LORENZO MAGNANI Title: The Decline of Knowledge Society and the Spiritual Impoverishment of Technological Niches Knowledge as Duty

Abstract: In the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant held that we should regard other human beings as ends in themselves, never as mere means. In my book Morality in A Technological Word. Knowledge as a Duty, however, I contend that one of the best hopes for achieving social justice is to do exactly what Kant warned against: we must treat people as if they were things. By acknowledging the thingness of human beings, I argue, we can learn to value people in important new ways and extend to them the kind of worth we have lavished on certain non-human entities. This shift in perspective, however, requires a great deal of new ethical knowledge as well as modern approaches to moral deliberation, and to achieve these goals I provide compelling analyses of such problems and offer a variety of strategies we might use to solve them. Viewing human beings through an updated moral framework is especially important given the profound changes that have occurred since Kants time, for modern technologies have brought about consequences of such magnitude that old policies and ethics can no longer contain them. I believe that producing and applying recalibrated moral knowledge has become a duty, one that is just as important as making scientific or medical advances. Among the troubling issues I address are cyberprivacy, globalization, bad faith, cloning, biotechnologies, and ecological imbalances; the right knowledge, I maintain, can manage these challenges and counter many of technologys ill effects by preserving ownership of our own destinies, encouraging responsibility, and enhancing freedom. I will also discuss how objects, structures, and technological artifacts serve as moral carriers and mediators; the problem of free will; and the nature of practical reasoning. The aim of the above book was demonstrating that knowledge has to become a duty in our current technological world. This thesis is explicitly recalled in this presentation thanks to the illustration of two related basic issues, the idea of respecting people as things and the concept of moral mediator. It is evident that the new ethical importance acquired by many external things (both natural and artificial) has been mainly caused by modern technological achievements. I contend that this leads to two consequences: first, we need to appropriately project onto people values we have already attributed to external things (respecting people as things); second, a new role of knowledge (scientific and ethical) is being delineating. I suggest that in our technological world, aiming both at respecting people as things and treating people as ends involves a massive and skillful exploitation of knowledge. It is in the above intellectual framework that I can maintain that enhancing free will, freedom, responsibility, and ownership of our destinies is one of the main targets for improving human dignity in our technological era, and to reach this aim the respect of knowledge in its various forms is essential. A warning has to be clearly formulated, I have also address in my recent Understanding Violence (Springer, 2011): thanks to technology, we live in an Information Society, which has also ended up being a Society of Learning, yet we are not going towards a Knowledge Society but in the opposite direction. The technologies that articulate our world today and enable us to accumulate learning are turning us into increasingly ignorant individuals. It seems we are reaching a kind of Ignorance Society. It seems the Ignorance Society is the consequence of the world that we have created. I will discuss how the exponential accumulation of information and the properties of the media as tools for accessing knowledge do not favor the development of a knowledge society.

STEFAN LORENZ SORGNER Title: Moving away from Dualisms Keywords: Dualism; Humanism; Spirituality; Abstract: I wish to show that the information era brings along with it a move away from dualist world views, like a Christian or Kantian type of humanism, which, however, does not have to imply a move away from any type of spirituality. I progress as follows. Firstly, I describe some examples of constituents of dualist world views. Secondly, I present one detailed example of what it means to transcend traditional dualities within the information era. Thirdly, I will discuss some implications of this movement away from dualisms. E-mail: sorgner@gmx.net

ALEXANDRE MONNIN Title: Ontology for Politics. The Webs Philosophical Significance. Keywords: Ontology; Politics; Epistemology; Web; Philosophy of the Web; Web of data; Web of entities; Wikipedia; Dbpedia; Cosmopolitics. Abstract: Recent times have lead both to a renewal and denial regarding the role of ontology in philosophy. Important voices such as Hilary Putnams have taken argument of a supposed dichotomy between ontology and ethics to in order to disqualify the former as such1. But what does it really means to renounce the ontological

question. Who is going to enact (enforce?) such a decision? In other words: what would it imply concretely from an ethical point of view? At the very heart of both the wittgensteinian and pragmatist traditions there seems to be the idea that the idiom of the philosopher is naturally ontological (which is true!) while the layman way of speaking would be entirely different. But we may ask is this really a correct assumption?. The Web seems to provide a particularly fitting ground to raise this issue once again. The European research project OKKAM2 (whose name is taken in reference to William of Ockham whose razor he borrows), aims at enabling a so-called Web of Entities. In other words, a Web that would provide information about any type of entity (in French this is a far better denomination than Web of data the word data in that language being an equivalent to the word given and we shall later see that entities, in this context, are not in any way given). William of Ockhams famous motto in the fourteenth century was "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity". In the twenty-first century, with the OCCAM project, it has become: "Entity identifiers should not be multiplied beyond necessity". A remarkable shift considering that entities are no longer under the threat of the razor but only their identifiers! The idea is not, as it used to be the case during the Middle Ages, to combat Realism of Universals in the name of a nominalist position in philosophy. The question regarding the types and number of entities that constitute our world is now left entirely open only identifiers should (as much as possible) be used with parsimony. It matters not how such a project is realized in the specific setting of the OKKAM (namely, through unique identifiers on a Web-scale, created and maintained in a centralized way, a bit reminiscent of URNs). Whats important is the recognition that one of the main motivations behind the Web of data is to build a Web of entities from the so-called Web of pages. Herein, the semanticization of an encyclopedia like Wikipedia is of paramount importance. After all, through the network of its entries, it provides the cartography of the various beings that populate our world. With Wikipedia, we were dealing with textual entries while with its semantic counterpart, were devising a system that should allow us to deal with entities instead of entries. From the point of view of machines (bots, applications, services), the distinction is especially acute since the world considered from their point of view, the world that they process, contains to a large extent those entries found on Wikipedia. As the world number one knowledge base, more and more machines are feed on its resources and their descriptions). Taking into account their point of view as it is a growing part of our world more so than ever, is now a necessity as non-humans like these have acquired an increasing role in defining our cosmos. Now, let us clearly state that in no case does it amount to going back to the evidence of the mundane thing. On the Web, entities, also known as resources, cannot be taken for granted through ostensive definitions for instance. Resources are indeed, mere shadows to quote Web architect Roy Fielding, the author of REST, the theory that helped to give some coherence to the Web, ex post. He also adds that a resource is the semantics of what someone refers to3. Their mode of existence needs to be made clear, especially since it is becoming a prevalent ontological category in our world albeit a technical one Resources are directed at something but unlike intentional objects a la Husserl, they exist thanks to a technical architecture (ex ante) and because institutions publish and maintain them. In that respect, they are more akin to institutional objects than customary intentional (mental) ones. Entities found in the semantic version of Wikipedia are always the result of the contributions of thousands of users all around the planet. The latter is subject to peer-review, contradiction, improvement, re-writing, etc. Its no longer given (donn). Ontology, if it is concerned with the entities composing our cosmos, can no longer be naturalized. Only once the activities that support our ontology are negated and forgotten, can it eventually appear natural (in a very paradoxical way: it is the artifactual activity of machines that produces naturalness). This is partly what we currently witness with Dbpedia: human discussions as well as machines extractions disappear from the final product, giving it an uncanny pristine appearance, a form of stability that doesnt corresponds the reality of the complex and muddled lifecycle that made it possible. Entities, here, are always the result of collective choices and evaluations. Were lead back to the definition of the substance, the basic thing, for the Romans4: substantia in Latin was the answer to the question an sit? How about the reality of a given fact, can we make something out of it, is there something sure and solid (res certa et solida?). What Aristotle, after Plato named in terms of presence (ousia), became a topic of debate, a moot point, a fact in dire need to be established. Latin rhetoric explicitly aims at convincing (facere fidem to produce trust), stabilizing what is always given as a matter of doubt (Res dubia) at first. Let us never forget that the highest building block of the Semantic Web cake is trust instead of truth. Our entire ontology is dependent on this very notion5. This is a result of the world we now inhabit: no category is natural anymore. It also explains why the destiny of Wikipedia (a huge provider, if one comes to think about, of dubious entities actually a matter of pride!) and of the Semantic Web are so intimately intertwined. If entities are dubious at first and if the real issue is to agree on what exists and this is the true meaning of the cosmopolitical question: what are the entities composing our world?, then we need at least to keep track of our dealings when it comes to answering this question.

The price to pay is that, as Bruno Latour puts it, (ontological) realities themselves (not epistemic representations of an underlying stable and/or natural reality) are fallible, contextual and above all, need to be constantly updated6. At the same time this opens up the possibility of controversy, dealings and exchanges. Ontological questions opened by the web must therefrom be understood from a cosmopolitical point of view (in Latours sense). 1 See H. Putnam, Ethics Without ontology, Harvard UP, 2005. In this books he also mentions Lvinas seminal critique of ontology in Autrement qu'tre ou au-del de l'essence. 2http://www.okkam.org/ 3 This definition is tied up to our way of making sense but it is not an epistemic definition, it is an ontological one, it is the definition of a special kind of being, resources. 4 The remainder of this paragraph is adapted from a text written by Jean-Franois Courtine in Les catgories de ltre. tudes de philosophie ancienne et mdivale, Paris, PUF, "pimthe", 2003. 5 Anthony Giddens twenty years ago had already linked trust and what he calls ontological security but he dealt more with risk (The Consequences of Modernity). 6 Quel cosmos ? Quelle cosmopolitiques in Jacques Lolive et Olivier Soubeyran (sous la direction de) Lmergence des cosmopolitiques- Colloque de Cerisy, Collection Recherches, La Dcouverte, Paris, 2007 pp. 6984. Email: Alexandre.Monnin@malix.univ-paris1.fr

FLORIN MUNTEANU Title: The Gaia Vision;an Astro-Bio-Geodynamical Approach to the Evolution of Mankind. Keywords: Complexity science ; Gaia model; Astro-bio-geodynamics Abstract: In this global ecosystem, which is based on its own regulatory laws at the level of the whole, man has become a particular being, especially by its capacity to construct exosomatic (artifact) extensions, involving the acceleration of free energy consumption and obviously, an associated grows of the entropy production. The entire ensemble of infrastructure constructions has now a global character (global transport networks of electricity, roads, railroads, cars etc) and the life style imposes the consumption of electricity, water and food in amounts that are growing exponentially. This diffusion of the artificial universe all over the Earth, supported by economic globalization has created a new kind of entity, defined by the subtle interwoven Natural Artificial phenomena and processes. The exponential growth of the interference of artifacts upon the natural background of the global ecosystem is likely to contribute to possible fluctuations that can trigger profound changes in the geo-stasis process, with unpredictable consequences for the evolution of life in general and of the human species in particular. Hence, it becomes strategically important to understand how such a complex system functions and to conceive methods to monitor and model interactions that develop at so different levels in order to give coherence to specific entities ( atom, cell, organ , organism , group, society); it becomes strategically important to find methods capable to watch the health status of the environment , to signal crisis situations and hereby contribute to limiting the negative effects of the anthropic development grafted on a natural GAIA- type system . The GAIA model is one of the first holistic approaches of the Earth System, seen as a cybernetic system (with feedback and feed-before, specific to the conservation of a homeostasis in the Living Environment relation) and as a real bioreactor allowing for the birth and preservation of Life. (Lovelock & Margulis, 1974 . Lovebock 1988; Lenton 1988). This model holds true that: -life affects the environment: all living organisms alter the environment by extracting free energy and by excreting waste with high entropy, a metabolic process that secures the production of negenthropy (life perpetuation , Schrdinger 1944). - the growth , reproduction included, of Life is made according to exponential laws; - the inorganic environment constraints the emergence and perpetuation of life : for each environment variable there is a value for which a specific organism is developing at a maximum rate; -once Life has emerged under several forms that multiply according to the given conditions , the development of each species in the context of a limited environment with finite resources is subject to natural selection; the outcome is that species able to best adapt to a specific context become dominant species. This description of the Gaia system points to a hierarchical structure of systems and sub- systems, that are at different levels of organization; among them, there are exchanges of energy, matter and information ( messages ), with the end product of dynamic stability being achieved. (the systems homeostasis/ geo-stasis). In order to understand the Gaia phenomenon at a holistic scale and to be able to define from scientific perspective a sustainable development program, a new conceptual framework is necessary. To integrate the new Living Inorganic interaction in a new ontological outlook is dictated, on the one hand, by the need to objectively define the life quality concept and the human physical, mental and spiritual evolution in an

evolving astro-geodynamic environment; and on the other hand, it is dictated by the existing of a science of non linear phenomena and processes, an approach that implies: - inoperability of the superposition principle, therefore the impossibility to apply the conventional study method achieved by isolating a system from the context in which it develops, - limiting the general character of causal approaches (synchronicity, chaotic resonance , stochastic resonance ) and - allows for the checking of modern theories related to the systems genesis (autopoiesis, self- organized criticality, orthophysics, levels of Reality etc.) The paper is focused on this new vision on the Planet Earth as a living planet with its specific evolution, its natural behavior, in order to create the conceptual, methodological and technological framework in which we will be able to reconsider the role, the needs and values of the humans in a global Knowledge based society.. Email: florin@complexity.ro

DIAB AL-BADAYNEH Title: Human behavior: When and where virtual reality meets physical reality Keywords :Internet; virtual; behavior Abstract: The internet has created a free copy of our world. E- becomes a part of every day life of the local, regional and global society. The World Wide Web has been credited with fostering social virtual interaction as alternative to F2F interaction. Virtual society plays critical roles on what is going on traditional society. Human social problems have moved from real world to virtual world. New concepts, theories, and paradigms have been emerged as a result of the new virtual comer. Online interaction often supplements Offline (F2F) social networks. The question becomes, Is the virtual society rooted in the physical society? Does the virtual society meets the physical society. E-mail: dbadayneh@yahoo.com

KHAWLA AL-HASSAN Title: Knowledge, Morality and Human Behavior Keywords: Knowledge; Morality; Human; Behavior. Abstract: This paper focuses on the relationship between Knowledge, Morality and Human Behavior. It Uses sociological and criminological theories and thoughts to analyze the relationship between Knowledge, Morality and Human Behavior. Applications and implications of Theories such as Structural functionalism, labeling theories, and Social learning theories in the areas of Knowledge, Morality and Human Behavior are discussed. Email: ikcrsjo@gmail.com

CRISTIAN ANDREESCU Title: The hidden significance in the work of some Romanian Philosophers (Stephane Lupasco, Basarab Nicolesco, Mihai Draganescu, Paul Constantinescu) Keywords: Significance; Levels of reality; Goedelian structure; Included tertium; Hidden tertium; Orthosense; Synergetics; Resonance. Abstract: The starting concepts of the paper are complexity, irreducibility and representation of information integration by closure spaces (Marcin Schroeder : Quantum Coherence Without Quantum Mechanics in Modelling the Unity of Consciuosness). It is marked out that closure spaces are the generalization of the concept of limits of sequences. This very old idea is extremely rich in deep significances and by comparison to the definition of real numbers starting from the rational ones, one sees that the limit is in fact the sequence itself. Accepting a number to be equivalent to a class of infinite sets of other numbers means jumping from one level of abstraction to a higher one, it means gaining a supplementary dimension of abstraction. This means a way to obtain a multitude of levels of abstraction. Although this situation is quite different of the levels of reality, this situation is compared to the concept of levels of reality of Basarab Nicolescu and to the goedelian structure generated by the concept included tertium of Stephane Lupasco. Beyond this construction of discursive logic lyes the idea of hidden tertium, the hidden significance that cannot be comprised by words, theories or any logical system. A personal interpretation of those concepts is made in occurrence to the digression about hierarchical functional systems and the intrinsic significance made by the author in his paper Resonances (www.cristianandreescu.ro). This is about the significance attached to each object on any level of reality, no matter how deep or high this level would be and which is inseparable of the object itself. This interpretation leads to comparisons to concepts of other Romanian philosophers :

1.) to the orthosense and time quanta of Mihai Draganescu with his inseparability between information and matter generating the notion of informatter 2.) to the scheme of the ring of the material world of Mihai Draganescu presented in comparison to the scheme of thedouble ring of the hidden tertium of Basarab Nicolescu 3.) to the information quanta and finality of synergetic systems of Paul Constantinescu leading to the image created by him about reality that energy and information are two complementary sides giving us different ways to partially observe reality which on its deepest layers consists of both information and energy. Besides the measure quantity of information, P. Constantinescu introduces the concept of measure of the degree of significance Email: cristian.andreescu@labor-soft.ro

ROBERT ARNUTU Title: Technological Wisdom: The ethics of willing, making and using technology. Keywords: Technological Wisdom; Postphenomenology; Ethics Of Technology; Design; Technological Practice; Desire. Abstract: In Nicomachean Ethics, 1139, Aristotle divides human knowledge in three great domains: proper knowledge dealing with the necessary, practical wisdom dealing with living a good life, political or military actions, and taking good decisions, and techne dealing with making artificial things. Aristotle discusses at large theoretical and practical philosophy and ascribes to each of this two domains a specific wisdom. In the case of techne he is generally silent and he certainly does not conceive of the existence of a technological wisdom. Nevertheless, the prevalence of technology nowadays as well as the important insights from the philosophy of technology require a deeper theoretical involvement with technology in order to answer its challenges. The answer to these challenges, I will argue, should take the form of a technological wisdom. Carl Mitcham (1994) argued that technology can be analyzed on four great components: objects, knowledge, activity (further divided into making and using), and volition. Volition (as the will to survive, the will to control, the will to freedom, the will to efficiency, and the will to realize the self) and activity (crafting, inventing, designing, manufacturing, working, operating, and maintaining) are the focus of an ethical approach to technology. In order to argue for such an ethical approach, I will use the insights of Actor-Network Theory and postphenomenology that defined technology essentially as mediator of all aspects of human life. Bruno Latours view is that technologies mediate actions. They do not serve only as instruments for human actions but they actively mediate these actions. Technologies do not mediate only actions, but also perceptions, options, decisions, practices and moral beliefs. Another important characteristic of technologies is the fact that they become part of technological practices. A technology is usually not just something used one single time. A technology is not an instrument that performs certain tasks in a neutral manner but the use of technologies requires some skills acquisition, involvement in a social practice. Technologies (software or devices) are social objects that fulfil social roles and are part of social practices; their social functions carry moral norms and values that are encoded into technologies by designers, users, or emerge in the process of interaction. On this theoretical background I will analyse the three ethical-relevant components of technology: making, using and willing, and argue for a threefold approach: designing the material conditions for ethical action, meaningful appropriation of technology into one's everyday practices, and conscious control over the production of technological volition. This threefold ethical approach to technology is based on MacIntyre's analysis of practices, Francisco Varela's ethics of immediate coping with the world, and Deleuze's analysis of desire. Email: robertarnautu1979@yahoo.co.uk

TOMMASO BERTOLOTTI Title Prometheus reloaded: rationality and the birth of material culture Keywords: Human rationality; Material culture; Technology excess. Abstract: A typical trait of our post-modernistic societies is the use of advanced communication technologies to echo the message that out life is too heavily depending on technological artifacts: this claim should be weighed carefully. The fundamental role of technology for the survival of human kind was already intuited by ancient Greeks, for instance in the platonic myth of Prometheus presented in the Protagoras. Studies in paleo-anthropology, such as Mithen's, on the one hand confirmed the importance of this intuition, but on the other hand they turned it over: according to ancient philosophy (and in the common received tradition), our rationality produced our technical superiority, while recent studies show the inverse, that is, human beings' superior rationality was an effect of technical skills and the production of material culture.

Can we still suggest that an enhancement of our rationality endowment is operated as a consequence of technological development? Should we prefer, for the safeguard of our intelligence, an excess of "technologization" if there can be such thing or a reduction of the impact of technological artifacts over everyday life? Email: tommaso.bertolotti@unipv.it

PETER BOLTUC Title: Why this may, or may now, become a new, informational age Keywords: ACTA; Informational age; Social web; AI; Emergent technologies. Abstract: There are clearly two perspectives on the nature of social reality that emerge from the new reality of the web. One that is grounded in the 20th century understanding of the furniture of the world based primarily on physical objects in the world, and the other, that relies views new technology, especially the computer engineering and the web but also biological engineering and other technologies as the gist of reality we live in. Both sides have good reasons, and it is not the case that necessarily the latter group is going to predominate over time. Most civilizations face cross-roads when they can move in different directions and lead to different solutions of the same problems. The former route leads towards sustainable development approaches, which involve Malthusian arguments for over-population control; it focuses on limitations of growth and the idea that small is beautiful and that we should all make do with less. It leads to economic slow-down, and brings about a self-fulfilling prophecy of structural unemployment. It is concerned about the singularity effect when electronic systems may become smarter than humans and tries to slow down AI developments . It enforces strict copyright laws and uses the internet only as one more means of traditional communication, sort of as better snail mail, with little focus on the added synergies of social media. It limits pollution by strict environmental regulation and makes illegal most areas of genetic engineering (including genetically modified foods) The latter route deals with existing bottlenecks through growth. It claims that one of the main problems and reason for economic crisis is the lack of empowerment of every person, and under-population in most developed countries (e.g. this is the source of the crisis of pension systems). It opens up the conditions of private capitals and social medias involvement in AI technologies at all levels, leading to exponential growth. It is not worried by developments in AI, biologically inspired cognitive architectures and bioengineering, including human enhancement technologies and advanced human-machine interactions. It limits old-fashioned copyright to allow for remix-like approaches to art and technology as well as enhances genetic engineering. It leads to little unemployment and radical transformation with scarcity regulating use of various resources through their price not governmental regulation. These two approaches are visible in contemporary policy debates, from the small issues, such as value of online versus brick and mortar education all the way to regulation of genetic engineering projects and definitions of counterfeiting on the internet. When recently Polish prime minister reversed his position on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was originally favorable to that agreement, he said that his previous perspective had been the 20th century approach while he now sees the 21st century context of the issue of copyright. As L. Lessing writes in his book Remix, for most people growing in a truly digital age to copy a clip from a movie is like from older generations to quote a few lines of a poem in a college paper . Thats the world they live in and to make it illegal to quote things, or to share them, is to limit creative potential; the same is true of scientific information. While some caution is needed in every research, I think people know by now that I am an advocate of human electronic and genetic enhancements, BICA developments and other strategies based on exponential growth. Email: piotrboltuc@yahoo.com

FELICIA CEAU U Title: The Role of Cognitive Systems for Social Knowledge. Keywords: Cognitive systems; Social knowledge; Perception; Representation. Abstract: Any cognitive system incorporates and a physical reality, such as for example a computer and its hardware, or human and animals mind and brain related. Information processing can be performed equally well by a neural network, a network of silicon chips and superconductors. Human cognitive system that is the most evolved, operates with representations, the reflections of outside reality in the internal environment. Human behavior and computational behavior can be explained and understood through a multilevel analysis of it (at the knowledge, at the computational, algorithmic-representational or implementation). The main thesis of this study is that one makes a structured behavior, attitudes and value system, way of knowing according to the characteristics of their cognitive system and how they process information. Also, perception is considered a valuable psychological process that underlies explanation, prediction and control of social interactions.

The social cognition explain how an individual builds and maintains a social reality. It will determine what kind of knowledge is produced in the social cognition (descriptive knowledges of objects or evaluative knowledges?).. Email: ceausufelicia@yahoo.com

HORIA-COSTIN CHIRIAC Title: Scientific and Religious Imaginary in Knowledge Society. Keywords: Scientific imaginary; Technology; Scientific mythology. Abstract: Knowledge society was favored in its evolution by the rise of information society; therefore there is a strong relation within this type of society between information, knowledge and power. But this relation is mediated by technology, which nowadays has a remarkable influence on life conditions and social dynamics. One can easily observe the particular way in which informational networks influence the development of a veritable social synergy as regards the spreading of new convictions, new lifestyles, new customs and new attitudes regarding social realities. As a consequence, the relation between technology and axiology becomes significant within contemporary culture, the modern ideal centered on the moral neutrality of science and technology becoming obsolete in postmodern times. In this respect, one could also notice the fact that the emergence of new technologies, among them the genetic ones, could have tremendous influence upon ethics debates but also upon the way in which spirituality is conceptualized. As regards the interference between scientific mythology and contemporary religious mythology, the influence of imaginary is remarkable. Thus, we consider that in knowledge society the engineer becomes directly responsible for understanding and explaining the implications of this relation between science, technology and spirituality for the general public. What we intend to emphasize in the present paper refers to the way in which contemporary technology, as a practical effect of descriptive scientific scenarios, could influence the way in which human condition is understood and assumed at practical but also spiritual level by contemporary people. It could also have important implications as regards the ethics of research and teaching engineering. Email: horiachiriac@yahoo.com

AUREL TEODOR CODOBAN Title: Toward an Ecology of Communication Keywords: Ecology; Communication; knowledge (new)mass-media; Bateson; Baudrillard. Abstract: I intend to reframe Batesons Steps to an ecology of mind and extend that to the human communication, especially in the context of (new) mass-media. In his book Bateson saw the world as a series of systems - individuals, societies and ecosystems - that has inner competition and dependency and has adaptive changes which depend upon feedback loops to control balance by changing multiple variables. Essentially, our mind is also a system of communication and knowledge. For knowledge the principles of truth and efficiency are enough to trial and select the entities that populate our minds. But that isnt truth for communication. Baudrillard noticed that if we communicate something and than negate or contradict, that something remains. What was communicates cant be retracts totally. Communication has something viral, something that depends from its capacity of spread without necessary connection with reality. Mass-media - and the new mass-media contribute match to the viral character of mass-communication. They arent self-control them, they arent self-criticize them. In the modernity the knowledge has functioned as a critique and as a selection of communication. But now, grace of the mass-media, communication becomes free, becomes autonomous. So we need another ecology of communication, than knowledge. I think our mission is to provide a critique of pure and practical communication so as to avoid the charming of our minds by our means of communication. Email: aurelteodor@yahoo.com

MIHAI DIMIAN & CONSTANTIN LEFTER Title: A Constructive Perspective on Noise. Keywords: Noise; Resonance; Memory; Stochastic. Abstract: Everybody hates noise while the world tends to become even noisier. There is an increasing amount of evidence regarding the negative effects of noise on human health and environment while the measures taken against noise pollution proved to be inefficient. For example, World Health Organization (WHO) recommends an average bellow 35 decibels for continuous background noise in hospitals but most of the measurements presented by numerous scientific articles have indicated average noise levels between 50 and 70 decibels featuring generally flat spectra over the 60-2000 Hz band. A relevant survey on this topic is provided by Busch-Vishniac and his colleagues from Johns Hopkins University in Reference [1] indicating a trend of increasing noise level in hospitals over the last half a century in spite of WHO

recommendations and the implementations of modern noise reduction techniques. While the general public is much more aware of and concerned about this acoustic noise, scientists and engineers are most commonly challenged by electromagnetic noise, from the cosmic microwave background radiation generated by Big Bang to the electronic noise generated by all electronic circuits. One of the first areas that addressed noise problem systematically was communication. It is well-known that transmitted signal can be significantly altered by the noise existent in a communication channel due to the thermal agitation of molecules, the interference with other signals moving simultaneously through the same channel or neighboring ones, defects of the material structure, etc. Various techniques are used to reduce these disruptive effects of noise added to the signal such as filtering the noise out, using redundant coding routines of the transmitted signal, controlling the transmission environment, or additional processing of the received signal [2, 3]. The interest in noise analysis has significantly expanded during the last years with the advancement in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Noise is playing a major role in the behavior of nanoscale systems and its effects are increasingly pronounced with the decrease in system size. While it is jeopardizing the future development of several technologies, such as magnetic data storage, noise may also provide the solution to overcome current limitations by using novel paradigms, such as heat assisted magnetic recording employed to achieve higher data storage densities. Numerous studies have been recently focused on the coherent behavior exhibited by nonlinear systems driven by noise, which is known as coherence resonance when is solely induced by noise, and stochastic resonance when an external oscillatory signal is present [4-8]. The contributors provide an overview of key results on this topic varying from signal processing (dithering effect) and nanotechnology (signal amplification in carbon nanotube transistors) to climate models (ice age) and neuroscience (neuron spiking). [1] I. J. Busch-Vishniac, J. E. West, C. Barnhill, T. Hunter, D. Orellana, R. Chivukula, Noise levels in Johns Hopkins Hospital, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 118 (6), pp. 3629-3645, 2005. [2] S.V. Vaseghi, Advanced digital signal processing and noise reduction, John Wiley & Sons, 2008. [3] R. Perez, Wireless Communications Design Handbook, Volume 3: Interference into Circuits: Aspects of Noise, Interference, and Environmental Concerns, Academic Press, 1998. [4] B. Kosko, Noise, Viking/Penguin, 2006. [5] B. Ando and S. Graziani, Stochastic Resonance, Kluwer Academic Publisher, 2000. [6] B. Lindner, J. Garcia - Ojalvo, A. Neiman, L. Schimansky-Geier, Effects of noise in excitable systems, Physics Reports, vol. 392, pp. 321424, 2004. [7] F. Sagues, J. M. Sancho and J. Garcia-Ojalvo, Spatiotemporal order out of noise, Reviews of Modern Physics, vol. 79, p. 829, 2007. [8] L. Gammaitoni, P. Hnggi, P. Jung, and F. Marchesoni, Stochastic Resonance: A remarkable idea that changed our perception of noise, European Physical Journal B, vol. 69, pp. 1-3, 2009. Email: dimian@eed.usv.ro & lefter.constantin@gmail.com

MIHAI HODOROGEA Title: A new Science and Philosofy Approach of Microcosmos Keywords: Quantum mechanics; Dimamyc electromagnetic structure of matter; Microcosmos. Abstract: The complexity of atomic structure has demonstrated that quantum mechanics, as an analytic solution of wave function is, from a theoretical and methodological point of view, not an appropriate approach towards a deeper knowledge consistent with our natural way of perceiving the world, because of its inadequate, nondeterministic and probabilistic formal nature. The total reconstruction of our knowledge of the micro cosmos is a difficult task due to the conservative nature of the scientific community in regard to the fundamentals of physics. This conservative attitude is rooted in the belief that nothing is above modern physics, a belief created by exaggerated optimism and great expectations from quantum physics. Mistrust in the ability of classic physics to create and develop valid concepts and theories about the microcosmos through causality and determinism, and a fatalist, nondeterministic point of view are present in our actual knowledge and have to be changed with a dimamyc electromagnetic structure of matter. Email: hodomihai@yahoo.com

GEORGE MAHALU Title: One Viewpoint on the Interpretation of the Physical World and Anthropogenic Hypothesis. Keywords: Anthropic; Quantum; Interpretation; Paradigm Abstract: The current paradigm of the physical world where we live, is the result of cognitive effort and imagination of generations that have lived in this corner of the universe. Referring only to physical concept involved in perpetual dialogue between man and the universe, it appears that the way through we perceive reality

today is strongly influenced by traditions, habits, successive stages of culture, in other words by the human sociology in average level. The very concept of science cant be defined completely in the absence of framework imposed by the arts, religion, dogma, political, morality, philosophy structures etc. On the background of all human knowledge, world reality is only a reflection of the amount of human emotions in interrelations with humanity system. And in such a framework, complex and complicated, as the eternal interaction of everything with everything, the idea of reality is the emanation of our beings, into dynamic setting which depend by analytical power we have in the act of human self-introspection. As observers of the universe, we create the quality of our perception of reality. The reality is the thing that comes under our observation and is thus the object of analysis in terms of receptiveness that we are capable, receptiveness developed both physically and especially logical plan, formally. This paper presents our vision about the interpretation concept of the physical reality to material world in terms of human quality being (related to sensory, spiritual and cognitive aspects), into imposed framework by the anthropogenic hypothesis introduced by Robert Dicke in 1961 as the Weak Anthropic Principle (WAP). The original aspect of this paper consists in supporting the idea that the physical reality is builded on the observer paradigm, taking as example the describing models of reality phenomenon of electromagnetic field into classical way and into relativity concept. The fact that so-called magnetic field is only a template for describing the correlation mechanisms in passing from one reper to other into electrical phenomena, sets the transform rules of the relativity theory, shows that physical reality is rather a formal status than an absolute state. Thus, in simple and elegant way we can reached the conclusion that truth is not absolute just because reality has no such character. In that light, quantum theory overcomes the difficulties of interpreting specific classical schools, beginning the Copenhagen school of Bohr, Heisenberg and von Neumann and ending with the naive realism of Einstein, Schrodinger and deBroglie, offering innovative interpretations into final step such as the school from Austin. This is example of multiple worlds interpretation (MWI - Many Worlds Interpretation), whose prominent representative is Hugh Everett. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This paper was supported by the project Progress and development through postdoctoral research and innovation in engineering and applied sciences PriDE - Contract no. POSDRU/89/1.5/S/57083, project co-funded from European Social Fund through Sectorial Operational Program Human Resources 2007-2013.. Email: mahalu@eed.usv.ro

MARINEL-ADI MUSTAA & AURELIA MUSTATA Title: Knowledge Horizons in the Pursuit of Truth Keywords: Knowledge Horizon; Empiricism; Philosophy; Science; Causality. Abstract: In the paper we propose an exploration of several competing knowledge horizons. The possibility of encountering many coexisting explanations relative to the same object of study is far more obvious when considering the concept of frame-interpretation, whose semantic sphere includes the ontological patterns and the "adequate" methods of investigating them. Paradigms are more complex frame-interpretations that make possible a unitary and global interpretation of different fields of existence. We define the knowledge horizon as the cone of the possible explanations of a frame-interpretation. Email: mustata_a@yahoo.com & aurelia.mustata@brd.ro

TEODOR NEGRU Title: Posthumanism Revisited: Human Condition in Techno-World Keywords: Posthumanism; Technology; Techno-world; Utopia. Abstract: The techno-world means the actual reality as it is understood, produced, and influenced by technology. The techno-world does not refer a new reality in the meaning of a virtual or an imaginary reality. It refers to the actuality whereby we perceive reality by means of technology. Thus technology appears as an interface whereby we constrain reality to be delivered in a particular way. The techno-world was possible due to the two mutations of the modern era: directing knowledge toward the despiritualised universe and the emergence of explanations similar to those in mathematics and physics. On the one hand, God was replaced by man as a being toward whom knowledge should direct, which in other words means to de-spiritualising reality. The final outcome of the shift of interest from God to man is that this reality, which has always been in front of our eyes, has been brought in the foreground. Thus, science was called to explain the new reality, characterized by the increasing disappearance of God, and the lost of mans privileged position in the universe who now becomes a part of nature. The second idea of modern era which made possible the manifestation of techno-world was the mathematization of the real which has opened the way toward what the metaphysical

knowledge wanted from the very beginning: to transcend the material essence of the world by reducing it to an immaterial principle. The mathematization of the real, transforms the subject object relationship, having as consequences the dematerialisation of the object and the de-spiritualization of the subject. These transformations are made on behalf of the contemporary concept of information, which made possible the re-thinking not only of the idea of mechanism in the sense of a machine which can be programmed to perform certain operations but also of the living world. Hence, the boundary between matter and mind, body and soul, thinking and extend is gradually erased making room to the possibility of imagining a mechanism endowed with the properties of the living. The effect of possibility of the existence of such a being has been the resizing of the cultural field. Starting from this one can speak of a mutation from the classical ideal of culture to a new cultural paradigm dominated by a digital culture. In this new cultural context the modern notions of identity, subjectivity or legitimacy will be rethinking based on this numerical discourse which resorts to biometrics, virtuality and polyphony. Similarly, man will also be re-thought starting from his inseparable relationship with technology and the digital character of reality he lives in, eventually reaching a state of transcending the traditional humanism by what is known as post-humanism. Post-humanism represents therefore the condition of man in the technological development era. We cannot speak, in this case, about anthropology but rather of a utopia generated by the new epistemic, social and economic conditions we live in. Email: theonegru@yahoo.com

IASMINA PETROVICI Title: Hermeneutical Aspects Concerning the Aesthetics of Web-Design. Keywords: Web-Design; Hermeneutics; Aesthetics; Communication; Public Space. Abstract: The present study proposes an interdisciplinary analysis of the features of aesthetic communication in the field of multimedia creations. Taking an aesthetic theories approach, we insist in particular on the importance of the application of artistic styles and trends at the level of multimedia creations by discussing the main aesthetic trend of the web-design in the past two years. Whereas the topic involves a very broad and flexible approach, this study plans to focus on aesthetic aspects of preliminary principles in the design of multimedia that we can find, in particular, at the level of web-design. The first part of the study discusses the relevance of the application of artistic trends in web-design over the last two years. In the second part we discuss some consequences of the application of aesthetic hermeneutical communication in web-design. We conclude by releasing several consequences of the application of aesthetic hermeneutical communication in web-design. The hermeneutic principle that starts in the aesthetic categories at the level of multimedia creations, the web-design in particular, states that this kind of symbolic communication should be regarded as referring to a specific audience, extremely demanding as concerns aesthetics. Current research underlines that, now more than ever, aesthetics remains a fundamental model of communication, the semiotic and hermeneutical patterns, particularly with regard to the ability of new artistic languages to communicate symbolically a plurality of meanings and to reconfigure the relationship between multimedia creation - the public - and, possibly, the artist, in the case of the web-designer. The advantage of web-design is that it is extended to an extremely large field of possibilities, but your computer can discover them all systematically, by means of filtering out possible alternatives and adjusting the results of psychological principles to reach aesthetics. In addition, web-design seems to be in accordance with some information on the psychology of theoretical presuppositions of perception threshold, after which the volume of information of an artistic work must not be greater than the capacity of the sensory pathways, experimentally determined, of the receiver, because the creation will not be considered trivial. On the basis of the considerations noted above, we conclude that, in the context of the current aesthetics, though in recent decades various types of speech on the crisis of art and the aesthetics of communication proliferate, the concept of public aesthetic connotations receives, in his virtual depiction, an audience called up and formed by web-designer. From our point of view, meaningful trends are identifiable both at the level of design multimedia creations. This new meaning of the aesthetic public expresses a critique function of the postmodern trend of hyper-aesthetics, indicating its influence through the construction of aesthetic spaces of socialization. Web-design reflects symbolic patterns and proximity of different cultures and styles in their encounter. Acknowledgements: This study was prepared under aegis of Iai Alexandru Ioan Cuza University and ClujNapoca University Babe -Bolyai as a part of a research programme which is funded by the European Union within Operational Sector Programme for Human Resources Development through the project Trans-national network of integrated management for post-doctoral research in the field of Science Communication. Institutional construction (post-doctoral school) and fellowship Programme (CommScie) 2007-2013. Code Project: POSDRU/89/1.5/S/63663.. Email: iasmipetrovici@yahoo.com

BOGDAN POPOVENIUC Title: Psycho-Logic within Techno-Logical Settings Keywords: Information processing; Phylogenetic adaptation; Global consciousness; Technological world; Epistemologcial turn; Spiritual turn. Abstract: The logic information processing in the brain is definitely different than what we know today as mathematical, algorithmic or mechanical information processing. The first one, is often analogous considered a natural processor, the latter an artificial one. But abstract and rational mechanism of information processing is a late acquisition in the development of human species, and, moreover, it is happening on the surface of the complex biochemical machinery of brain reasoning machine. The researches proved that the convictions, beliefs, hopes, the conative mechanisms and affective aspects of natural reasoning remains unclear and we are still far from having an integrated image of brain (and mind ) functioning. The artificial environment built and continuously heighten be humans, already envelops all three aspects of human tri-unity and imposes new regularities, driving forces and laws of behavior in its physical realm (artificial controlled environmental characteristics), its social environment (juridical and political driven intercourse) and its cultural medium (symbolic and virtual informal constructed reality). These major changes in natural information processing force human brain to an unprecedented major adaption and are, also, a source of a massive amount of stress which modern man has to manage. This unprecedented mutation in human species requires a well-documented and serious attention, in order to be understood and managed. This could entail a real epistemological turn in the way of understanding the role and place of Psychology, major changings in our ways of making psychological research and counseling on the basis of older customary methods because we are in the dawn of a new reality, and rapidly adoptions processes on which human brain functioning is compelled requires a faster way to understand it in order to be able to manage and influence its future evolution and not be driven by its blind, unintelligible and, hence, unforeseeable further development. Email: bpopoveniuc@yahoo.com

COSTIN SCURTU Title: Values in Medicine and Bioethics. (Relaia medic pacient Sistem de sntate Societate) Keywords: Medic; Pacient; Societate; Etica. Abstract: Sntatea populaiei constituie una dintre valorile fundamentale, definitorii pentru nsi existena fiinei umane. Pentru realizarea acestei valori, prin multiplele acte normative care reglementeaz activitatea din domeniul sanitar, sunt consacrate drepturi i obligaii corelative att pentru beneficiarii ngrijirilor de sntate ct i pentru personalul medical sau nemedical din unitile sanitare. n cadrul raportului contractual avnd ca obiect furnizarea de servicii medicale, servicii comunitare precum i servicii conexe actului medical, este necesar delimitarea, cunoaterea i respectarea acestor dou categorii de drepturi i obligaii. Pentru pacient se creeaz cadrul instituional care s-i permit s beneficieze de ngrijiri medicale de cea mai bun calitate, iar pentru corpul medical, garania prestrii serviciilor medicale cu respectarea normelor de deontologie i etic medical, a normelor legale n vigoare, la adpost de consecinele nedorite ale oricrei forme de rspundere juridic. Email: scurtucostin@yahoo.com

ABRAHAM SOLOMONIK Title: About the Three Realities Keywords: Ontological reality; Semiotic reality; Scientific subclass of the semiotic reality; Imaginary subclass of the semiotic reality; Signs and sign-systems. Abstract: We, humans, are born into the Ontological reality and adapt ourselves to it. This reality comprises our material surroundings and also us, as material objects inside it. So, to adapt we have to study the always changing Ontology, understand it as far as it is possible, and try to accommodate it within some definite limits to meet our needs and necessities of life. Our attempts in this direction are rather successful: the Ontological reality appears to be liable to change todays' Ontology is greatly different from that which our ancestors lived in, and tomorrow's Ontology will be quite unlike ours. The contemporary generation of people displays themselves within a definite framework of reality they cooperate with and change according to their needs. They accept it as an undisputable fact and deal with what they find. In the process of studying and understanding the Ontological reality, we expose its particulars and regularities and transplant them into our minds, that is, into the mental state. Still, therein our thoughts and ideas are unstable (they fluctuate and diffuse). To hold them stable and firm humans invented signs which are to prop our thoughts up in solid position. With the help of signs we can express our thoughts and make them tangible for analysis by ourselves and other people. In this way signs make possible general access to

individual thoughts for appraisal and common approval. Being approved by majority of people, our thoughts receive the status of relative truth and are dis-seminated far and wide. Then they enter into the treasury of what I call the Semiotic reality. This kind of reality serves as a receptacle of all valuable signs and sign-systems collected by humanity during its civilization. It is also material in that anyone can see it and use it for one's education and mental enrichment. By studying it we learn what others before us thought about and found out. On the other hand, new findings are constantly added to the treasury of the Semiotic real-ity. Within this type of reality I distinguish two subclasses. The first class in-cludes those treasures of the semiotic data which are oriented onto the scien-tific approach to obtaining knowledge (they may be called the scientific sub-class of the Semiotic reality). The second subclass of the semiotic data in-cludes all other fruit of our mental activity, that do not comply with the scien-tific demands for exact knowledge. These I call the imaginary type of the Se-miotic reality. Among the latter we find superstitions, religions and arts. Both subclasses are material, since they are presented by signs to anyone who wants to comprehend them. However, they differ by their obedience to sci-ences. The first subclass relies on science and empirical tests, the second on the beliefs and subjective views of its followers. Each of the two classes and subsequent subclasses has various laws of functioning and development, which will be my task to explain in the sug-gested presentation. Email: semiosol@netvision.net.il

SIMONA STOICESCU Title: Concept Design- a New Approach in Design Keywords: Design; Concept; Paradigm; Ethic; Spiritual. Abstract: Designing an object is - as a short definition- finding the best solution for serving the objects purpose and functions. Having in mind the concept of an object, the designers are mentally trapped by the concept itself and only some standard solutions are conceived. They are designing, redesigning new objects: cars, roads, houses, schools, wardrobes, garbage bins, bags but using the same concepts for hundreds of years. Are we sure that we have the concepts of the objects that serve us, in a broad sense? The question behind that is: what do we need? Did we need the object? In fact we need its functions, but are even the functions useful today? In general, the design of a concept is correlated with the socio-economical system structure. Present concepts and of course the way in which systems are build, are in fact the expression of our paradigm, of actual concept about life. From this point of view can other concepts be conceived without changing the systems that integrates them? In our opinion, No! In the same time, to build a new system based on new concepts is difficult, even impossible because of the profound reaction to changes from the entire society (from users to decidents), even if the solutions are well and coherent presented. We know that the actual lifestyle in unsustainable but in a tacit way we accept to pollute, to have non-recyclable products, to build huge piles of garbage, to have people that lives far away from what we call: modern civilization. The paper presents an original approach: Concept Design, connected to a chain of changes to be made in the actual paradigm, having as a starting point the redefining of our vision about Life. Starting form here, an eco and ethic society can emerge, based on a network of concepts, profoundly based on ethical and spiritual principles. From this new set of concepts, based on a coherent theory of Concept Design and in direct correlation with the new needs of the new system, we can conceive all other objects (material or not) , having as a final goal a better life on Earth. Email: ssimona2012@gmail.com

YIHONG WANG Title: Fairness is a Virtue in Cooperation Keywords: Morality; Fairness; Mutualist; Cooperation Abstract: The paper argues that fairness is an idealization in human cooperative behavior for exploring the three kind of cooperative behaviors contains mutualism, altruism, and selfishness. I argue that fairness in evolution of cooperation is an ambiguous, because fair acts in human cooperative behavior must be constrained by psychological constraint, and by social constraint, and by political constraint, and by moral constraint. The process can be clarified by a hybrid model of fairness in evolution of cooperation. I argue that fairness is a virtue in evolution of cooperation from human morality. Fairness is being, however, will push forward the development of human cooperative behavior. Email: dcyhm@sina.com