CFP last date
20 May 2024
Reseach Article

The Geometry of Information Retrieval is a Cybernetics, and it is to be Overcome

by Sachi Arafat
International Journal of Computer Applications
Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA
Volume 177 - Number 18
Year of Publication: 2019
Authors: Sachi Arafat
10.5120/ijca2019919641

Sachi Arafat . The Geometry of Information Retrieval is a Cybernetics, and it is to be Overcome. International Journal of Computer Applications. 177, 18 ( Nov 2019), 1-7. DOI=10.5120/ijca2019919641

@article{ 10.5120/ijca2019919641,
author = { Sachi Arafat },
title = { The Geometry of Information Retrieval is a Cybernetics, and it is to be Overcome },
journal = { International Journal of Computer Applications },
issue_date = { Nov 2019 },
volume = { 177 },
number = { 18 },
month = { Nov },
year = { 2019 },
issn = { 0975-8887 },
pages = { 1-7 },
numpages = {9},
url = { https://ijcaonline.org/archives/volume177/number18/30996-2019919641/ },
doi = { 10.5120/ijca2019919641 },
publisher = {Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA},
address = {New York, USA}
}
%0 Journal Article
%1 2024-02-07T00:46:12.946401+05:30
%A Sachi Arafat
%T The Geometry of Information Retrieval is a Cybernetics, and it is to be Overcome
%J International Journal of Computer Applications
%@ 0975-8887
%V 177
%N 18
%P 1-7
%D 2019
%I Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA
Abstract

Our paper argues that the geometry of Information Retrieval (IR) is more akin to a cybernetics than it is a quantum theory. However, as a cybernetics, several aspects of IR as poorly captured. It provides some correspondence between IR and cybernetics, identifying the behaviourist character of the latter as the limiting issue and suggesting the need to recontextualise IR outside of any such discourse. It discusses the implications to some foundational notions, and to methodology in such a recontextualisation.

References
  1. Christopher Alexander. A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1977.
  2. Christopher Alexander. The Timeless Way of Building, volume 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.
  3. Sachi Arafat. Foundations research in information retrieval inspired by quantum theory. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2008.
  4. Sachi Arafat. Senses in which quantum theory is an analogy for information retrieval and science. In Dawei Song, Massimo Melucci, Ingo Frommholz, Peng Zhang, Lei Wang, and Sachi Arafat, editors, Quantum Interaction, pages 161–171, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2011. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
  5. Sachi Arafat and Elham Ashoori. Search Foundations: Towards a Science of Technology-mediated Experience. MIT Press, 2019.
  6. W Ross Ashby. An introduction to cybernetics. Chapman & Hall Ltd, 1961.
  7. Richard Kenneth Atkins. Charles S. Peirce’s Phenomenology: Analysis and Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 2018.
  8. G. Bateson et al. Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Paladin St. Albans, 1973.
  9. Keping Bi, Qingyao Ai, and W Bruce Croft. Revisiting iterative relevance feedback for document and passage retrieval. arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.05731, 2018.
  10. Suzanne Briet, Ronald E. Day, Laurent Martinet, and Hermina G. B. Anghelescu. What is documentation? English translation of the classic French text. Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey, 2006.
  11. Ronald E. Day. The modern invention of information: Discourse, history, and power. Southern Illinois University Press, 2008.
  12. D Dutta Majumder and Kausik Kumar Majumdar. Complexity analysis, uncertainty management and fuzzy dynamical systems: A cybernetic approach. Kybernetes, 33(7):1143– 1184, 2004.
  13. Nader El-Bizri. The phenomenological quest between Avicenna and Heidegger. Global Academic Publishing, 2000.
  14. Jonathan Furner. Information science is neither. Library Trends, 63(3):362–377, 2015.
  15. Peter G¨ardenfors. Knowledge in flux: Modeling the dynamics of epistemic states. The MIT Press, 1988.
  16. Peter G¨ardenfors. The Geometry of Meaning: Semantics Based on Conceptual Spaces. MIT Press, 2014.
  17. Ranulph Glanville. Second order cybernetics. Systems Science and Cybernetics, 3:59–85, 2002.
  18. Martin Heidegger. Plato’s Sophist. Indiana University Press, 2003.
  19. Richard A Holmgren. A first course in discrete dynamical systems. Springer Science & Business Media, 2012.
  20. E. Husserl. Philosophy as rigorous science. In Perception; selected readings in science and phenomenology, 1969.
  21. M. Kochen. The growth of knowledge: readings on organization and retrieval of information. John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1967.
  22. I. Lakatos, J. Worrall, and G. Currie. The methodology of scientific research programmes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980.
  23. Imre Lakatos. History of Science and its Rational Reconstructions, pages 91–136. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, 1971.
  24. Christian Norberg-Schulz. Intentions in architecture. MIT press, Cambridge, MA, 1968.
  25. Paul Otlet. International organisation and dissemination of knowledge: selected essays of Paul Otlet. Elsevier for the International Federation of Documentation, Amsterdam, 1990.
  26. Andrew Pickering. Cybernetics and the mangle: Ashby, beer and pask. Social studies of science, 32(3):413–437, 2002.
  27. R. Savolainen. Everyday life information seeking: approaching information seeking in the context of. Library & Information Science Research, 17(3):259–294, 1995.
  28. D. Seamon and A. Zajonc. Goethe’s way of science: A phenomenology of nature. State Univ of New York Pr, 1998.
  29. Herbert Spiegelberg. Husserl’s and peirce’s phenomenologies: Coincidence or interaction. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 17(2):164–185, 1956.
  30. D.R. Swanson. Undiscovered public knowledge. The Library Quarterly, 56(2):103–118, 1986.
  31. D.R. Swanson. Historical note: Information retrieval and the future of an illusion. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 39(2):92–98, 1988.
  32. C. J. van Rijsbergen. Quantum logic and information retrieval. In 2nd Workshop on Information Retrieval, Uncertainty and Logic, IR Group, University of Glasgow, Scotland, 1996.
  33. C. J. van Rijsbergen. The Geometry Of Information Retrieval. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  34. Heinz Von Foerster. Cybernetics of cybernetics. In Understanding understanding, pages 283–286. Springer, 2003.
  35. Heinz Von Foerster. Understanding understanding: Essays on cybernetics and cognition. Springer Science & Business Media, 2007.
  36. Norbert Wiener. The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and society. Number 320. Da Capo Press, 1988.
  37. Tom D. Wilson. Information needs and uses: fifty years of progress. In Brian C. Vickery, editor, Fifty years of information progress: a Journal of Documentation review, pages 15– 51. Aslib, London, 1994.
  38. Tom D. Wilson. Models in information behaviour research. Journal of documentation, 55(3):249–270, 1999.
  39. Tom D.Wilson. On user studies and information needs. Journal of documentation, 62(6):658–670, 2006.
Index Terms

Computer Science
Information Sciences

Keywords

Information Retrieval Cybernetics Quantum Theory Geometry Information Foundations