Organised complexity, meaning and understanding: An approach to a unified view of information for information science

摘要

Purpose - The paper seeks to outline an approach to a unified framework for understanding thernconcept of "information" in the physical, biological and human domains, and to see what links andrninteractions may be found between them. It also aims to re-examine the information science discipline,rnwith a view to locating it in a larger context, so as to reflect on the possibility that information sciencernmay not only draw from these other disciplines, but that its insights may contribute to them.rnDesign/methodology/approach - The paper takes the form of an extensive literature review andrnanalysis, loosely based on the approaches of Stonier, Madden and Bates, and including analysis ofrnboth scientific and library/information literature.rnFindings - The paper identifies the concept of information as being identified with organisedrncomplexity in the physical domain, with meaning in context in the biological domain, and withrnKvanvig's concept of understanding in the human domain. The linking thread is laws of emergentrnself-organised complexity, applicable in all domains. Argues that a unified perspective for therninformation sciences, based on Popperian ontology, may be derived, with the possibility of not merelyrndrawing insights from physical and biological science, but also of contributing to them. Based onrnHirst's educational philosophy, derives a definition for the information sciences around two poles:rninformation science and library/information management.rnOriginality/value - This is the only paper to approach the subject in this way.