The colloquia were generally enliven by a both critical and esteemed stance. An Interview to Professor Hofkirchner will be soon published in BITagora (in collaboration with SoII), where some of the issues, posed in the debates, are condensed.

BITrum project sincerely thanks Wolfgang Hoffkirchner for having offered the opportunity to tackle these fundamental questions concerning the information concept and to Sierra Pabley’s House for its generous hospitality.

Wolfgang HOFKIRCHNER (2009). A Unified Theory of Information. An outline. León: BITrum.

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