This article discusses some epistemological problems of a semiotic and cybernetic
character in two current scientific cosmologies in the study of geographic
information systems (GIS) with special reference to the concept of visualization in
modern cartography.
Setting off from Michael Batty’s prolegomena for a virtual geography and Michael
Goodchild’s “Human-Computer-Reality-Interaction” as the field of a new media
convergence and networking of GIS-computation of geo-data, the paper outlines
preliminarily a common field of study, namely that of cybernetic geography, or just
“cyber-geography) owing to the principal similarities with second order cybernetics.
Relating these geographical cosmologies to some of Science’s dominant, historical
perceptions of the exploring and appropriating of Nature as an “inventory of
knowledge”, the article seeks to identify some basic ontological and epistemological
dimensions of cybernetic geography and visualization in modern cartography.
The points made is that a generalized notion of visualization understood as the use of
maps, or more precisely as cybergeographic GIS-thinking seems necessary as an
epistemological as well as a methodological prerequisite to scientific knowledge in
cybergeography. Moreover do these generalized concept seem to lead to a
displacement of the positions traditionally held by the scientist and lay-man citizen,
that is not only in respect of the perception of the matter studied, i.e. the field of
geography, but also of the manner in which the scientist informs the lay-man citizen
in the course of action in the public participation in decision making; a displacement
that seems to lead to a more critical, or perhaps even quasi-scientific approach as
concerns the lay-man user