This book is the second volume of a two-volume edition based on the International Society for Information Studies Summit Vienna 2015 on 'The Information Society at the Crossroads. Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information' (see summit.is4is.org).The book gives an up-to-date multiaspect exposition of contemporary studies in the field of information and related areas. It presents most recent achievements, ideas and opinions of leading researchers in this domain reflecting their quest for advancing information science and technology. With the goal of building a better society, in which social and technological innovations help make information key to the flourishing of humanity, we dispense with the bleak view of the dark side of information society.It is aimed at readers that conduct research into any aspect of information, information society and information technology, who develop or implement social or technological applications. It is also for those who have an interest in participating in setting the goals for the sciences of information and the social applications of technological achievements and the scientific results.

The book gives up-to-date, multi-aspect exposition of the philosophy and methodology of information, and related areas within the nascent field of the study of information. It presents the most recent achievements, ideas and opinions of leading researchers in this domain, as well as from physicists, biologists and social scientists. Collaboration of researchers from different areas and fields opens new perspectives for the understanding of information essential in the innovative development of science, technology and society.The book is meant for readers conducting research into any aspect of information, information society and information technology. The ideas presented give new insights for those who develop or implement scientific, technological or social applications. They are especially for those who are participating in setting the goals for science in general and sciences of information in particular.

This book traces the origins and evolution of cybersemiotics, beginning with the integration of semiotics into the theoretical framework of cybernetics and information theory. The book opens with chapters that situate the roots of cybersemiotics in Peircean semiotics, describe the advent of the Information Age and cybernetics, and lay out the proposition that notions of system, communication, self-reference, information, meaning, form, autopoiesis, and self-control are of equal topical interest to semiotics and systems theory. Subsequent chapters introduce a cybersemiotic viewpoint on the capacity of arts and other practices for knowing. This suggests pathways for developing Practice as Research and practice-led research, and prompts the reader to view this new configuration in cybersemiotic terms. Other contributors discuss cultural and perceptual shifts that lead to interaction with hybrid environments such as Alexa. The relationship of storytelling and cybersemiotics is covered at chapter length, and another chapter describes an individual-collectivity dialectics, in which the latter (Commind) constrains the former (interactants), but the former fuels the latter. The concluding chapter begins with the observation that digital technologies have infiltrated every corner of the metropolis - homes, workplaces, and places of leisure - to the extent that cities and bodies have transformed into interconnected interfaces. The book challenges the reader to participate in a broader discussion of the potential, limitations, alternatives, and criticisms of cybersemiotics.

This is the first attempt to delineate the synthetic field of the theoretical study of information, treating information as the basic phenomenon on the fundamental level of the world, encompassing nature, technology, individuals and society. The exploration of information is done within Info-computational approaches, to natural and social phenomena such as Bioinformatics, Information Physics, Informational Chemistry, Computational Physics, Cognitive and Social sciences, with special emphasis on interdisciplinary, crossdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge.The book presents results of collaboration across research fields within info-computational and info-structural frameworks, in attempt to better theoretically and conceptually capture the phenomenon of information and its dynamics (such as computation and communication), as they appear on different levels of organization, on different scales and in different contexts.

This book is about the nature of information. It touches on many core issues of philosophy of the mind, ontology, and epistemology, and draws in several domain-specific concepts from physics, mathematics, thermodynamics, computer science, and biology. The terms used in this book, such as the mind, a conscious agent, meaning, and knowledge are used with very precise meanings because they can be easily misinterpreted. A proper understanding of these terms can be gained from the referenced literature. But more specifically, this book is about the concept of information as physical phenomenon.The book is a unique exposition of the concept of information as physical phenomenon. It provides the detailed analysis and synthesis of the current conceptualizations of information demonstrating the lack of common definition and their incompleteness. The detailed argument is provided why information may be defined as a physical phenomenon and why this type of information may be seen as fundamental to our understanding of this concept.

This book is a scientific basis for understanding the urgent need for a Great Transformation to a third step in social evolution. Already being a community of common destiny, humanity can form an actual unity through diversity to avoid extinction. Social actors can recognise informational imperatives for cognition, communication and co-operation to achieve such a unity. By doing so, they apply a logic that underlies the structuration of any agency, which is a real logic of self-organising systems from the physical to the social. This logic is the Logic of the Third — the Third is a meta-structure that emerges in a leap. The agents interact and when they co-act they are likely to form a real meta-structure of organisational relations. Informational agents anticipate this by generating requisite information in their attempt to cope with complex challenges. Such an information is a meta-structure too. The Third helps achieve synergy effects.This book discusses considerations from philosophy, systems theory, the study of information, social systems, social information, ecology and technology. It addresses ethical issues connected with the long-forgotten arms race in an atomic age, the global warming not yet under control, the pandemic misunderstood, the social question still unanswered.

The book is the first in the trilogy which will bring you to the fascinating world of numbers and operations with them. Numbers provide information about myriads of things. Together with operations, numbers constitute arithmetic forming in basic intellectual instruments of theoretical and practical activity of people and offering powerful tools for representation, acquisition, transmission, processing, storage, and management of information about the world.The history of numbers and arithmetic is the topic of a variety of books and at the same time, it is extensively presented in many books on the history of mathematics. However, all of them, at best, bring the reader to the end of the 19th century without including the developments in these areas in the 20th century and later. Besides, such books consider and describe only the most popular classes of numbers, such as whole numbers or real numbers. At the same time, a diversity of new classes of numbers and arithmetic were introduced in the 20th century.This book looks into the chronicle of numbers and arithmetic from ancient times all the way to 21st century. It also includes the developments in these areas in the 20th century and later. A unique aspect of this book is its information orientation of the exposition of the history of numbers and arithmetic.