• Principles of General Ecology

Mark Burgin

University of California, Los Angeles, 520 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095

The term ecology (Ökologie in German) was coined in 1866 by the German scientist Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) from two Greek words oikos, which means house, or more generally, habitat or place of living and logos, which was used in ancient Greece denoting such concepts as order, meaning, foundation or mind (Odum, 2004). Haeckel’s initiative instigated an approach, where European botanists investigated plant communities related to definite territories and their interdependencies, giving rise to the science of ecology, which was dealing not only with plants but also with other living beings.

In the contemporary science, ecology is a holistic study of living systems in relation to their environment by explicating patterns of, processes in and relationships between these systems.

At the same time, ecology as a whole contains such subdisciplines as plant ecology and animal ecology.

Plant ecology studies the distribution and abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the abundance of plants, and the interactions among and between plants and other organisms (Weaver and Clements, 1938).

Animal ecology is the scientific study of animals and how they related to and interact with each other, as well as with their environment, determining the distribution and abundance of organisms.

Together these two areas form natural ecology, whereas researchers also created other ecological fields. One of them is human ecology, which is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary study of the relationships between humans and their natural, social, and technological environments involving a variety of disciplines: geography, sociology, psychology, anthropology, zoology, epidemiology, public health, home economics, and natural ecology, among others (Young, 1974).

While ecology has traditionally dealt only with natural systems, the new field of industrial ecology studies industrial products as part of larger systems and processes including industrial behavior and biogeochemical cycles as a part of a system and aiming at reduction of the environmental impacts of production, consumption, and disposal.

Chinese scientist Yixin Zhong initiated information ecology (Zhong, 1988; 2017). This discipline is essentially important for information studies as a holistic approach to the existence and functioning of information processing systems, as well as for better understanding of information processes in all spheres of reality. If ecology of plants studies structures and processes in systems of plants, information ecology studies structures and processes in organizations of information processing systems and formations.

One more ecological area is ecology of mind suggested by Bateson (Bateson, 1973).

Researchers also study knowledge ecology (Bray, 2007; Shrivastava, 1998), which is an approach to knowledge management aimed at fostering the dynamic evolution of knowledge interactions between systems to advance decision-making and innovation by means of enhanced evolutionary networks of collaboration. In contrast to purely instructional management, which attempts either to manage or direct outcomes, knowledge ecosystems advocate that knowledge strategies should focus more on enabling flexible self-organization and self-improvement in response to changing environments.

In addition, American anarchist and libertarian socialist author Murray Bookchin introduced social ecology as a critical study of society (Bookchin, 2005).

Existence of different ecological disciplines needs a common foundation and presented in this work general ecology provides such a unifying foundation for all ecological studies.

The concept of ecosystem proposed by the English ecologist Arthur Tansley is central for different ecological disciplines. That is why we start our exposition with defining this concept in the most general context. To this, we describe how the global structure of the world affects the organization of ecosystems.

The large-scale structure of the world is represented by the Existential Triad (Burgin, 2012), which is given in Figure 2.

                                                                                                   World of Structures

                                                                                                  |                               |

                                                                                                |                                   |

                                                                         Physical World ---------------------  Mental World

Figure 2. The Existential Triad of the World

The three worlds from the Existential Triad are not separate realities: they interact and intersect. Individual mentality is based on the brain, which is a material thing, while in the opinion of many physicists mentality influences physical world (cf., for example, (Herbert, 1987)). At the same time, our knowledge of the physical world largely depends on interaction between mental and material worlds.

Note that not only people but also all information processing systems have their mentality. Let us look at a computer. The content of the computer’s memory can be naturally treated as the mentality of this computer. For instance, the operating system is a part of the mentality of the computer.

The global structure of the world induces three types of ecosystems:

• Physical ecosystem includes physical systems and processes as its elements and components
• Mental ecosystem includes mental systems and processes as its elements and components
• Structural ecosystem includes physical systems and processes as its elements and components

When all three components of the world stratification are combined in one system, we have a total ecosystem.

An ecosystem is delineated by three parameters:

• A region in the space, i.e., it is assumed that all elements and components of an ecological system belong to a definite region in the space
• The primary types of its elements/components, i.e., it is determined what elements and components of given ecological system are considered the most important from the point of view of ecological studies
• The basic types of connections between its elements/components including processes as dynamic connections, i.e., it is determined what connections, ties and processes in given ecological system are considered the most important from the point of view of ecological studies

For instance, in a natural ecosystem, living organisms form the primary type of elements and a chosen area on the Earth shapes the region in the space. In this context, a natural ecosystem is composed of the dynamically interacting parts including all living organisms in a given area, which interact with each other and with their non-living environment.

In an information ecosystem, information processing systems form the primary type of elements and a chosen area on the Earth (may be the whole Earth) shapes the region in the space in which information processing systems are interacting with each other, and also with their environments. In addition, studies of information ecosystems concentrates on information processes going in the system.

Note that there are different kinds of information processing systems: technical information processing systems, living information processing systems, human information processing systems and so on.

Three grades of (types of) elements/components:

• Primary or leading elements/components
• Secondary or auxiliary elements/components
• Tertiary or background elements/components

Ecological studies are aimed at understanding existence and functioning of the primary elements/components of ecosystems, as well as basic connections, ties and processes in these ecosystems.

A physical ecosystem contains parts, elements and components of three kinds:

• Natural parts, elements and components, which include physical systems and processes in nature
• Technological parts, elements and components, which include technological systems and processes
• Social parts, elements and components, which include social systems and processes

In a physical ecosystem, it is possible to consider only physical processes or also to take into account mental and information processes.

A mental ecosystem contains parts, elements and components of three kinds:

• Natural parts, elements and components, which include and comprise mentality and its components of living beings
• Technological parts, elements and components, which include and comprise mentality and its components of technical devices
• Social parts, elements and components, which include and comprise mentality and its components of groups, communities and societies of living beings and technical devices

In a mental ecosystem, it is possible to consider only mental processes or also to take into account information processes.

A structural ecosystem contains parts, elements and components of three kinds:

• Natural parts, elements and components, which include structures of physical systems and processes
• Technological parts, elements and components, which include structures of technological systems and processes
• Social parts, elements and components, which include structures of social systems and processes 

The general ecology standpoint shows that it is possible to study information ecosystems either as physical ecosystems or as mental ecosystems or as structural ecosystems. It gives three perspectives at information ecosystems allowing researchers to obtain better knowledge and understanding of these systems. One more possibility is to study total information ecosystems combining all three perspectives in one model.

References

Bateson, G. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Paladin, Frogmore, St. Albans, 1973

Bookchin, M. The Ecology of Freedom, AK Press, Stirling, 2005

Bray, D.A. Knowledge Ecosystems: A Theoretical Lens for Organizations Confronting Hyperturbulent Environments, in Organizational dynamics of technology-based innovation: diversifying the research agenda, Springer, 2007, pp. 457-462

Burgin, M. Structural Reality, Nova Science Publishers, New York, 2012

Herbert, N. Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics, Anchor Books, New York, 1987

Odum, E.P. Fundamentals of Ecology, Cengage Learning, 2004

Shrivastava, P. Knowledge Ecology: Knowledge Ecosystems for Business Education and Training, 1998 (http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/shrivast/KnowledgeEcology.html)

Weaver, J. E. and F. E. Clements, Plant Ecology, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1938

Young, G.L. (1974) Human ecology as an interdisciplinary concept: A critical inquiry, Advances in Ecological Research, v. 8, pp. 1–105

Zhong, Y. X. Principles of Information Science, Beijing: BUPT Press. 1988   (in Chinese)

Zhong, Y. X. (2017) The Law of “Information Conversion and Intelligence Creation”, in Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity, World Scientific, New York/London/Singapore  

Cloud computing is a new generation of computing systems, increasingly developing as a promising solution to deal with the explosion of computing complexity and data size. One of the main concerns to shift from traditional computing systems to Cloud is ethics. In many cases, ethical issues depend on particular applications and circumstances. However, we intend to identify ethical issues of Cloud, inherent in the fundamental nature of the technology rather than specific circumstances. There are multiple technological criteria affecting ethical issues in Cloud, such as security; privacy; compliance and performance metrics. Along with the technological criteria, a set of rules and regulations called Terms and Conditions (T&C) effects on ethics in the Cloud. T&C is an agreement specifying the rights and obligations of users, Cloud providers and third parties. In this ongoing research work, we aim to firstly investigate the main technological criteria affecting ethics in Cloud, while at the same time, we provide a discussion to indicate that how each of these criteria influences ethics, secondly to consider the relationship between the T&C rules and ethics, and finally to have a quick look at ethical issues in Cloud versus traditional web-based applications.

The need for a generally accepted definition of “what is information” is self-evident and acute. However, Kun’s definition of information as “a philosophical category indicating indirect being” is unable to satisfy this need, especially when it comes to an everyday usage of the term. That forced me to seek for a more suitable definition of information. Despite the differences, Kun and I agree that we witness today a paradigm shift from data-based computational way of thinking to information-based cognitive way of thinking (Kun calls that “informalization of science”). Below is provided a short comment on this issue.

Information ecology is a concept relative to intelligent agents. It’s not about the ecology of information itself, but the ecological system that the intelligent agents exist as an informational way and process, produce, create information.

The information ecology consists of four levels: the level of information network is the basic level of matter and energy of information ecology; the level of information flow is the information processing level of information ecology; the level of information production is the evolution level of information ecology; and the level of information creation is the dynamic level of information ecology. Reciprocity is the radical characteristic of information ecology as well as information. The basic characteristic of natural ecology is physical; the basic characteristic of social ecology is relational; and the basic characteristic of information ecology is reciprocitical. The basic principle of information ecology development in human society is the interaction between information symmetry and asymmetry. The basic difference between information ecology and natural ecology is that the natural ecology is naturally formed, and the information ecology is basically intelligent agent-made. In the era of information civilization, information ecology is not only based on the natural ecology and social ecology, but also plays more and more important roles in natural ecology, especially in social ecology. The key to natural ecology is the natural balance; the key to social ecology is social harmony; and the key to information ecology is mutual arousing in the process of information based on information circulation.

From the origin of ancient Greek philosophy to the philosophy of medieval ages, although it appeared the discussion of "nominalism" and "realism" in medieval times, the exploration of the concept of "objective but non-real" did not get further developed. From the view of the inherent integration of the unity of general rationality on science and philosophy, professor Wu Kun revived the concept of "objective but non-reality" and creatively developed his "philosophy of information" system. Because the existence of "objective but non-reality" is inherently a kind of "crossover" field in the traditional philosophy, it certainty solve the problems of traditional philosophy from the ontology, which will lead to the breakthrough in the fundamental paradigm in philosophy, and the philosophy begin its fundamental turn.