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Report : Knowledge for interdisciplinary consilience−178−Synthesiology - English edition Vol.3 No.2 (2010) type that deals with the so-called human society, and this includes intentions, meanings, values, and includes ourselves who are trying to do the investigation. Moreover society includes nature and engineering. I think the knowledge integration should be organized by three dimensions. The integration that links those three may be ambitious, or there may be a new type of movement called the ad hoc integration for some problem solving.AkamatsuWhen there was a discussion on why launch another journal when there are already millions of journals in this world, I thought unless we accumulate case studies, theorization alone will be unusable, and we must collect the data of successful cases of research and learn from them. Therefore, in Synthesiology, there are papers on various researches that the editors and the authors consider to have synthetic approaches. As presented by Dr. Kobayashi, we are trying to categorize research by trial-and-error, and I think the categorization suggested by the audience just now is also possible. Since we just started collecting case studies, I think we shouldn’t hurry, and we can take time categorizing as more cases are accumulated.AudienceDr. Hara’s figure (“Transdisciplinary science and technology” and “synthesiology”) is very interesting, but I would like to ask one point. While the natural phenomenon is a subject, what is the positioning of the social phenomenon? Does it belong to a different world? Can the social phenomenon be expressed in this figure just like a natural phenomenon? Is society somewhere outside, and is the knowledge accumulated and the logic built here given some sort of meaning in a separate society?In my thinking, it is assumed that “science is also a social phenomenon”. Society is moving and science is moving. I think what is challenging and interesting is the interaction between the two, and if you express this in this context, you may appreciate the advantage of TFST.Another point,—you use the word “synthesis” to mean the lump held together by multiple logics and how they will be made into one story. “Integration” is to become one through combinations in a deeper way. Until now, various fusions of different fields were attempted, but they are difficult. I think synthesis is more practical in reality. Ultimately, I think some kind of fusion will take place, a new discipline is born, and that will go into a cycle to become something new.AkamatsuWhat we target in Synthesiology is the “activities of the researchers”. We suppose there is a social background that moved the researchers. Dr. Kishimoto’s research is a research done through the interaction with society. You become aware when reading the papers of Synthesiology that there are several researches conducted with the background of the interaction among the researchers of a research organization or the interaction between the researcher and industry. Rather than targeting only the completed product, what is important is the process where the researcher interacts with society, defines the goal, and thinks what must be combined together to achieve the goal. One of the objectives of Synthesiology is to describe this process as papers, whereas such things were done before without much thought given to them. Therefore we chose not to use the word “integration”, but decided to use the word “synthesis” to express the process of gradually building something.Today, we were able to discuss many points, and I hope we will all continue to work hard. Thank you very much.[Closing Address]Hidenori Kimura (Chairman, TFST; Riken)About two years ago, I heard about the launching of Synthesiology, and I honestly thought, “Wow, they got there before us”. They were doing exactly what we were thinking, and the results are impressive too.Dr. Yoshikawa stated that the discipline is necessary for the field to develop, and even said that it is a necessary evil. He believes that the passion of the researcher will always overcome the evil and solve the problem. Dr. Kishimoto who spoke today has first-handedly experienced the limit of the discipline, has overcome that, and yielded wonderful results. However, the academic societies are set up by disciplines, and if we call that necessary evil, we will end up with a contradiction that academic federations cannot exist. Therefore, we must strike a balance, acknowledge their existence, and seek the passion for overcoming them. I think this is the direction that must be taken for the academics to advance in the future.AIST that harbors several thousand excellent researchers started this activity, and we would like to pay attention to their activities in the future. We would also like to provide as much support as possible as academicians.

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