EAI Document History
I have long intended to write a major essay "On Relevance", in the field of Cybernethics, the study of the connections between ethics and information. The idea has crystallized back in 1995 when I realized there was probably no existing book explaining the scientific spirit as I understand it; but its origin may be traced further back when I became interested in this spirit.On 1998-08-10, subsequently to a heated discussion with a cousin, at last I began to write a few words on the topic of openmindedness, which I afterwards decided could be made the first chapter of the long-ruminated essay. Or maybe I should instead keep things in a collection of short, well-separated essays? Hum. We'll see. Anyway, also wrote a sketch of chapters: induction, commitment, cost of acquisition, authority, meta-information, relevance, freedom of information,
On 1998-09-04, I undertook a second chapter, on science, which didn't fit the previous partial plan; not even sure how it fits in the whole essay. Added draft notes about the four pilars of formal reasoning, and reality. Bibliography begun; it's hard to track back references to books and articles where I take my ideas from, since it goes a long time back in time; plus the place I got my ideas from may not have been the original (or best, or whatever) public expression (much less private invention) of these ideas.
On 1998-09-08, I drafted "On the limits of Science" (adding a note in "On Science" about tradition with or without scientific backing), "On Subjectivity" (with implications on personal freedom of conscience, and a note on religious traditions). Also tried to find a general plan for the essay.
On 1998-09-16, I wrote a first draft of the opening chapter "On the Quest for Truth". Also received interesting e-mails from Boris Borcic, who had me refine the concept of shareable knowledge in the scientific tradition, and discuss some phenomena that bias scientific research.
On 1998-10-23, having enough with all the load of superstitious irrational non-sense said about freedom in general, and free will in particular, from religious people and philosophers alike, including all the judeo-christiano-muslim brainwash, all the socialist propaganda, and even many buddhists explanations, I decided to help dissipate the deep misunderstanding of the notion of freedom, which I haven't yet seen explicitly described according to my views (though I think these should be pretty standard among lots of honest people with scientific interests). I thus introduced a new Part on the Knowable Universe, where I discuss those subjects, put in context.
On 1998-10-27, I complete the first chapter, detaching lots of elements into a new chapter On Relativity. I move into the text of each chapter a sketch of the important ideas that I envision to develop in it. Done chapters on Skeptic Materialism, Determinism, and the Nature of Freedom; begun a chapter on the Timeliness of Information; put in the chapter on Quotienting a note about the structure of ideas being that of language-expressible objects up to isomorphism.
I fear that apart from a few chapters, this essay is still in the state of a really messy draft. Help ordering those ideas would be appreciated!
So we go :-)
On 2002-01-15, after writing an e-mail to Fare, I create a WikiPage as start for wikifying the whole text. I hope that other people might jump in and do some work on it. --DavidAndel
On 2002-04-16 I check back. Nobody did anything at all :-( Well, I copy now all the texts into wiki form. Slowly but surely... --DavidAndel