“Discipline Informatization” in the Information Age Viewed from the Growth of Natural Science ^†

Abstract

This paper discusses the “what”, “why”, and “how” of the issue of “discipline informatization”. Since the Renaissance, the humanities and social sciences established under the guidance of physical-mathematical methods, such as Comte’s “social physics”, have focused mainly on the material characteristics and information carriers of cultural phenomena. Although they have gained much, they have basically failed to grasp the central axis, baseline, and link of “social information”. Therefore, the authors of this paper take the growth of natural sciences as a reference and focus on the discipline informatization of the humanities and social sciences.

1. Introduction

Since the Renaissance, the humanities and social sciences established under the guidance of physical–mathematical methods have focused mainly on the material characteristics and information carriers of cultural phenomena. They have basically failed to grasp the central axis, baseline, and link of “social information”. We believe that from the beginning of discipline informatization, the humanities and social sciences discipline has begun to have true discipline self-awareness, academic self-consciousness, and information theory thinking. This is the purpose of our work and its significance.

The situation, difficulties, tasks, and methods faced by the natural philosophy developed in ancient Greece, which wanted to continue to progress under the rule of medieval scholasticism, and by the contemporary humanities and social sciences, which sought to develop under the situation where mathematical methods were the only scientific method, were very similar. That is the reason why the authors of this paper take the growth of natural sciences as a reference and focus on the discipline informatization of the humanities and social sciences.

2. What Is “Discipline Informatization”?

Miao Dongsheng, a professor at Renmin University of China, proposed the concept of “discipline informatization”. He believes that, generally speaking, there are two achievements in the informatization of XX discipline: XX science + informatics = “information XX science” + “XX informatics”. For example, medical science itself has both material and information characteristics, thus after discipline informatization, information medicine and medical informatics can be established [1].

Discipline informatization is the usage of a new-era-spirit ”information” to influence the thinking and expression of disciplines. Prior to this, disciplines experienced “discipline materialization”, realizing the transformation from the “gods” of the Middle Ages to the “material” after the Renaissance, focusing on the “material” characteristics of nature, society, and thought, which is both necessary and beneficial. The maturity and prosperity of natural science led by physics have greatly promoted the progress of human civilization. However, the exaggerated “physicalism” has given rise to “physics envy” and a “quantitative complex”, asserting that the humanities and social sciences must also achieve “quantification” and “formulary”, thereby misleading the development of all “liberal arts” disciplines.

The central task of discipline informatization is to use “information concepts” to process the theoretical systems (concepts, principles, and methods) in disciplines. The essence of discipline informatization is to achieve “logic programming” of the knowledge of the discipline. The logic-programming methods refer to the logical analysis of the evolution of things, the design of logical “algorithms”, and the programming of logical structures such as sequence, selection, and circulation to describe the process of things changing. The algorithm here includes a value judgment. The extremely complex Windows operating system and the Android system of smart phones cannot be expressed using mathematical formulas after the “quantification” of physics but can be described using logic-programming tools.

The development order of discipline informatization is as follows: basic informatics (computer, control, communication, and robot theory), domain informatics (natural, humanistic, and social informatics), and theoretical informatics. Once theoretical informatics is established, it can in turn guide the informatization of the disciplines of basic informatics and domain informatics [2].

3. Why Do We Need “Discipline Informatization”?

Firstly, discipline informatization is the inevitable infiltration of a new-era spirit. Thought historian R N. Stromberg pointed out that “in any era (different from each other), there is a spirit of the times, which affects all fields of thought and expression [3]”. After ancient Greece, there were three kinds of “spirit of the times” in human society: the “gods” of the middle ages, the “material” after the Renaissance, and the “information” after the 1940s. The historical locomotive driven by information technology has brought human society into an information economy dominated by information products, and the way people produce, live, research, and manage has been “informatization”.

Secondly, discipline informatization is an important stage of social informatization. Entering a society dominated by material products into a society dominated by information products requires roughly three stages of informatization: (1) informatization of technology, products, and economy; (2) informatization of scientific disciplines; and (3) informatization of thinking patterns and philosophical concepts.

Thirdly, there are requirements for the self-development of scientific disciplines, especially nonmaterial science disciplines. All objective existence is a unity of matter and information, and everything has both material and information characteristics. Any scientific discipline must simultaneously discuss the material and information properties of objects. When “discipline materialization” went beyond the limit, “discipline informatization” is bound to come.

The research object of the humanities and social sciences is information itself. However, in the past, guided by the “physicalism” and methodology of physics and mathematics, an emphasis was placed on the physical characteristics of social information. Through informatization, “social physics”, which attempts to become a branch of physics, can be transformed into a branch of information science, “social informatics”.

4. The Inspiration from the Establishment and Development of Modern Science

“Natural science” is a modern science established and developed (midterm of the 16th century–midterm of the 19th century) after the Renaissance. It comprises a large group of disciplines. Their research objects are the matter within the universe, including the physical characteristics of nature, human thinking, and society. The main inspiration from the establishment and development of natural science includes the following three aspects.

(1) Encounter the “darkness” of the middle ages: In the history of ancient science in the world, ancient Greek Roman science from 1000 BC to 500 AD occupied a very important position, forming a peak of science around the third century BC. However, from 500 to 1500 AD, mankind experienced the “dark” era of the middle ages for nearly 1000 years. Modern natural science has been subjected to many blows and tribulations, but it has resolutely resisted.

After the academic decline of ancient Greece, the human knowledge system was expressed as Christian philosophy, followed by scholastic philosophy. There was a famous saying at that time: “Philosophy should serve the sacred classics as a maid serves her master”. It was later interpreted as “philosophy is the servant of theology”. In the early stages of the development of modern physics, its concepts and methods were listed as prohibited objects, and the situation was very difficult. Roger Bacon, a scholarly philosopher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, shifted from scholarly scholarship to esoteric scholarship and craft manufacturing. In his main book The Great Works, he comprehensively and systematically proposed a scientific research plan to transform the academic status of the scholarly academy, which was punished by church regulations. In the context of great persecution, he was imprisoned again for the crime of “innovating”. After being released in 1290, he immediately died [4,5].

(2) Open the way with a weapon of criticism: The Renaissance movement, which originated in Italy in the 15th century, was actually a revival of ancient Greek scholarship. Francis Bacon in the 15th–16th century (22 January 1561–9 April 1626) was another famous thinker surnamed Bacon. His critique of the current academic situation and outlook for future science in New Tools is similar to that of the 13th century Roger Bacon in The Great Works to the degree that they are indistinguishable from each other. Francis Bacon was the first to express the concept of modern science, elaborate on the purpose, nature, and correct ways to develop science, and summarize the empirical method of scientific experiment induction. The standard by which Bacon measures knowledge is practicality, that is, the use to meet the needs of human material life but not including the needs and satisfaction of spiritual life. This new scientific value denies the right of traditional knowledge to continue to exist, and ancient knowledge oriented towards speculative and ethical values and medieval knowledge oriented towards religious values are naturally excluded from the scope of scientific knowledge.

(3) Companion with new philosophy: When modern natural science was born, it was considered a part of natural philosophy. Most modern natural scientists were philosophers, such as Descartes, Leibniz, etc. Modern science shook the theological worldview, broke through the shackles of old philosophy, broke the dominance of scholastic philosophy, and opened up a living space for the birth of modern philosophy. Fundamental changes have taken place in the concepts of motion, time and space, matter, and the universe. According to the traditional view of science, science only proves science, and the scientific method is a three-stage deductive method. That is, only a knowledge system such as Euclidean geometry is science. Obviously, physics, chemistry, and biology cannot become science. Therefore, natural science needs new scientific concepts and methodologies to establish its own legitimacy and effectiveness. It is particularly noteworthy that at this time, in the field of human and social phenomena, scholars have also followed the example of physics and established their own physics, such as Comte’s establishment of social physics, Fishner’s establishment of psychophysics, and so on.

5. The Goal and Approach of “Discipline Informatization”

The main goals of discipline informatization in the information age are (1) to clarify the new values in the information age—the value of spiritual and information products is higher than the value of material products; (2) to establish a new world view in the information age—the world is both material and informational, and everything in the universe has the dual characteristics of material and information; (3) to establish a new scientific outlook in the information age—the knowledge system about information objects constitutes a new science after natural science (material science); and (4) to develop a new methodology in the information age—logic-programming methods.

We used to view the informatization of the humanities and social sciences as a promotion and application of the experience of “natural science informatization”. The humanities and social sciences discipline can only be modeled after the gourd. However, the above disciplinary informatization formula does not have universal significance in the informatization of humanities, social information science disciplines. The informatization of natural sciences is only the prelude, while the informatization of the humanities and social sciences is the crucial battle to establish a new spirit of the times.

The approach to the informatization of the humanities and social sciences is to criticize the one-sidedness of the “world view” of seeing only material but not information, to emphasize the “values” of information that are more important than material values in the information age, to point out that only the knowledge system established using pure mathematical methods is the limitation of the traditional “scientific view” of science, and to establish the “methodological” status of information science based on the “emerging theory” of information based on information structure and function. Finally, its own unique “information science paradigm” for the academic community of information science research will be established.

If each humanities and social informatics discipline, combined with its own special circumstances, has basically completed this task, then its discipline informatization task will be half completed. Continuing forward is to discuss and organize the concepts, principles, methodologies, and knowledge systems that relevant disciplines should have after undergoing the baptism of “informatization”.

6. The Particularity of “Discipline Informatization” in the Humanities and Social Sciences

British politician J. Morley said that the basic debates in human society are rare and surprisingly unchanging. The language may vary, but the basic concepts remain the same. The world view and values of the information age were pointed out by Plato 2500 years ago: reality could be divided into two radically different sorts of things. There is the reality of matter characterized by change (becoming) and the reality of what we call the forms or ideas characterized by permanence (being). Being is immaterial and of greater value than the material. We know that Plato’s body has long since vanished, but his works have persisted for thousands of years via copying, and even in the view of some philosophers, Western philosophy can be seen as an annotation to Plato’s philosophy.

In the 17th century, Francis Bacon used popular language to sharply criticize the medieval scientific outlook, spreading the values (material utility) and methodology (experimental induction) of modern science; however, his scientific outlook tends to be simplified and one-sided. He excludes spiritual values from scientific practicality and treats the power of knowledge only as a material force imposed on nature. As natural science matured and expanded, this philosophical attitude and interpretation later developed into a scientific standpoint. Bacon’s view of science is a physicalist view of science, which holds that only a knowledge system that uses physical methods to study the material properties of things and satisfies people’s pursuit of material interests is science. While we are committed to developing the humanities and social sciences targeted at “social information”, criticizing the one-sided nature of Bacon’s scientific outlook is a necessary prerequisite for establishing the legitimacy of information science [6].

The so-called “physical mathematical method” refers to the use of observation and experimental methods to investigate the motion of objects, through the quantification of objects, using mathematical formulas to describe the motion process of objects. The mass of an object determines a blind force that drives the motion of the object, and the motion of the object must have a spatial position. From analytic geometry, it can be seen that the spatial trajectory of the motion of things must have a quantitative expression. Mathematical methods are effective for material objects and information carriers. Given a time T in the orbit formula of the sun and moon, their exact relative positions can be determined. However, which mathematician can give a universally applicable formula? If T = 1 year, based on the formula, can it be calculated "when”, “where”, and “how” I am working at this moment next year? Therefore, applying mathematical methods to the study of human and social information phenomena is completely a new era of ignorance in the guise of science. This is the most powerful, influential, and harmful “pseudoscience” in human history—“disguising material science as the whole science”!

7. The Value and Significance of Informatization in the Humanities and Social Sciences

According to the alternation of the spirit of the times, we can divide human history into four major periods: (1) the prehistorical period and Classical era (more than 4 million years BC (before written records began 5000 years ago)–500 years AD); (2) the Middle Ages (500–1500 years AD); (3) the Industrial Age (1500–1950); (4) and the Information Age (1940–present).

Ancient Greek civilization is actually an extension of the period of equality and peace in the early stages of human existence. In the early days of human existence, the world was a paradise where people could live freely and carefree. Historical facts have proven that in terms of economic and social relations, tribal members before the advent of the era of civilization had full freedom and equal rights to obtain the natural resources necessary for life. Academic freedom in ancient Greece may be incomparable to later civilized times. At that time, people worshipped “nature”, including object worship and deity worship. People tried to understand the great book of nature and express their opinions freely. This is similar to the contention of a hundred schools of thought during the Spring and Autumn Period in China.

Stavrianos, author of The General History of the World, said that “human history has been accelerating. The geological age is measured in units of one billion years, and the prehistoric era of humanity is measured in thousands of years. Since entering civilized society, the chronological unit has gradually shrunk, gradually becoming measured in terms of a hundred or even ten years [7]”. If we say that human society has experienced “deification” after a long period of “naturalization”, followed by “materialization” and “informatization”, then the Information Age, with a history of only over 80 years, dares to compare with the Industrial Age of over 400 years, the Medieval Age of over 1000 years, and the Classical civilization of over 5000 years. On such a large historical scale, we can say that the path of the humanities and social sciences has only taken a small step, and they have truly begun their history through the infiltration of information ideas (i.e., “discipline informatization”) and the “paradigm change” from physical disciplines to information disciplines.