INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND THE INFORMATION SCIENCES, 'WITH FORKS AND HOPE'

Abstract : Electronic information handling is a rapidly developing technology. It is parasitic upon, host to, and symbiotic with many other technologies. Like all other technologies, it is presumably dependent upon a body of fundamental scientific disciplines and knowledge. Advances in information technology can only come in three ways: by specific R and D efforts in information handling per se; by exploiting fortuitous advances in ancillary technologies; and, by improvements in fundamental understanding. The emphasis of the paper is on the last of these, with emphasis on epistemology, intelligent automata, pattern recognition from visual to semantic, self-organization, and computer organization and programming.