Transdisciplinarity seen through Information, Communication, Computation, (Inter-)Action and Cognition

TL;DR

This paper explores the role of information as a foundational element in knowledge society, emphasizing the importance of transdisciplinary collaboration across various fields to address complex technological and societal challenges.

Contribution

It presents a comprehensive overview of transdisciplinary projects and theories in information studies, highlighting the integration of diverse disciplines and stakeholder perspectives.

Findings

Transdisciplinary projects unify information and knowledge across fields.

Technological artifacts are becoming more complex and user-centered.

Challenges exist in establishing common understanding among diverse stakeholders.

Abstract

Similar to oil that acted as a basic raw material and key driving force of industrial society, information acts as a raw material and principal mover of knowledge society in the knowledge production, propagation and application. New developments in information processing and information communication technologies allow increasingly complex and accurate descriptions, representations and models, which are often multi-parameter, multi-perspective, multi-level and multidimensional. This leads to the necessity of collaborative work between different domains with corresponding specialist competences, sciences and research traditions. We present several major transdisciplinary unification projects for information and knowledge, which proceed on the descriptive, logical and the level of generative mechanisms. Parallel process of boundary crossing and transdisciplinary activity is going on in the applied domains. Technological artifacts are becoming increasingly complex and their design is strongly user-centered, which brings in not only the function and various technological qualities but also other aspects including esthetic, user experience, ethics and sustainability with social and environmental dimensions. When integrating knowledge from a variety of fields, with contributions from different groups of stakeholders, numerous challenges are met in establishing common view and common course of action. In this context, information is our environment, and informational ecology determines both epistemology and spaces for action. We present some insights into the current state of the art of transdisciplinary theory and practice of information studies and informatics. We depict different facets of transdisciplinarity as we see it from our different research fields that include information studies, computability, human-computer interaction, multi-operating-systems environments and philosophy.