Communication and its economic, technological, cultural and ethical repercussions for society are the themes of the third edition of the seminar. The objective is to assess the impact of both traditional and non-traditional means of communication on a constantly changing society: the effects of new technology on social and economic organisation; its influence on the relationship between the public and "insiders", ranging from public administrators to scientists; the changes induced by the "virtual" in systems based on the physical movement of people and messages; and the transformation of an ever more global and "on-line" system of markets.
The development of the information society raises new questions about the relationship between culture and information, between the simple dissemination of data and the creation of an aware and critical approach to information. How can we best exploit new technology in educational systems that seek to reach the greatest number of users of every age group and background? What are the possible risks of the uncontrolled circulation of an increasing quantity of information?
The speed with which data and news are generated and the slower rhythms of learning and developing a systematic body of knowledge prompt a further question: how can we ensure that the standardisation of form and content does not erase the identity of cultures and languages? Or that the progressive specialisation of disciplines and languages does not undermine communication between experts from different fields?
Responses and new questions can emerge from the exchange of views between scientists, economists, intellectuals and politicians. Dialogue between the disciplines is the most fruitful approach to one of the key problems we face at the end of the millennium: how to guarantee access to the information necessary for the public to participate in an informed manner in decisions involving society as a whole.
"Information" versus Knowledge and Understanding
Thursday 7 December 1995
The "information explosion", about which so much has been said and written, is to a great extent an explosion of misinformation and badly organized information. Yet we hear much more about how to disseminate the available material and transfer it from one medium to another than about how to separate the wheat from the chaff and extract meaningful conclusions. The digital revolution has only made the problems more acute. Skilled intermediaries are needed to distill knowledge and understanding from the mass of undigested bits. Some of the problems and dilemmas connected with the market for such intermediaries will be discussed.

One particularly important issue concerns the need for supplementing specialized science and scholarship with collaborative interdisciplinary research that takes a "crude look at the whole". Some ideas will be presented on how such research can be undertaken and on the opportunities and difficulties involved, with some examples from the experience of the Santa Fe Institute.

The resulting essay has been translated into Italian and published in the book Dall'informazione alla cultura. Dieci Nobel per il futuro. (Marsilio, Venezia 1996).