Aleksandr Il'ich Perel'man has written:
'Geochemistry of epigenesis'
'Geochemistry of epigenesis [by] Aleksandr I. Perel'man' -- subject(s): Geochemistry
1 answer
Hasan Khatib has written:
'Livestock epigenetics' -- subject(s): Genetics, Embryology, Epigenesis, Livestock
1 answer
Embryology means the study of events that lead to fertilisation till formation of embryo.
The complete embryology was proposed by Aristotle called epigenesis in his book On the generation of Animals.
1 answer
Cornelis Murre has written:
'Epigenetic regulation of lymphocyte development' -- subject(s): Lymphocytes, Genetic regulation, Epigenetics, Genetic Epigenesis
1 answer
Probabilistic epigenesis is a theory that suggests development occurs through bidirectional interactions between genetic and environmental influences. It posits that both nature (genetics) and nurture (environment) play a role in shaping an individual's growth and development, with outcomes being probabilistic rather than determined solely by genes or environment alone. This theory highlights the complexity of development and the significance of interactions between genetic predispositions and environmental factors.
1 answer
Scott F. Gilbert has written:
'Developmental Biology'
'Developmental Biology, Eighth Edition (Developmental Biology)'
'Developmental Biology: A Comprehensive Synthesis: Volume 7'
'Ecological developmental biology' -- subject(s): Phenotypic plasticity, Evolution (Biology), Developmental biology, Epigenesis
1 answer
Conrad Hal Waddington is often credited with coining the term "epigenetics" in the 1940s. However, the field of epigenetics involves contributions from many scientists over the years, including research by Robin Holliday and Arthur Riggs on DNA methylation in the 1970s.
2 answers
Andreas Vesalius is often considered the father of modern anatomy. He was a Flemish anatomist who made significant contributions to the field through his detailed anatomical studies and illustrations. His work, "De humani corporis fabrica," is considered a landmark in the history of anatomy.
8 answers
The act of unfolding or unrolling; hence, in the process of growth; development; as, the evolution of a flower from a bud, or an animal from the egg., A series of things unrolled or unfolded., The formation of an involute by unwrapping a thread from a curve as an evolute., The extraction of roots; -- the reverse of involution., A prescribed movement of a body of troops, or a vessel or fleet; any movement designed to effect a new arrangement or disposition; a maneuver., A general name for the history of the steps by which any living organism has acquired the morphological and physiological characters which distinguish it; a gradual unfolding of successive phases of growth or development., That theory of generation which supposes the germ to preexist in the parent, and its parts to be developed, but not actually formed, by the procreative act; -- opposed to epigenesis., That series of changes under natural law which involves continuous progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous in structure, and from the single and simple to the diverse and manifold in quality or function. The pocess is by some limited to organic beings; by others it is applied to the inorganic and the psychical. It is also applied to explain the existence and growth of institutions, manners, language, civilization, and every product of human activity. The agencies and laws of the process are variously explained by different philosophrs.
2 answers
Introduction
The global accelerated development of new media and technologies and of their
application in electronically mediated communication has had a significant impact on
human social learning and progress. Worldwide societies have come to find out about
each other too much too fast, too soon, with an immense impact on the universal
system of conceptual significations and socio-cultural representations. On a
worldwide scale, learning environments and educational settings built and developed
around digital and electronic networks of communication, are seriously challenged by
the diverse applications of novel digital and information communication technologies,
and the consequent exploitation of information and transfer of knowledge in these,
rapidly increasing in complexity, networks.
The global system of information which constructs our knowledge of the social
and defines our individual and collective existence is digitally reconstructed and
reproduced in hyper-real configurations by digital and information communication
technologies. There is a noticeable continuous reorganization of information,
consequently of knowledge, which makes the traditional quest for true and absolute
realities questionable and problematic. Such a quest often generates confusion and
disillusion, which add up to the recycling process of already inadequate and
insufficient justifications to explain the contemporary world or to educate its future
citizens. A spatial theoretical understanding of the digital reorganization of
information and knowledge in digital and electronic communication based learning
environments is needed.
Digital and Electronic Communication Based Learning Environments
Learning environments and educational settings are disrupted by new forms of a new
meta-postmodern logic. This logic is guided by digital and information
communication technologies and by diverse cultural configurations, upsets traditional
educational practices and learning processes and changes the conditions of production
of knowledge in the global socio-economic structure. Digital and electronic
communication based learning environments and educational settings emerge as
diverse postmodern formations characterized by the intensification of the availability
and use of information. By means of electronic communication and of digital
applications and technologies, they reproduce and sustain a diverse worldwide digital
culture characterized by technologically dissimilar and informationally complex
learning experiences. This culture is a mixture of mutated cultural configurations of
postmodernity which can be more accurately termed as postmodernity-and-beyond.
This is the culture of the information explosion which defines the societies of digital
capitalism and which secures the conditions for the flow of information by
reproducing itself through digital regenerations in hyperspace.
A global and differentiated system of information has been responsible for the
social organization of societies worldwide. The intensification of the use of
information in hyper-spatial environments becomes critical in the reconstruction and
retransformation of the global social order and social change and the reproduction of
human existence by means of digital cloning and mutation. The challenge is to
reconsider the content and validity of the available information and knowledge in
their learning contexts of global electronic communication, and, of their application
through information technologies in digital and electronic communication based
learning environments and educational settings.
In a world dominated by the increasing integration of human consciousness with
digital and information technologies, I contend that an analytical model of learning in
digital and electronic communication based environments can be synthesized and
developed from a detailed analysis and spatial theorization of the structure and
organization of the system of information.
Hypotheses
This in-depth analysis, I contend, can proceed from a 'framing' of the organization of
the system of information which comprises our digital and electronic communication
based environments, and which in effect organizes our existence within, and in
relation to it. Such an analysis will provide the theoretical observations and
justifications for an argument of the digital reconstruction of hyper-reality in digital
and electronic communication based environments, and can proceed along four interrelated
hypotheses: the Information Flow hypothesis which establishes contemporary
historical and socio-cultural conditions; the Social Knowledge hypothesis which
identifies specific informational patterns of organization in structures, discourses,
ideological systems, and cultural trends and can be reflexively applied to describe the
organization of the dominant system of information; the Code of Information
hypothesis which aims in establishing the theoretical framework for diverse aspects of
the organization of the system of information; and, the System of Information
hypothesis, which offers a new philosophic description of the current epoch. It
consists of theoretical approximations, more speculative and futures-oriented,
regarding the organization and implication of the system of information in the era of
global electronic communication and information communication technologies
(Andoniou, 2008).
The Information Flow Hypothesis
Our view and perception of the social, the world out there, are shaped by our
accumulated life experiences, which exponentially add up to our banks of social
knowledge. The discourses of history, politics, economy and culture, as separate,
though inseparable to each other, as discourses of representational information,
construct a real and imagined at the same time vision of this world within the human
mind. Social knowledge is constructed at the subjective and collective levels of
human information processing, and is therefore dependent on the organization of the
system of information within which it is produced.
Informational representations take form and shape in language and visual images,
are reflected and manipulated in ideology, and finally they are expressed though
patterns of social communication and action as a response to historical, political,
economic and cultural conditions
The Social Knowledge Hypothesis
Within the boundaries of our physical space and across the arrow of time our
perception of what constitutes (collectively and/or individually) acceptable social
knowledge is to a great extent controlled by the global communication technologies
and media of all forms. The system of information entails controlled representations
of the intentions and the financial interests of transnational media corporations and
their affiliated corporate and governmental infrastructure. At another level of spatial
consciousness, that of hyperspace, human and machine information processing and
communication, converge and align along fractal levels of distortion of the system of
information. This in turn shapes our knowledge of the social - often in distinctive
corporate interests. Let alone the nature of knowledge per se, more importantly,
events of social
change and decisions of social action, in this respect, become ambiguous and
questionable, as to whether they are expressions of individual choice and freedom or
reproductive of well-established patterns of exploitation and domination (Figure 2).
The development of information communication technologies and
telecommunications networks has intensified the production, generation, regeneration,
circulation and exploitation of the system of information in an endless vicious circle.
Human interaction and communicational practice with computer technologies form
The Social Knowledge hypothesis
knowledge and re-organizes social life. Its mechanics are characterized by
interactivity, networkingand flexibility. The new relations of human experience and
construction of meaning are re-negotiated in the hyper-real cultural environments.
They are globalized through economic systematization, the design and promotion of a
global culture and consciousness, which seemingly integrates and unifies the world on
the surface, but leaves the particular details of the validity of the underlying changes
and transformations unresolved.
The Code of Information Hypothesis
The emerging new forms of postmodernity are dominated by the code of information.
These forms do not consist separate historical periods, rather they are manifestations
of the intensification of certain cultural attributes because of the ever-increasing
surplus of information. New relations between spatiality and time are generated by the
code of information in the hyper-real cultural environments. In our traditional
physical world, the past exists in the form of memories and as practiced and
acknowledged experience that has been interweaved in programmes of intended
future action. The future exists only in the sphere of our imagination, and exists only
as a projection of calculated evaluation and desired outcomes (Figure 3).
The concept of information in the age of information communication and digital
technologies can be distinctively identified to have systemic characteristics, the
organization and structure of which can be analyzed through the code of information.
The Code of Information hypothesis refers to general patterns of organization of the
system of information, and with regard both to content and relationships. The
digitalization of the system of information makes the code vulnerable to control and
programmability. The code of information is also susceptible to the weaknesses of
human information processing but also to the exploitative tendencies and interests of
external interference and disturbance.
The System of Information Hypothesis
The system of information spans along multiple coexisting spatial levels of
organization across the arrow of time, which represent conditions of freedom, of
exploitation and of domination of the system of information, respectively. These
organizational levels of the system of information (corresponding to entropy,
redundancy, and noise of its volume and intensity) coexist at any time at different
levels of intensities, and which mark certain socio-cultural and historical periods. In
the contemporary era of information communication and digital technologies, of
hyper-real landscapes and fantasy worlds, the fractalization the system of information
establishes new relations of meanings and understandings (Figure 4).
Information communication technologies are digitally constructing reality, or to
put it in another way, they are digitally reconstructing hyper-reality. The reorganization
and transformation of the system of information is taking place within
the boundaries of hyperspace or cyberspace. Still, the human obsession with this
electronic spatiality, recreates the conditions of the organization of the system of
information in every aspect of contemporary social life. The code of the system of
information is structured along coexisting and interacting with each other, levels of
organization, each characterized by various degrees of intensification of information.
At any point in the arrow of time, the system of information presents coexisting
and alternating degrees of authentic, simulated and illusionary segments of
information which are reflected in the organization of social life and the world. In the
era of digital communication and computer technologies, the system of information
implodes towards fractalization. The meaning that justifies the relation of the system
of information to the social configurations and entities which reflexively are
organized by it, is undergoing a gradual transformation of deconstruction,
Figure
differentiation and reconstruction. Consequently, all logical justifications and
confirmations of social reality in the postmodern world and beyond, are destroyed,
intensified, transformed, reborn and set free of the tyranny of reason.
Trialectics, Heterotopias and Thirdspace
The suggested hypotheses leading to the proposed theoretical approximations of the
Infogramic Analysis model, challenge conventional modes of spatial thinking and
require a conceptual shift. This is based on assertions of alternative envisionings of
spatiality, as illustrated in the 'trialectics and thirdings' of Lefebvre (1991), the
'heterotopologies' of Foucault (1986), and Soja's (1996) concept of 'thirdspace'.
They are briefly mentioned here.
For Lefebvre (1991) each field of human spatiality - the physical, the mental, the
social - is seen as simultaneously real and imagined, concrete and abstract, material
and metaphorical. Similarly, the philosophical discussion in this article envisions the
system of information as 'real' and imagined, physically present but absent or
invisible in an abstract way. Lefebvre's 'production of space' in a dialectically linked
triad (spatial practice - representations of space - spaces of representation) define a
perceived spatiality that embraces the production and reproduction of the system on
information, a conceived space of representations constituted via control over and
exploitation of knowledge, signs, and codes, and the lived informational space of
complex and imaginary symbolisms, coded and not. I contend that the social space of
the system of information is defined by, across time, a 'trialectic' of spatial
configurations, what I term elsewhere as 'level-states' of the system of information.
In Foucault's (1986) spatiality of 'other places', 'heterotopias' are defined as those
real and singular spaces to be found in specific social environments and whose
functions are different or even the opposite of others. Assumptions, analogies and
isomorphies from diverse analyses which support the hypotheses stated in the current
argument, suggest that the system of information can be considered as a 'heterotopia'.
As such, it is characterized by principles of 'heterotopology' and it is identified in
worldwide signification and representational systems in differentiated forms, it can
alter and transform over time in synchronization to specific environments it occupies,
it can exist in different spatial configurations, even incompatible to each other, it
presents heterochronic formations, it can be closed and isolated or open and
permeable at the same time, it is responsible for creating illusionary 'other' spaces.
Soja's (1996) 'Thirdspace' project called for a different way of thinking about the
meanings and the significance of our already established spatial or geographical
imaginations. Thirdspace can be seen as a new approximation, a different way of
looking at the same subject, a sequence of never-ending variations on recurrent spatial
themes. This is what, in my point of view, is what characterizes the system of
information and because of this we need flexible and dynamic open-ended
theorizations, based on frequent reconsiderations and recombinations of alternating
conceptualizations of its structure, organization, and communication.
Soja's 'trialectical' thinking challenges all conventional modes of thought and
taken-for-granted epistemologies. It is disorderly, unruly, constantly evolving,
unfixed, never presentable in permanent constructions, denoting a shift from
existential ontology to an epistemology of space. Thirdspace provides the spatial
perspective needed to consider and understand social reality and the organization of
the system of information and a closer understanding of social change and of
emerging hyper-realities in the Digital era.
The Digital Reorganization of Information
Following the theoretical assumptions in the four hypotheses and the philosophical
positions underlying them, I argue that a pattern of structural and organizational
characteristics of the system of information can be indicated which provides the
background to develop an argument for the digital reorganization of information in
hyper-spatial environments.
The system of information is shared in a variety of ways within networks of
exchanges, where internal and external communication enables its content to organize
and be organized. The system of information is a complex system with substantial
internal differential integration and co-ordination that exists in a state that is neither
totally ordered nor totally chaotic. Alternating between order and chaos it settles into
patterns associated to 'relations of meaning'. Although the distribution of the
elements of information patterns is unpredictable, still they do not disperse outside the
boundaries of the pattern. Breaking apart the elements, that make up the code of
information, and looking at the individual pieces and their interrelationships is the key
in understanding the complexity of the system of information, and coming to a closer
understanding of the relationship between 'reality' and 'hyper-reality'.
A dynamic retransformation of the system of information in digital and electronic
communication based systems takes place, characterized by self-similarity and fractal
dimensionality. This digital reorganization or fractalization of the system of
information, I contend, can be described along distinct phase spaces (spatial changes
across time) of fractal implosion empowered by equally distinct interconnecting
micro-processes, which comprise the archetypal organizational pattern and force of
change and transformation responsible for the unpredictable vulnerability and
programmability of 'real' and 'hyper-real' social configurations in the Digital era.
These processes are discussed in brief next along with some additional elements of
the generic macro- and micro-structure of the system of information.
Infogramic Analysis
The digital reorganization of information stresses the need to understand the code of
the system of information within fresh ways of thinking, unavoidably abstract and
probabilistic and possibly paradoxical and controversial. To this end, I propose a
series of theoretical approximations on the organization of the system of information,
namely: the Infotype, the Level-States of Information, Virtual Implosion, Fractal
Dynamics, and Infogramics. These comprise the analytical model which I term
Infogramic Analysis.
These theoretical approximations can be argued to be a meta-philosophical
proposition towards a radical reconstruction of long-established thinking of the
production of social knowledge. The analytical model put forward in the form of
conceptual / digital / graphical approximations is a radical methodological suggestion
on how we can improve our understanding about the operation and impact of the
system of information in the digital reconstruction of contemporary societies and on
the re-realization of human consciousness in the postmodern-and-beyond era. The
proposed theoretical model aims to offer an alternative idea and to envisage as to how
we can use the results of such an understanding to identify patterns of exploitation,
domination and struggle in a diversity of real, imagined and other places. The model
hopes to redefine principles of organization of social transformation, social change
and successful survival in living and learning with information communication
technologies.
The spatial context within which the proposed theoretical conceptualizations are
made explicit and can be represented with more ease is where human and machine
technologies converge, that is hyperspace or, cyberspace, or what Wilson and Corey
(2000) defined as e·space, the spatial context of the emerging digital and information
communication technologies, such as, computers, telecommunications networks,
electronic media, and the Internet.
Infotype
At any moment of transformation across time, the system of information can preserve
its quantitative and qualitative dimensions from one trajectory to another, which are
embodied in what can be called an infotype. An infotype refers to the specific content
and the general architectural characteristics of the system of information. Different
systems of information may belong to the same infotype, and a system of information
may belong to more than one infotypes. The infotype carries the code (instructions)
which the components of the system of information need to use for their structural and
interactive orientation and their iterative proliferation. For an infotype to survive and
secure its existence in the ocean of informational landscapes, it needs to regenerate
constant change by way of adaptation and habituation to the available informational
environments. Adaptation implies quantitative and/or qualitative alterations, which
can be the result of mutation of information through iterative processes, whereas
habituation refers to the successful establishment of adaptation.
Level-States of Information
Infotypes are organized across space and time in an inter-connected triad of associated
spatial level-states of organization: an Era of Romanticism (actuality), an Epoch of
Ersatz (imitation) and an Age of Chimera (fantasy). Romanticism, Ersatz and Chimera
are space-time coordinates, which remain unaffected as a triad globally, but they
differentiate individually and locally, across the arrow of time. They refer to the
volume and intensity of available information during various historical periods, not
necessarily distinct ones, but related to the historical, socio-economic and cultural
conditions of these periods. They co-exist as general spatial frameworks across time
that encompass and host diverse systems and organization networks. At different
space-time coordinates one level-state may predominate to the expense of the others
depending on the degree of intensification of the flow and organization of information
within a given system
The Era of Romanticism. The Era of Romanticism is predominated by the
intensification of spatial practice. The perceived physical space is the main domain of
the negotiation of information and social knowledge (actuality). At this level-state the
system of information is characterized primarily by the authenticity, and subsequently
by the simplicity and originality of its components. The Era of Romanticism would
probably characterize socio-spatial formations of primary and basic organization,
where the networks of information are almost non-existent or just emerging, where
communication of the information is scarce and elementary, and where social
transformation and change is time-consuming. It is an era of potential progress and
development as a result of social exploration, error and trial, based on the unhindered
'freedom' of information
The Epoch of Ersatz. The Epoch of Ersatz is characterized by the intensification of
representations of space, in which information is disputed, infected and dominated.
The Epoch of Ersatz signifies the 'conceptualized space' of the system of information.
The social during the Epoch of Ersatz is constituted through the control and
exploitation of information. Information is classified and categorized into controlled
knowledge and defined signs and codes are responsible for the construction of 'social
reality'. During this level-state, the system of information becomes redundant with the
elements of unpredictability and entropy being controlled. Informational constructs
are generated through imitation and floating signifiers define the limits of social
experience. Reason and logic dominate social action and change. The Epoch of Ersatz
can probably apply to developing and developed patterns of organization, with well
established networks of communication. This would be a system indicative of
experimentation, justification and potential exploitation of choices and alternatives
The Age of Chimera. In the Age of Chimera, fantasy becomes the predominant
component of the system of information. Information becomes illusive, provocative
and hyper-real. The spaces of representation become intensified with the original
authenticity of the Era of Romanticism and the 'original' simulations of Epoch of
Ersatz becoming incorporated and assimilated in the domination of lived experience.
The system of information shows a highly complex organization, with 'reality' being
encoded, and 'hyper-reality' being decoded as the dominant socio-spatial dominant.
At this level-state the system of information is dominated by the rejection of
authenticity and originality, by increased tensions of imagination and hallucination,
and by the emergence of distorted spatial formations. The system of information
reactivates its entropic tendencies within a system environment alternating between
states of chaotic organization and of organized chaos. The Age of Chimera is a period
of subordination to the code of the system of information which controls and
regenerates ever-emerging spatial realities. The Age of Chimera is intensified in
advanced modes of organization characterized by networked flexibility, flexible
networking and infinite possibilities of communication. Change and transformation is
fast and at its extreme leads towards the fractalization of the system of information
Virtual Implosion
The theoretical approximation of Virtual Implosion of the system of information
intends to describe how the system of information transforms (mutates) to a fractal
system, where meaning is replaced with the ambiguity of 'relations of meaning'.
Information. The systemic organization of Information before Virtual Implosion is
strongly related to 'meaning'. Information can be considered as segments of
communicated knowledge concerning particular facts, subjects, or events. Any set of
data, out of which information is constructed, is in essence an abstract flow of
electronic signals, which are coded and exist in various forms. These coded data sets
are defined here as 'fragments of data', whereas, the components of a system of
information as 'fragments of information'. Fragments of data make up data, data
make up fragments of information, which, in turn, can form a system of information,
which presents systemic characteristics. A set of Information is in essence a system of
information.
Phase spaces of Virtual Implosion. Virtual Implosion takes places in a series of
continuous, infinite loops of dynamic change, expressed in distinctive phase spaces,
and repeated in alternating and interrelated iterative cycles. During Virtual Implosion
abstract flows of electronic signals, coded as information, undergo quantitative and
qualitative alterations within trajectories (phase spaces) of mutation. These phase
spaces lead to the fractalization of information, by reproducing irregular,
contradictory and chaotic distortions of the original. These fractal informational
simulations may be simplified, distorted, controllable and programmable versions of
the original information.
The Virtual Implosion of the system of information is characterized by three phase
spaces of fractal mutation: (a) Syghysis (deconstruction): With Syghysis, a relatively
ordered group of components (fragments of data or fragments of information) of
meaningful information is deconstructed into the individual components; these are
then rearranged randomly, in disorder, around a core reference point and within the
boundaries of the information environment; (b) Molynsis (differentiation): Molynsis
follows the phase of Syghysis. During Molynsis each one of the randomly dispersed
individual units (data) start to differentiate acquiring diverse degrees of emphasis,
prestige, and structure, of similar dimensions; and, (c) Photococciasis
(reconstruction): As a result of Molynsis, with Photococciasis, the differentiated
stress applied on the constituent units of information, generates a non-linear stretching
of the components towards a disorganized reconstruction of fractal dimensions
Fractal. The Fractal systemic condition of information is an irregular, disorganized
mutation of communicated knowledge. In contrast to the original, meaning-related
system of information, the fractalized system of information consists of repetitive
distortions of facts, subjects, or events, without any specific or necessary reference to
meaning, truth or reality, other than the reference to themselves. The structural
architecture of a Fractal, accounts for the exhibited vulnerability, fragility and
anomia, whereas the irregularity of the patterns of interactivity accounts for the
potential manipulation, controllability, and programmability. The later may regenerate
distorted versions of an original, and disguise it as the original itself. The viral
character of the fractal neutralizes and liquidifies the original translation, and its
scandalous behaviour produces false recognition of the original system of
information.
Fractal Dynamics
The three phase spaces of the Virtual Implosion of the system of information to
fractalization, are controlled and interconnected by five powerful micro-processes
hereby collectively termed as Fractal Dynamics: (a) Catastrophe (destruction)
generates the Syghysis of Information, by breaking down, deconstructing, the
components of the system to fragments of information and data; (b) Orgasm
(excitement) completes Syghysis and powers up Molynsis, by generating random
mobility of the components of the system of information; it forces them to rearrangein the periphery of, but still within the prescribed limits, of the system; (c)
Metamorphosis (transformation) concludes Molynsis and initiates Photococciasis, by
producing levels of differentiation among the fragments, and assigning to them
various degree of emphasis and substance; (d) Epigenesis (rebirth) signals the end of
Photococciasis, restructuring the differentiated fragments by exercising flexible nonlinear
stretching on them towards the Fractal phase of the system; and (e) Anomia
(lawlessness) secures the fractalization of the system of information by the irregular
disorganized reconstruction of the stretched components
Infogramics
With Virtual Implosion and Fractal Dynamics always present at the generic level of
systemic organization, Datagrams and Infograms are informational constructs and
patterns of informational organization at a smaller scale, which may as well be
understood as basic or complex concepts, definitions, attitudes, opinions, beliefs,
ideologies, theories, bodies of knowledge, in general, any organized or non-organized
(around meaning or relations of meaning) system of information.
Datagrams. Datagrams are basic and simple informational constructs of symbols,
icons, signs, figures, characters, letters, numbers, archetypes, and so on. They may
generate infinite combinations within their native environment to add more
informational units to their system. The self-similarity and plurality of the
components of datagrams accounts for, and appends to the 'meaning' entailed in the
datagram. Datagrams may interact with other similar or not datagrams, in infinite
combinations, to produce infograms
Infograms. An Infogram is an informational construct of higher level of complexity
than that of a datagram. An infogram can be generated from interacting datagrams but
is not necessarily the sum of the source datagrams. Infograms present multidimensional
patterns of organization of spatial symmetries and structural non-linear
curves. They can be said to represent, at varying degrees of complexity, concepts,
definitions, ideas, perceptions, explanations, descriptions, segments of information,
bodies of knowledge, and so on. According to their origin of their constituent
components (combined arrangements of datagrams or other infograms), infograms are
distinguished as: Authentic infograms (strong relations of meaning, resistance to
foreign interactions); Simulated infograms (visible imaginary versions of authentic
infograms); and Fractal infograms (simplified, distorted, and programmable version
of authentic or simulated infograms and of 'dubious' meaning)
Endogenesis and Exogenesis. Infograms (and datagrams) present distinctive patterns
of organization which account for the inter-relativity and interactivity of infogramic
systems. These organizational patterns are here defined as Endogenesis and
Exogenesis respectively. Endogenesis refers to the innate tendencies of the structural
condition of the infogramic system to self-relate, generate and maintain a stable and
enduring structural architecture of meaning around the core theme characteristic of
the system. Three levels of structural condition characterize the endogenous
associations of an infogramic system: Organization, Lethargy, and Disorganization.
Exogenesis refers to the tendencies of the infogramic system to communicate or
respond to incoming communication with its environment. Exogenesis expresses the
tendency of the system of information to associate, to establish networks, and to
progress to further evolvement. Three levels of structural involvement characterize
the exogenous interactions of an infogramic system: Simplicity, Apathy, and
Complexity. In any state of infogramic activity or inaction, the system is balanced as
endogenous associations establish a condition of heterogeneous homogenization,
whereas exogenous interactions, on the opposite side, apply a condition of
homogenous heterogeneity
Figure 15: Infogramic endogenous associations and exogenous interactions.
Conclusion
In the era of digital and information communication technologies, the fractalization of
information leads to the mutation of information and knowledge to electronically
distorted and repetitive hyper-realities. The proposed model of Infogramic Analysis,
I contend, can act as a methodological response for the analysis of learning and
teaching with information communication technologies in digital and electronic
communication based learning environments. Infogramic Analysis can be useful in
identifying the patterns of gradual deconstruction, differentiation and reconstruction
of digital information and knowledge, and their gradual mutation towards abstract
fractal infogramic systems. In our contemporary global information society forms of
digital and electronic communication establishes new relations of meanings and
understandings of the world. Information and knowledge in digital and electronic
communication based learning environments challenge our empirical so-called
orthodoxies with the appearance of paradoxes and controversies, the non-absolute of
'reality' or the partial availability of 'truth'. Understanding how the global system of
information is digitally reconstructed within digital and electronic communication
based learning environments reveals to us how systems and bodies of social
knowledge, based on it, they all mutate to digital illusions, altered states of reality
which come to dominate our so-conceived real and conceptual imaginations through
our daily interactive practices and learning and experiences with information
communication technologies.
References
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