A iniciativa em causa assentava numa estreita colaboração com o mundo académico, Universidade
e respectivos docentes. A resposta obtida foi francamente positiva, quer em termos nacionais quer
internacionais. Participaram, sem seguir qualquer critério de ordenação, a Cranfield University (Profs.
John Ward e Gurpreet Dhillon), do Reino Unido, a Universidade de S. Paulo (Prof. Nicolau Reinhard)
e a Universidade Estadual Paulista (Prof. Eduardo Morgado), do Brasil, as Universidades do Minho
(Profs. João Álvaro Carvalho, Luís Amaral e Luís Lima), Católica Portuguesa (Profs. Almiro Oliveira e Manuel João Pereira), de Évora (Profs. Carlos Zorrinho e António Serrano), Lusíada (Prof.
Carlos Garcia) e o Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão (Prof. Mário Caldeira), de Portugal.
nota de abertura
Q
uando, em Outubro de 1996, o Instituto de Informática (I.I.) lançou os Cadernos de Gestão
dos Sistemas e Tecnologias da Informação Henrique Marcelino, noticiou tratar-se de uma
primeira série de 10 números, a qual chega agora ao fim. Por motivos alheios ao I.I., só foi
possível a edição de 9 cadernos, contando com o número especial de Junho de 1997.
Poder-se-á afirmar, em jeito de balanço, que este primeiro objectivo foi, praticamente, alcançado.
As preocupações de viabilização levaram a que não se definisse como imperativa, em termos de
política editorial, a divulgação de textos originais. Sabia-se, à partida, que a produção deste tipo de
textos não é, muitas vezes, compatível com a periodicidade que se pretendia para a publicação. As
expectativas, aqui, foram completamente ultrapassadas. Se há que agradecer a todos que colaboraram nesta iniciativa, permita-se que, pelo motivo anterior, se evidenciem os nomes dos Prof. Almiro
Oliveira, Carlos Zorrinho, Carlos Garcia e Manuel João Pereira.
Dirigida essencialmente aos responsáveis de informática da Administração Pública (AP), edições
houve em que, dadas a importância e natureza do tema, se decidiu pela sua distribuição pelos responsáveis de topo dos diversos organismos da AP. A receptividade, medida em termos de ofícios de
agradecimento recebidos, foi grande e, mais do que isso, a simpatia manifestada foi dando a certeza
que se estava a trilhar um caminho de reconhecida utilidade.
Tem-se plena consciência que o alcançar dos objectivos a que o I.I. se propôs foi conseguido devido
a dois factores fundamentais. Por um lado, o interesse e a dedicação de todos os intervenientes pela
causa da gestão dos sistemas e tecnologias da informação. Por outro, o preito que quiseram manifestar à memória de Henrique Marcelino.
É precisamente com textos de Henrique Marcelino que se fecha esta série dos cadernos. Quem o
conheceu, sabe que não era homem de escrita. O seu processo criativo estava centrado no discurso.
Na oralidade. Infelizmente, poucas gravações há que o recordem neste registo, o que torna difícil
seguir, de forma sustentada, o trajecto do seu pensamento.
Uma das características marcantes da personalidade de Henrique Marcelino era a sua dificuldade
em estabelecer rupturas. Esta faceta pessoal coloca problemas quando se pretende definir etapas de
evolução do seu pensamento. Tudo se passava como de forma linear, escamoteando os inevitáveis
saltos entre plataformas de estádios de maturidade. O paradigma de base foi, no entanto, sempre o
mesmo. Os SI/TI ao serviço das organizações ou, talvez melhor, de sistemas sociais de natureza e
âmbito variados: as empresas, os sectores de actividade, os países, os espaços políticos e económicos.
1
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
A causa da Administração Pública, a causa pública, foi abraçada desde sempre. Com incompreensões
e desilusões mas com uma perseverança que não esmorecia e que advinha de quem tinha a convicção de que a razão estava do seu lado. Detinha uma especial atenção pelas pessoas não esquecendo
que, no limite, elas se encontram sempre. Na visão socio-técnica das organizações, fazia prevalecer
o socio. Este é que marca o ritmo. É o mais complexo e de velocidade mais lenta. Fazia, por isso,
concessões ao técnico por razões do socio.
Era um formador nato. Tinha, no entanto, consciência das suas limitações. Suscitava permanentemente o debate – para transmitir e para aprender. Acreditava no trabalho em equipa, estimulando-o
e criando redes formais e informais onde desempenhava o papel de gestor. É insubstituível nessa
função. Apenas em termos institucionais poderá ser colmatada a sua falta. Os Cadernos de Gestão
recolhem o nome de Henrique Marcelino também porque pretendem ser um ensaio que permita ligar
pessoas através da partilha de um pensamento actual e de valor sobre a gestão dos SI/TI.
Este número integra textos inéditos de Henrique Marcelino, elaborados em Londres, no período
1992/94, no contexto dos seus trabalhos de doutoramento na London School of Economics.
Decidiu-se pela respectiva publicação na sua forma original, ciente de que estão, como diria o autor,
“ainda no estado de correcção, à semelhança de todo o meu saber”. O Prof. João Álvaro Carvalho,
da Universidade do Minho, com a competência, o brilho e o entusiasmo que se lhe reconhecem,
juntou-se a esta iniciativa fazendo uma leitura da obra de Henrique Marcelino enriquecida pelo facto
de ter, em relação a ele, o afastamento que é condição para se garantir a objectividade.
O Instituto de Informática quer agradecer a todos os que colaboraram nesta série dos cadernos e, em
especial, na edição deste número, ao Prof. João Álvaro Carvalho. Tem-se a certeza que estes agradecimentos provêm também de todos aqueles que tiveram o privilégio de trabalhar e conviver com o
Henrique Marcelino.
Vamos todos começar a trabalhar numa 2.ª série dos Cadernos?
João Silveira
[email protected]
2
Nota prévia
Conheci mal o Henrique Marcelino. Não fui dos que teve o privilégio de com
ele conviver no âmbito das suas actividades empresariais ou académicas.
Encontramo-nos apenas em três ou quatro reuniões em que o assunto do
debate eram, inevitavelmente, os sistemas de informação. Foi o bastante para
apreciar o seu entusiasmo pelo estudo dos sistemas de informação mas foi
insuficiente para perceber a profundidade das suas reflexões sobre este tema.
Quando o João Silveira me desafiou a escrever algo sobre o Henrique Marcelino
baseado nas suas publicações, foi sobretudo a curiosidade de conhecer melhor as suas reflexões que me levou a aceitar. Julgo vislumbrar alguns dos
caminhos que percorreu e das soluções que apontava. O Henrique Marcelino
já cá não está para debater as suas ideias. Resta-me tentar explorar as pistas
que deixou.
apresentação
Henrique Marcelino visto através das suas publicações
João Álvaro Carvalho
Universidade do Minho
Departamento de Sistemas de Informação
Setembro de 1999
Poderá Portugal desempenhar um papel diferenciado (do das outras
nações/estados) na Era da Informação?
Portugal teve o primeiro ciclo da sua História centrado na “terra”, e o
segundo centrado no “mar”.
A Era da Informação – a era em que o binómio “espaço-tempo” constituem
as variáveis sobre as quais não temos controlo – poderá vir a constituir o
centro para o terceiro ciclo da História de Portugal.
As características culturais do seu povo são propícias para que tal possa
acontecer.
Estas quatro frases poderão resumir a questão que o HM começou por pretender investigar no seu doutoramento na London School of Economics. “The
Information Era. An Opportunity for the Third Cycle of Portuguese History:
Research Plan” [4, 8] é o título de um documento por ele produzido no início de
1994 onde apresentava a questão de investigação central ao seu doutoramento,
bem como os pressupostos que lhe estão subjacentes e os objectivos que pretendia atingir no doutoramento.
Dois aspectos essenciais estão implícitos neste tema de trabalho: informação
e cultura. Esforços no sentido de clarificar o modo como estes aspectos
seriam encarados e tratados no estudo a realizar, ocuparam os primeiros
tempos do trabalho de doutoramento do HM. O resultado desses esforços tra3
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
duzem-se em diversos relatórios onde aqueles dois aspectos são abordados
com bastante profundidade.
“Introduction to the Study of Information: Essay on Pragmatics” [9] é o título
de um relatório datado do final de 1992 onde HM faz uma revisão bibliográfica
da utilização, por diversos autores, dos termos “sistema de informação” e
“informação”. Diversos significados atribuídos aqueles termos são traduzidos
a lume, num texto cujo objectivo era demonstrar a utilidade e necessidade de
incluir um exercício de pragmática numa análise linguística que se debruça
sobre um processo de comunicação (a comunicação académica no domínio dos
sistemas de informação) em que não há consenso (nem normalização) nos
signos usados. Cerca de um ano mais tarde, um novo documento traduz outras reflexões sobre o que é informação. “What Is Information?” [7] é o título
de um texto de uma página (umas anotações talvez) onde o HM relaciona
informação com conhecimento e aparência (o que é aparente aos sentidos)
num esquema triangular muito ao jeito do triângulo semiótico tão ao gosto de
alguns investigadores que passaram pela London School of Economics.
A Cultura é abordada num relatório intitulado “Cultural Diversity. Cultural
Uniqueness” [6] (finais de 1993). O objectivo deste relatório era fundamentar
um dos pressupostos da questão de investigação acima enunciada, nomeadamente que uma determinada sociedade (e.g., Portugal) tem uma cultura única. Neste documento, HM baseia-se em Edgar Morin para apresentar uma
definição de cultura que recorre à metáfora da “computação”, embora recusando o carácter determinístico da computação enquanto relacionada com o
computador. Computação tem aqui a ver com a capacidade de processar símbolos independentemente de esse processamento ser feito por pessoas ou
máquinas. E o conceito de Cultura emerge da constatação de como, numa
determinada sociedade, determinados símbolos são processados de forma similar pelos vários elementos dessa sociedade.
A utilização da metáfora da computação para explicar o conceito de Cultura,
levou HM a uma interligação dos conceitos de Informação (vista como o significado atribuído a símbolos) e Cultura que expõe num relatório intitulado “The
Philosophy of Information” [3] (início de 1994). Mantendo uma visível influência
da obra de Morin, HM apresenta a sua visão dos conceitos de Conhecimento,
Computação, Computação viva (living computation), Computo e Informação. A
conclusão apresentada neste documento é que aqueles conceitos são adequados para explicar a complexidade da componente informacional dos processos
cognitivos através dos quais os seres vivos interagem com o seu ambiente.
O aprofundamento destes temas e a exploração de abordagens sistémicas diversas (e.g., Morin, Beer, Ashby) parece ter obrigado HM a rever o seu próprio projecto de doutoramento. Em Maio de 1994 produz um documento de três páginas,
classificado como “proposta alternativa de investigação” e intitulado “Social
Intelligence Systems: Ontology and Epistemology – A Tentative Theory” [1].
4
apresentação
HM parece ter-se visto obrigado a abandonar o seu projecto inicial, talvez por o
reconhecer como demasiado ambicioso para um projecto de doutoramento.
Numa secção da nova proposta de trabalho refere a sua intenção de escrever
um artigo em que procurará defender a criação de um programa de investigação (já não mais um projecto de investigação) para estudar as oportunidades
que se oferecem a Portugal na Era da Informação. Um trabalho que destinava
a uma audiência portuguesa uma vez que era sua intenção publicá-lo na revista do ISEG (Estudos de Gestão).
Outra das suas intenções era a de usar o seu relatório “The Philosophy of
Information” [3], atrás mencionado, como base para um artigo em que iria
argumentar a necessidade de um novo tipo de abordagem para o estudo dos
sistemas de informação enquanto sistemas sociais. O conceito de Sistemas
de Inteligência Social (Social Intelligence Systems) seria a componente central de uma proposta de alternativa ao paradigma existente para estudo dos
sistemas de informação.
Quando comparada com a proposta inicial (desenvolvida ao longo de dois anos),
a nova proposta era ainda bastante incipiente. Nela é afirmada a inadequação
das abordagens convencionais – essencialmente mecanicistas e lineares –
utilizadas no estudo dos
sistemas de informação
e a necessidade da sua
substituição por novas
a b o r d a g e n s ,
abrangentes, multi-disciplinares, capazes de lidar com a complexidade inerente aos sistemas de informação enquanto sistemas sociais
“auto-eco-regulados”.
O resultado esperado é
descrito como uma
nova teoria para abordar a “fenomenologia
dos Sistemas de Inteligência Social, tanto
ontológica
como
epistemologicamente”.
O ponto de partida para
o desenvolvimento de
tal teoria é o mapa de
conceitos reproduzido
Figura 1 – “Topologia” dos conceitos sobre os quais Henrique Marcelino se propõe
na íntegra na figura 1.
desenvolver uma nova teoria para o estudo dos sistemas de informação
(retirado de [1]).
5
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
O trabalho do HM foi interrompido com a sua morte em Novembro de 1999,
cerca de seis meses após a data da produção do último relatório referido. Se
esta proposta de doutoramento teria durado muito, ninguém o poderá dizer.
Talvez fosse suficientemente atraente para a mente irrequieta e permanentemente insatisfeita do HM. Talvez se viesse a revelar demasiado vasta para
um projecto de doutoramento e, tal como a proposta inicial, viesse dar origem
a um novo programa de investigação. E levasse à elaboração de uma nova
proposta...
Os textos escritos pelo HM no âmbito do doutoramento, revelam preocupações
e interesses que estão muito para além do que será típico num estudante de
doutoramento. Tão pouco corresponderão às preocupações e interesses do profissional “normal”. No entanto, será lícito afirmar que qualquer das suas duas
propostas de trabalho de doutoramento, de algum modo reflecte questões derivadas da sua carreira profissional.
Na sua primeira proposta de doutoramento – o esboçar de uma estratégia de
desenvolvimento para um país – o HM assume o papel de ideólogo político que
vê na tecnologia da informação e na revolução por ela criada uma oportunidade de desenvolvimento para o seu país.
A esta faceta do HM não será estranha a sua experiência de trabalho em
diversas instituições do estado, bem como o seu envolvimento em grupos de
trabalho promovidos pela União Europeia relacionados com a utilização das
tecnologias da informação nos seus estados membros. Alguns dos textos de
que é autor ou co-autor, produzidos desde o final da década de 80, reflectem
esta dimensão da carreira profissional do HM:
– “Structuring Governamental Administrations on a Multi-National Space:
An Overview of the ENS Programme” com Carlos Campos Morais e Jan
Guynes [10];
– “The Network Approach as an IS/IT Policy for Systems Integration”
com Carlos Campos Morais [11];
– “Una oportunidad para las Empresas Ibéricas” [13];
– “Renovação Empresarial Através das Tecnologias da Informação: As
Empresas Ibéricas e a Concorrência no Contexto da Integração na
CEE” com Artur Ferreira da Silva e Felipe Gómez-Palette [16];
– “Una Oportunidad para las Empresas Ibéricas” com Felipe GómezPalette, Rafael Fernandéz Calvo e Artur Ferreira da Silva [17].
Por outro lado, a segunda proposta de doutoramento – uma nova teoria para o
estudo dos sistemas de informação – remete para um HM filósofo. Filósofo
porque a teoria que procura deriva de uma abstracção de resultados obtidos
em diversas áreas da ciência e da tecnologia. Filósofo também porque as
preocupações que revela traduzem a inquietude e insatisfação de um profissional que permanentemente se interroga sobre o que faz, como o faz e porque o
6
apresentação
faz. Aliás, julgo que será esta a motivação para a escrita de diversos textos em
que o HM e os seus co-autores procuram partilhar o resultado da sua experiência profissional e de reflexões sobre essa mesma experiência.
– “Potencialidades e Limites das Tecnologias de Informação” [5];
– “EIS – Executive Information Systems: O que São? Será que Existem?”
[12];
– “As Incógnitas de um Caminho em Mudança” com António Filipe e
João Silveira [14];
– “Strategic Planning for the Renewal of Organisations through
Information Technology” [15];
– “Planeamento Estratégico da Renovação Tecnológica dos Sistemas de
Informação da Organização” [18];
– “Planeamento Estratégico do Desenvolvimento de Sistemas de Informação: Reflexão sobre algumas Experiências na Administração Pública” [19];
– “Sistemas de Informação versus Sistemas Informáticos: Comecemos a
Desfazer o Equívoco” com Ana Lucas [20];
– “Novos Instrumentos de Gestão” [21];
– “A Relação entre a Função Informática e a Organização em que se
insere: Uma Perspectiva e sua Aplicação Prática” [22].
Lista de publicações de que Henrique Marcelino é autor ou co-autor
[1]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Social Intelligence Systems: Ontology and Epistemology
– A Tentative Theory”, (alternative research proposal), Maio de 1994.
[2]
Marcelino, Henrique T., apontamentos diversos do autor, 1994.
[3]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “The Philosophy of Information”, Fevereiro de 1994.
[4]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “The Information Era: An opportunity for the Third Cycle
of Portuguese History”, Research Plan, London School of Economis, Reino Unido,
1994.
[5]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Potencialidades e Limites das Tecnologias de Informação”, Pequena e Média Empresa, N.º 12, III Série, IAPMEI, Janeiro-Março de 1994.
[6]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Cultural Diversity. Cultural uniqueness”, report, London
School of Economis, Reino Unido, Dezembro de 1993.
[7]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “What is Information?”, report, London School of
Economis, Reino Unido, Outubro de 1993.
[8]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “The Information Era: An opportunity for the Third Cycle
of Portuguese History”, Ph.D. outline, London School of Economis, Reino Unido,
1993.
[9]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Introduction to the Study of Information: Pragmatics”,
relatório técnico, London School of Economis, Reino Unido, Outubro de 1992.
7
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
8
[10]
Marcelino, Henrique T., Carlos Campos Morais e Jan Guynes, “Structuring Governamental Administrations on a Multi-National Space: An Overview of the ENS
Programme”, ICIS, Orlando, USA, 1993.
[11]
Morais, Carlos Campos e Henrique T. Marcelino, “The Network Approach as an
IS/IT Policy for Systems Integration”, 26th ICA Conference, Jerusalém, Israel,
1992.
[12]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “EIS – Executive Information Systems: O que São? Será
que Existem?”, palestra no Âmbito do seminário “Bases de Dados Organizacionais:
As estratégias para o Pós-Relacional”, Lisboa, 11 e 12 de Maio de 1992.
[13]
Marcelino, Henrique T. e outro(s), “Una oportunidad para las Empresas Ibéricas”,
5.º Congresso Português de Informática, 1988,
[14]
Filipe, António, Henrique T. Marcelino e João Silveira, “As Incógnitas de um
Caminho em Mudança”, 3.º Encontro Nacional de Sociologia Industrial, das Organizações e do Trabalho, Novembro de 1987.
[15]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Strategic Planning for the Renewal of Organisations
st
through Information Technology”, 21 ICA Conference (International Council for
Information Technology in Government Administration), Haia, Holanda, 1987.
[16]
Silva, Artur Ferreira, Felipe Gómez-Palette e Henrique T. Marcelino “Renovação
Empresarial Através das Tecnologias da Informação: As Empresas Ibéricas e a
Concorrência no Contexto da Integração na CEE”, 2.º Encuentro Luso-Español de
Economia Empresarial, Madrid, Junho de 1987.
[17]
Gómez-Palette, Felipe, Rafael Fernandéz Calvo, Artur Ferreira da Silva e Henrique
T. Marcelino, “Una Oportunidad para las Empresas Ibéricas”, 1987?
[18]
Marcelino, Henrique T. e outro(s), “Planeamento Estratégico da Renovação
Tecnológica dos Sistemas de Informação da Organização”, 1.º Congresso
Nacional de Gestores, 1987.
[19]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Planeamento Estratégico do Desenvolvimento de Sistemas de Informação: Reflexão sobre algumas Experiências na Administração Pública”, Primeira Reunião Nacional sobre as Tecnologias da Informação, LNEC,
Lisboa, 1986.
[20]
Lucas, Ana e Henrique T. Marcelino, “Sistemas de Informação versus Sistemas
Informáticos: Comecemos a Desfazer o Equívoco”, Revista de Informática, Vol. 5,
N.º 10, pp.18-21, 1986.
[21]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Novos Instrumentos de Gestão”, VII Seminário da Indústria Transformadora de Plásticos, 1985.
[22]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “A Relação entre a Função Informática e a Organização
em que se insere: Uma Perspectiva e sua Aplicação Prática”, actas do CPI-80,
Congresso Português de Informática, 1980, reproduzida pelo Instituto de
Informática e Universidade Católica Portuguesa em Janeiro de 1995.
[23]
Marcelino, Henrique T., “Sistema de Teleprocessamento para Aplicações
Bancárias – Burroughs”, 3.º Congresso Nacional da SUCESU, Brasil, 19??.
Henrique Jorge Teixeira Teles Marcelino
Nascido a 28 de Agosto de 1943 e falecido a 1 de Novembro de 1994;
Concluiu o curso de Engenharia Maquinista Naval em 1965;
De 1968 a 1974, esteve no Brasil, trabalhando, sucessivamente, na
Burroughs Electrónica (1968/70), no Banco de Estado da Guanabara (1970/
72) e no Serviço Federal de Processamento de Dados – SERPRO (1972/74);
nota biográfica
Nota Biográfica
De 1974 a 1978 esteve ligado à Direcção Geral de Contribuições e Impostos
onde desempenhou o cargo de Chefe de Divisão de Organização e Funcionamento;
De 1978 a 1982 foi Director de Serviços de Projectos Fiscais no Instituto de
Informática do Ministério das Finanças;
De 1982 a 1984 foi o Coordenador responsável pela instalação do Centro de
Informática comum às Direcção Geral de Transportes Terrestres e Direcção
Geral de Viação;
De 1984 a 1987 esteve afecto à Direcção Geral de Organização Administrativa onde desempenhou a função de consultor especialista em Sistemas de
Informação Organizacionais;
De 1987 a 1994 regressou ao Instituto de Informática onde, para além de
consultor especialista em Sistemas de Informação Organizacionais, foi Assessor do Conselho de Direcção;
Foi Coordenador e Monitor dos Seminários de Sistemas de Informação no
Instituto Nacional de Administração (INA), desde 1982;
Exerceu funções de Professor Convidado no Instituto Superior de Economia
e Gestão, desde 1986, no âmbito da licenciatura em Organização e Gestão de
Empresas e do mestrado em Sistemas de Informação;
Foi consultor na área dos Sistemas de Informação em Portugal, no Brasil e
em Moçambique;
Participou em múltiplas Conferências, em Portugal e no estrangeiro, sobre
a temática dos Sistemas de Informação;
Garantiu a representação de Portugal e do Instituto de Informática, em
matéria de Sistemas de Informação, em vários projectos no âmbito da União
Europeia;
Foi Bolseiro no período de 1993 a 1994 para efeitos da obtenção do
doutoramento na London School of Economics, em Londres.
9
10
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
Research Plan
Henrique Marcelino
Abstract
My thesis is that there are opportunities for Portugal, as an unique culture1,
to confirm its identity and uniqueness within the new types of society and
organization presently emerging in the information era.
the information era
The information era.
An opportunity for the third cycle of
Portuguese History
My hypotheses are that:
– there is a Portuguese culture with unique characteristics;
– some peoples are more enabled than others, by cultural rather than
ethnic reasons, to do certain types of activity;
– an emergent society of the information era, in order to be viable,
needs to cultivate diversity just as much as those of the industrial era needed
homogeneity;
– emergent organizations will assume the form of networks,
independently of the ownership of the nodes;
– the information era will define/create a new space to be occupied and
conquered, that of “space-time”.
– to Portugal the “land” was the first cycle, the sea the second, “spacetime” will be the third.
I will consider these issues from the point of view of the small and medium
sized enterprises (SME).
This is justified by several reasons:
– some nodes will be small and medium size organizations;
– most of the portuguese enterprises are SME;
– the relationship between the SME, information and IT is an important
issue that is presently being studied at national and international levels
(references to OECD material).
1. Nature of the problem
Introduction
We are living at a point where there is an enormous confluence of “ends”.
Values and beliefs that have been the foundations of the modern Western
societies are being undermined. Some structural beliefs are beginning to belong
“Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive
achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived
and selected) ideas and specially their attached values.” (Kluckohn, 1951, as quoted in Hofstede, 1992).
1
11
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
to the “history of ideas”. As an example of what I am saying, we can think
about what is happening with the following “modern beliefs”2: possibility of
unlimited growth; Western democracy implying wealth; development regarded
as synonymous with happiness; science meaning truth and progress; the balance of power as a condition to peace; productivity as “the” solution to the
economic problems; the market as “the” mechanism that regulates the
economic system; economics as a science solving problems through
mathematical models; technology solving problems of human nature.
An end by itself is not “good” or “bad”. It is just life. Every beginning has an
end. Every birth has a death. What we feel or think about it depends only on
our point of view. If we like it, we have a positive feeling. If we dislike it, we
have a negative one. And, again, this is life. So far, there is no problem.
However, when what is ending is the pattern itself which is being used to
“know” any part of world/life, and we are not able to perceive a new one, then,
there is an individual problem. Furthermore, if this happens simultaneously
across several situations of life, there is a personal crisis3. When this is true
of a human group, we have a social crisis. This, I believe is the present situation
of the Western World/Culture/Civilization. I look at it as more of an epic4
than a tragedy5. We can win or lose, but if we want to play the game we must
begin to understand what is going on.
The crisis is being felt because the very foundation of our civilization is
itself affected. Possibly, seriously damaged. Even the Judeo-Christian-Islamic
monistic point of view of The Truth is in crisis.
The economy has become alienated and unhinged from social fabric. Economy
should be faced with a higher logic: the logic of human beings as a social
reality. When economic and financial indicators present wrong predictions,
raising, transitory, enthusiastic applause within Western business circles, it
means that these economic indicators are inadequate from the human point
of view. Economics is losing its capacity to understand real life.
Growth of the welfare state and improved living standard of human beings
can still be a valuable objective to development. Technology is available and
its importance cannot be underestimated, however, it is necessary to inquire
into its impact on social and natural environments. “Appropriate” and
“alternative” techniques are demanded. The most autonomous, the least
invasive, and the best adapted to its environment merit at least the same
attention as the heavy technologies, the ones cherished by the state, the
market and the technocrats.
2
Modern is used here in its historical sense. Modern history, history from the end of Middle Ages to the present days (Concise Oxford DictionaryCOD).
3
It is interesting to remember the Greek root of the word crisis – krisis that means decision. However in this work it is used in the usual sense.
4
Epic, an imaginative work of any form, embodying a nations conception of its past history. Also meaning, grand or heroic (COD).
5
Tragedy is used, here, in the sense of “a play in verse or prose dealing with tragic events and with an unhappy ending esp. concerning the downfall
of the protagonist”(OCD).
12
So, as a consequence of the way that we have being using the technology,
our life has lost basic variety. Time is one of the dimensions that we, almost,
no longer manage. Transportation, shopping and boring professional activities
take up most of our time. One of the aspects of our relationship with space is
distance. In this sense, for most of the human activity, presently, space/
distance means time6. So, the loss of “time” as a variable implies the loss of
“space”, also, as a manageable variable. This loss of variety means that the
human being is now less rich, less flexible, than it was before.
the information era
The industrialization of societies, according to the development model used,
had resulted in deep urban transformations. Cities have grown, distances
from home and work places became larger, and larger. Time, outside
professional objectives, have been, drastically, reduced. In order to optimize
the scarce time available, shopping facilities have been, highly, concentrated,
as have leisure activities. Also for most people, these shopping and leisure
places are rather far from home.
I do not have a nostalgic viewpoint as, by definition, the past will not return.
I just wish to say that we must invoke the past as a critical reference, in
orther to rethink the relationship between the human being and the technology.
I am interested in this problem from the point of view of Information Systems,
rather than the naive utopian view of the “nobel savage”. I believe that this
situation is an opportunity for the IS approach. As I will argue latter, IT can
introduce a major change in the present situation, because it impacts the
whole human communication processes. Furthermore, I consider that, “spacetime” becomes a relevante issue, when analyzing human communications
from a social7 point of view.
From a systemic viewpoint, any current situation is, simultaneously, a result
of the situation before, and an element of the next. For, in order to consider
the present having significance in relation to the past and the future, it is
imperative to have a vision of “quality of life8 “. This vision must embody the
recovery of the sense of duration of time 9 , distance and meeting of minds,
and, hence, a concern to the future.
At an individual level, we face some basic questions, related to what has
been said, such as: is there, still, any freedom to diverge, to be different, to be
ourselves? how to keep the subjectivity of a responsible being, rather than to
submit, to be reduced to the level of an object “processed” by the system? how
to resist the intoxication of technologies, insidiously dragged into our deepest
ego by so called “modernity”? how to defend our relationship with “time” and
“space”?
We can observe that a common answer, to the question “How far is...from...?”, is “It is about x minutes/hours/days”.
I am using the concept of “social “ as “concerned with the mutual relations of human beings or classes of human beings” (COD).
8
“Quality”, used as “the degree of excellence of a thing”(COD), being “excellence” the highest level of the good.
9
The sense of duration of time is an ontological element of human life. I am aware about the importance and complexity of the subject. Since
the Greek philosophers that it is a permanent topic of the Philosophy. This relationship is also very important to other disciplines, namely, to
Anthropology and Social Geography. In the Information Systems domain, mainly in IS development, the relationship with time is a well known
issue. To the Information Era this subject is of paramount importance, however, I don’t feel myself, yet, confident enough, to argue further about
the subject, in the present work.
6
7
13
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
These individual-type problems are just a symptom of the perplexity which
characterizes the end of a paradigm and, eventually, the beginning of a new
one. The end of Industrial Era and the beginning of Information Era, as any
time of transition, is a time of crisis. But this is a crisis of an enormous
dimension, because the paradigms of those Eras embody, respectively, value’
systems radically different. Furthermore, I believe, the end of the Industrial
Era is, simultaneously, the end of the “Western Civilization”.
Human societies and organizations are complex systems, and complex
systems have perverse behaviours. In the case, the perversity of the “industrial system”, has transformed factors that were the fundamentals to its success,
in causes to its failure. I am referring “competitiveness” and “productivity”.
These factors are usually considered as key ones to the survival of every firm,
economic sector, country10. However, the idea of competitiveness when linked
with the concept of productivity, demands, namely, lower wages, to the same
quality of human labour, and mass production. The development of
communication systems made viable the displacement of industrial plants,
and other businesses units, on a motion looking for the best labour price. The
expansion and integration of the telecommunication networks, materialized
the idea of a Global Market. However, the emergent system is rather different
from the expected one. The free movement of people, capital and goods, a
basic condition to a free market, is far from to be a reality. The difficulties to
implement the concept of free movement of people, between nine countries of
the European Union11 , and the long time taken to reach any agreement about
free commerce (GATT), are some of the evidences.
Moreover, the movement of capital, technology and know-how, in the last
twenty years, from the West to the East (Asia), resulted in very high rates of
unemployment in Western countries and in a shift of economic power to East.
The economic vitality of the New Industrialized Countries (NIC), like South
Korea and Singapore, as well as the relevant role of the Japanese capital in
Western economies, is also an evidence that the result of the system had
been unpredictable.
Therefore, at societal level, as it happens with the individual, there are
basic questions being faced, such as: Is there any place to the State-Nation? If
yes, which one? Are the boarders between countries to stay the same? What
will be the future of group and national cultures? Is homogenization an
inevitability? Everyone without an answer. We can ask, at the same time, if
this type of questions, will make any sense in the Information Era. We are
understanding that the future is unknown. The human being, to live, needs to
This fact is very well documented in the literature related with Business Management. It is the realm of some gurus like Michael Porter.
A free travel accord (Schengen Accord) has been signed by nine of the EU countries - UK, Denmark and Ireland have excluded themselves - aiming
to abolish the passport control within the signatories. The Information System that will underpin the implementation of this accord, was expected
to start its normal operation the first February 1994. However, the “Financial Times” of the 28 January 1994 reported that, in spite of the central
computer to be ready for more than one year, the target of February 1, as the date for ending passport controls will be missed. As every time
in similar circumstances nobody has the clear responsibility for the failure. The statement “The technology is rarely at fault; the management
has a lot to answer for”, made by the FT’s journalist (Alan Cane), is an interesting evidence that the common belief that IT could solve problems
of human nature it’s over.
10
11
14
Informational dimension of the problem
The situation is extremely complex. As it has been every time! The difference
is that for the very first time, we have a limited understanding of that complexity.
One of the foundations of present times is the availability of a new technology
– Information Technology (IT) – which as a consequence of the nature of its
object – Information – can play a key role in overcoming the present situation.
Complex behaviour demands variety of responses. Generation of variety, in
a social system means social diversity. Social diversity implies information12 ,
being the need of diversity of social patterns a natural consequence.
Information, through processes of feed-back, influences the constitution of
the pattern itself. So, we can say that, IT impacting the way people relates to
information, touches the genome13 of human condition – knowledge. Another
effect of IT, it’s the compression of the factor time, in communication processes, bursting, consequently, the notion of the distances. It is our deep
understanding of time and space that is being challenged.
the information era
have some certainties. This has been true, at least in our civilization, until
the present time. When so many, and important, questions are open, the
crisis is inevitable.
Therefore, what we have now is the availability of a technology which enables
the human being to manipulate, in some way, his knowledge, space, and
time. Is the reality constituted by the triad knowledge/space/time that I call,
conceptually, the “space-time” space14. If we assume that “to be global” is a
mandatory requirement to any social problem15, then, we can say that there
is an opportunity to use IT to contribute to the solution of the present global
problems. This statement means that IT is a fundamental constituent of the
new Age/Era.
Solutions will be found by the people that are living the problems. So, the
solution belongs to the situation itself. It will emerge from present complexity,
and will be necessarily complex. The results will not be predictable. But we
should experiment the solutions that, at each moment, we think to be the
better, being prepared to adopt a new one. Trying-error-trying is the nature of
life. There are a popular saying that synthesizes this situation – “when there’s
life, there’s hope”.
I am using information, as the meaning of a sign. Though, to exist, information needs a sign and the capacity to relate it with a pattern. In this
sense, we can say that, information is the difference (from the pattern) that makes any difference (to what has been observed/lived before,
related with that pattern).
13
Genome, is used as a metaphor. It is a concept from the Biology that means, “the genetic material of an organism” (COD).
14
Space is being used in the same sense that we call - sea space, aero space, land space.
15
This means that, finally, we are using a systemic thinking when looking for solutions to social problems.
12
15
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
If it is to be an useful tool in the Information Era, IT needs to be used in a
different way. The idea of productivity, a typical value of Industrial Era, needs
to be abandoned as a basic value of human development. Conviviality16 , as
has been proposed by Ivan Illich, should become a central social value. Paying
attention that it shall be used, itself, with conviviality.
From the Western point of view, the problem is how to accomplish this huge
enterprise. A new “New World” is, urgently, needed. A new West needs to be
built. The popular culture, the art of living, the tradition of criticism as a
value, need to be re-built in the new space-time.
Portuguese dimension of the problem
For Portugal, this situation is not new. The unknown, the uncertainty, the
anxiety facing the future, the presentiment of disaster, are ingredients of the
Portuguese national spirit, along with strong feelings of hopefulness and a
deep belief that the difficulties will be overcome. To master the unpredictability
of the future, as well as the complex nature of life, it is a skill deeply rooted in
Portuguese culture. “The future belongs to God”, is an aphorism that should
not be seen from a mystical point of view, but rather as a cultural sign. Besides,
the religiosity of Portuguese people is much more an emergence of its complex
relationship with complexity than a solid belief in any God. When using an
alien paradigm to read any manifestation of a culture, we are subject to reach
wrong conclusions.
Several signs are showing the growing importance of diversity, the lesser
importance of physical dimension, the growing weakness of the role of Nation/
States. In these circumstances any small community has an opportunity to
play a role in the Information Era. An important issue, is to identify, how it is
possible to have an autonomous participation.
The autonomy 17 of the participation, is itself, an important issue to the
survival of the global system, because it amplifies its variety18 However, it’s
impossible to have such participation without an autonomous knowledge.
Different communities/societies have different cultures, and culture has a
determinant influence on knowledge19 .
“I choose the term “conviviality”to designate the opposite of industrial productivity. I intend it to mean autonomous and creative intercourse
among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment; and this in contrast with the conditioned response of persons to the
demands made upon them by others, and by a man-made environment. I consider conviviality to be individual freedom realized in personal
interdependence and, as such, an intrinsic ethical value. I believe that, in any society, as conviviality is reduced below a certain level, no amount
of industrial productivity can effectively satisfy the needs it creates among society’s members.”(From Chapter II.). Quoted from the contra-cover
of “Tools for Conviviality”, edited by Marion Boyers in 1990 (first published in Great Britain 1973).
17
Autonomy is used in the sense of the ability to behave as a (sub)system with self-government.
18
By definition, if not autonomous, the participation in the global system will be regulated by this one as a whole. This means, according to the
low of the requisite variety (Ashby’s Law), that the meta-system would need to have the same variety that its sub-systems, to be able to control
the situation at the sub- system level. However the meta-system, being the emergence, not the sum, of its sub-systems, has a different variety.
It has its own variety as a whole. So, the system, in this circumstances, it is not able to react to the natural disorder (entropy) that results from
the sub-systems life.
19
When analyzing the macro-social conditions of the knowledge, Morin states that it is the relative autonomy of the several instances of society (the economic,
the political, the religious) that, simultaneously, assure the relative autonomy of the knowledge. in “La Method 3. La connaissance de la connaissance/1” (Method
3. The knowledge of the knowledge/1).
16
16
From the ability of each, and every, node to be auto-eco-regulated,
simultaneously, according to its characteristics, and to the characteristics of
the network to which it belongs, depends its autonomous life. Thence, it
depends the variety, and consequently, the survival of the network as a living
system. We can see, how far we are, from the secret taylorism’ dream, of
having societies and organizations, controlled by someone who would control
everything. From the point of view of Portugal, it is mandatory to learn how to
profit from the complexity.
the information era
Emergent societies and organizations of Information Era, as we can presently
forecast, will constitute an unimaginable tangle of networks, with unpredictable
complexity. Belonging each node to several networks, simultaneously. Being
the nodes, itself, networks.
All those social networks will be underpinned by telecommunication
networks. IT will be intertwined with the social fabric. To use IT with a convivial
approach, each social group needs its own specific knowledge about the
technology itself. From all that has been said, we can assume that, at least,
at the level of the small and medium enterprises (SME), each autonomous
community needs to learn, according to its culture, the most appropriated
solutions to adopt in the global society.
Portugal is not only a small community, but, also, almost all its organizations
are small and medium sized. So, it is appropriate to study these issues from
the viewpoint of the SME. According to the results of an OECD study group20 ,
in order that the SME can take the best advantage from IT potential, it is
needed a joint push from State and firms.
Firms need: to guarantee full development of their workers as well as their
involvement on the enterprise; to be open to external sources of intelligence,
as consultancy, information data bases and networks, as well as to be linked
to universities and research centres; to build the needed networks and
generate, cooperatively, such conditions that are not able to build individually.
The State should provide the infrastructures’ conditions required to the
above. Namely, through the promotion of programmes aiming the awareness
of the problem, and showing the potential of IT. Showing examples of success
and failure. Mainly the failures because they are more pedagogic, more creative.
Conclusion
Globalization of the economy will be real human progress only if it means
greater heterogeneity, allowing the strengthening of the quality of uniqueness
of each nation/culture. Only in this way, the participation of the nations/
cultures in the international global system, can be an emancipated and
emancipatory one, and so generating variety. From the globalization can not
20
An official report with the results of this work will published next Spring.
17
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
result the homogenization of the international system, if this was the case, it
would imply less variety and, therefore, less flexibility and less wealth of the
global life.
The survival of the system, depends on the ability to implement “national
systems of innovation”, activating and supporting the creativity of firms as the
basic units to create the wealth of the societies.
2. Aim of the Project (research purpose, research questions, planned
end-product)
Research purpose
Information Systems (IS), as the discipline whose aim is to study the systems
that teleologically provide information, obviously, is a relevant field to research
the above problems.
Technology is not societally neutral 21. In the Information Era, IT is of
paramount importance. Then, the social requirements of IT is a relevant issue
to be researched. The results will be important to identify the social
characteristics that facilitate, or not, the use of IT.
The social needs, societal and organizational, in Information Era will be
different from the Industrial Era. Completely, new products/services will be
needed, new modes of production will be implemented, new structures and
patterns of organizations will emerge.
My research is about the Information Era (IE) and its implications to Portugal as a community of people. Community that has its origins in Portugal but
is disposed all over the World, and has the Portuguese culture as a reference.
The research will be focused on that specific part of the community which has
an autonomous government, with an emphasis on SME’s.
Research questions
The generic research question is about the role of culture in taking
advantages from the present and forthcoming information technologies (IT).
The specific research question is about the possibility of Portugal, as an
unique culture, to play a differentiated role in the Information Era.
To do so, I will:
a) argue about the uniqueness of the culture of each society.
b) study culture as an attribute of the human groups with a common
trace on the History.
c) argue the issue of “viability” referred to Information Era and related
with social diversity.
The technology of Roman ships implied the need of a society with slaves. The Viking ships, based on wind, were independent of such social
feature.
21
18
Planned end-product
the information era
d) analyze the issue of social homogeneity as a consequence of the
industrial era.
e) identify the social/cultural requirements of Information Era, as well
as the co-related trends of IT.
f) identify the presence and/or absence of the characteristics identified
in f) in the Portuguese society.
g) analyze, at national and international level, the opportunities and
conditions to national policies in these domain, from the point of view of
Portugal and its SME.
The end-product of my research will be a prototype of a sectorial IS/IT
policy for Portuguese SME, with a preliminary validation by entrepreneurs,
managers, unions, politicians and scholars.
3. Study design
Approach
I will follow the Critical Social Theory (CST) 22 approach, within the
framework of the “Emancipatory IS Research Programme” proposed by Klein
& Hirschheim in their article “Social change and the future of Information
Systems development 23 ”. Ideas such “social image changes24 ”, “conviviality”
and “entrepreneurship25” will be central in my work.
Among the different Information Systems research programmes this is the
most appropriate to my research purpose. CST is a school of thought which
has its primary objective the improvement of human condition, taking into
account the human construction of social forms of life and the possibility of its
recreation (Ngwenyama, op.cit.). Its five fundamental assumptions are:
– People have the ability to change the community to which they belong.
– Knowledge is not culturally neutral.
– The capacity to perceive the existing social world implies an
intentionality of analytical evaluation.
– Theory and practice ought to be interconnected.
– CST must concern itself with the validity conditions of knowledge and
change which it produces.
CST universe of inquiry comprises physical and organizational structures,
social relations, symbolic interactions as well as each actor’s interpretations
22
I use the concept as it has been defined by Habermas and referred by Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama in his article “ The critical social theory approach
to information systems: problems and challenges “, York University, North York, Ontario, 1991.
23
This article constitutes the chapter 12 of” Critical issues in Information Systems Research “, John Wiley & Sons, 1987.
24
The conjecture is that changes of social and public images act, simultaneously, as predictor, as well influencer of societal shapes. Klein &
Hirscheim support this argument, analyzing the social effects of several books with social images of historical dimensions. The were so different
as the “Republic” of Plato or “Third Wave” of Alain Toffler.
25
To be an “entrepreneur” is not to be the bigger to win, rather it is to know how to be different to win, even being smaller. The formers are
bureaucrats of the success, the later are entrepreneurs with success,..they could lose)
19
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
of these. CST does not have its own methodology. However, its methodological
requirements, are very precise:
– Methods must be practice oriented focusing on the change.
– They must support inquiry into the organization process and its social
context.
– They must be sensitive to individual as well as social needs.
– They must be collaborative, supporting free and open participants.
– They must be critically self reflective.
All these characteristics fulfil my research needs. Within CST schema to
classify research, I can identify the mine as “decisionistic” – the work will provide
criteria, principles and guidelines to deal with a specific problem; and
“interventionist” – action oriented work which intervenes or provides methods
for intervention into information systems with the clear objective of improving it.
Claudio Ciborra defines information systems as “the network of information
flows that are needed to create, set up, control, and maintain the organization’s
constituent contracts” (Ciborra, 1981, p.309), as quoted by Klein and Hirschheim
(p.287, op.cit.). Therefore, we can say that IS “social transactions architectures”
are social systems with social consequences. For should exist a strong
dependency of IS research on the larger societal domain.
So far CST is appropriate to IS research. While research of technical systems,
as some researchers classify the information systems, belongs to engineering
domain, social systems research is interested in social evolution, role changes,
policy making, and planned organizational change.
Klein and Hirschheim (op. cit.) present three IS research, future, possible
aims:
– aim at emulating the standards of “hard” science by adopting the
proven methods of natural sciences.
– aim at became more practical and applied by better conforming to
demands of societal interest groups.
– aim at becoming an institution of fundamental criticism.
The research strategy of the last option (emancipatory IS research strategy) is
to study the problems and interests of all groups by whatever approach appears
most promise. It is the most coherent strategy to use CST in a systemic and
convivial approach. There is no specific preferred reference disciplines. IS
thinking, under this paradigm, means constant fundamental criticism of the
status quo to counteract bureaucratic rigidity and conformism.
Data collection
The case to be studied in my research will be the economic sector of the
Portuguese SME.
20
Semi-structured interviews will be conducted, to identify relevant social
aims and cultural values and beliefs, of SME’s entrepreneurs, in the begining
of the field research.
Official publications from OECD, CEC, Portuguese Public Administration
and social partners associations, will be used as secondary source of data26 .
“Focus group” aproach will be used,mainly, in the final of the research, to a
first validation of the Policy’ prototype.
the information era
Historical, Anthropological, sociological and socio-geographical research
publications (some from Brazil), will be studyed to analyze Portuguese culture.
Data analyses
Descriptive.
Bibliographic classification
In this point I show the structure/classification of my research’s bibliography.
*** Bibliographic classification ***
* THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & THEORY, HISTORY, HUMAN & SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY,
SOCOLOGY, ANTROPOLOGY.
* INFORMATION ERA
THE SOCIETAL DIMENSION
THE POLITICAL DIMENSION
THE SOCIO-POLITICAL DIMENSION
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DIMENSION
* BUSINESS
GLOBALIZATION
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
INFORMATION ECONOMICS
ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES
IT & STRATEGY
IT & SME
* THE PORTUGUESE CASE
INSTITUTIONS’s HISTORY
ECONOMIC HISTORY
SOCIO-GEOGRAPHY
ECONOMY & SME PRESENT SITUATION
26
The access to this data has been, already, guaranteed.
21
22
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
Introduction
In this essay I will argue about the uniqueness of the culture of each
society as a result of its life as such. The interest of this exercise is to initiate
the building of the theoretical foundations of my research as two of the
hypotheses of my thesis are:
– there is a portuguese culture with its unique characteristics.
cultural diversity
Cultural diversity. Cultural uniqueness.
– the emergent society from the information era, to be viable , needs to
cultivate the diversity as much as the one of industrial era needed the
homogeneity.
Culture
“Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting,
acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive
achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the
essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived and
selected) ideas and specially their attached values.” (Muckohn, 1951, as quoted
in Hofstede, 1992).
cultural uniqueness
Then, I will study culture as an attribute of the human groups with a common
trace on the History. In this essay will not argue about the issue of “viability”
referred to “the information era” and related with social diversity. Also I am
not going to analyze the issue of social homogeneity as a consequence of the
industrial era. These are two topics related with the above referred hypotheses,
and needing a further study. I will do it at one of the next steps of my research.
Geert Hofstede, that did studied the cultural differences between members
of 40 different countries in work-related values, argues that people carries
“mental programs” which are developed in the family in early childhood and
reinforced in schools and organizations, and that mental programs contain a
component of national culture. They are most clearly expressed in the different
values that predominate among people from different countries (Hofstede,
1992, p.11). This idea of mental program is intrinsically related with the concept
of computer, and if not clarified can fall into the deterministic continent. It is
not my very understanding of culture, and as much I can interpret the one of
this author.
Edgar Morin has a similar metaphorical approach to culture: “the culture of
a society is a kind of complex megacomputer, that memorizes every cognitive
data, and that, carrying quasi-programs, prescribes the practical, ethical and
political norms of that society. In certain sense, the big computer is present in
each individual spirit/brain, where it did inscribed their instructions and
where it prescribes its norms and prescripts; in another sense, each spirit/
23
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
brain is like an individual computer, and the assemblage of the interactions
between these individual computers constitutes the Big Computer. “(Morin,
1991, p.17).
This view of culture when read with others elements of Morin’s thoughts
about culture helps to clarify the, also mine, understanding about the vexed
subject. So, let us follow those thoughts. “The culture, which is characteristic
of human society, is organized/organizer through the cognitive vehicle which
is the language, starting from the collective cognitive capital of the acquired
knowledge, the learned skills, the lived experiences, the historical memory.
the mythical believes of a society”. “Cultural rules/norms generate social
processes and globally regenerate the social complexity acquired by that very
society. For, the culture is not either ‘superstructure’ or ‘infra-structure’,
being these terms non adequate within a recursive organization where which
is produced and generated becomes producer and generator of what had
produced or generated itself. Culture and society are in mutually generator
relationship”. And finally a, in my opinion, seminal thought. “If culture has in
itself a collective knowledge accumulated in social memory, if it holds the
principles, models, knowledge schemes, if it generates a vision of the world,
if the language and the myth are constituents of the culture, then the
culture has not only a cognitive dimension: is a cognitive machine whose
praxis is cognitive.” (Morin, 1991, p.17).
Cultural diversity
Carrithers, explores these kind of issues from the anthropological point of
view. He brings up to this discussion, explicitly, the issue of cultural diversity
from which the cultural uniqueness is an intrinsic consequence. “If each
discipline can be said to have a central problem, the central problem of
anthropology is the diversity of human social life.” (Carrithers, 1992). This
problem raises fundamental questions to the anthropologists such as “how do
we live together?” and the co-related ones “who are we?”, “how do we associate
with each other?”, “what is done?”. From these questions he formulates the
following ones: “what unity underlies the cultural diversity of humanity?”,
“how does diversity come about?” and “how can we come to understand that
diversity reliably?”. (Carrithers, 1992, p.2/3).
To his first question he answers: “This variety (of cultures) reveals the
plasticity of humankind. Such plasticity, the capacity to be formed by the life
of society into which one is born, is the single most important human universal, the decisive trait that separates human from animal. It presupposes a
quality of mind, an ability to learn, and other capacities such as speech,
which have no clear counterpart among other species.”. Related to the second
one he says that “we are, all of us, quite as effective at producing cultural
diversity as we are at preserving continuity”, “coRective creativity is in fact
grounded in our nature as a species”; change, creation, and re-creation,
24
cultural uniqueness
Carrithers, again, raises the following interesting question: “given the
creation, metamorphoses, and re-creation of diverse forms of life, what must
be true of humans in general?”, to which he answers: “we had thought that
humans were just animals with cultures, so we had answered... they are
intelligent, plastic, teachable animals, passive and conformable to the weight
of tradition. Now we see that humans are also active, they are animals with
history. They are inventive and profoundly social animals, living in and through
their relations with each other and acting and reacting upon each other to
make new relations and new forms of life.” (Carrithers, 1992, p.32). At the
same page he quotes Ulf Hannerz “the world system, rather than creating
massive cultural homogeneity on a global scale, is replacing one diversity
with another; and the new diversity is based relatively more on interrelations
and less on autonomy”. This statement even needing a deeper analyses
stresses the non deterministic nature of the cultural phenomena and confirms
the space to the human agency.
cultural diversity
interpretation and re-interpretation, are all part of the fabric of everyday
experience”; and finally “even when we do something that seems traditional,
we do so in new conditions, and so are in fact re-creating tradition rather
then simply copying it”. To the last question, he gives an alert “we are likely to
fail in understanding others by seeing them in our own image, not theirs”;
and a partial answer saying “that much can be discovered from looking directly
at how people relate to each other. This is a venerable tradition in
anthropology,…” (Carrithers, 1992, p.6-11).
Cultural vitality
So, I can say that the “morinian” conceptualization of culture as a “cognitive
machine whose praxis is cognitive” associated to the concept of “collective
creativity” as expressed by Carrithers, gives us a powerful conceptual tool to
begin to explain the phenomenology of the human culture. These piece of
theory supports both the above definition of culture presented by Kluckohn
and the concept of mental program as expressed by Hofstede. However, one
can argue that until now no reason has been presented to justify “from where
comes the energy that puts the machine to work?”.
According to Pierre Delatre “to explain is to reveal the phenomena from
something different of themselves, to which they are associated by
relationships considered as necessaries or, at least, sufficient.” (Delatre,
1981, p.43). A possible answer to the last question is given by the systems
theory. The teleology seen as a propriety of the systems that supports to look
at its life as “under a purpose of the human will” (Checkland, 1988), gives
clarity to the movement of the societies seen as human beings systems, which
(human) are in permanent interaction between themselves and with the
environment, individual and collectively. The concept of Inter-subjectivity
defined as “an innate human propensity for mutual engagement and mutual
25
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
responsiveness” (Carrithers, 1992) is a partial contribution to this controversial
question. However the most cogent argument is given by the systems thinking.
According to Checkland the systems thinking is founded upon two pairs of
ideas, those of emergence and hierarchy, and communication and control
(Checkland, 1988, p.75), the first one underpins the answer to this question
about vitality.
The debate about vital power understood as the power to sustain life, is,
in my opinion, intrinsically rooted in the human conscience of life as “something”
beyond his condition of being and that until certain time only could obtain
theological answers. Aristotle had a teleological view of the world, while rather
metaphysical, where “the objects fulfilled their inner nature or purpose”. With
the Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, the “Newton’s physics provided a
mechanical picture of the universe which survived severe tests”, and in
consequence the “Aristotle’s picture of the world was overthrown”. His argument
that “the whole was more than the sum of its parts” had been “seemed as
unnecessary doctrine” and his teleological outlook considered “quite
unnecessary metaphysical speculation” (Checkland, 1988, p.75).
In this century biologists and organic chemistries came again with the
debate which has been a very rich one. As every time within the schoolers the
positions had been classified and adequately labelled. The concept of teleology
was reinstated while under the name of teleonomv with the mean of serving a
purpose. Being the first one, latter reserved to the human domain. In this
way, the concept of purpose was rehabilitated, by the biologists, as a respectable
intellectual one. Those two terms encompass a long discussion that only was
settled down with the emergency of “systems thinking” (Checkland, 1988).
Concepts such as entelechy or elan vital has been substituted by the concept of
organized comple-rity. As well as vitalism by emergence . “Hierarchical organization,
and the emergent properties of a given level of organization are consonant
with a process of evolution which is creative” (Checkland, 1988, p.79).
What we have seen until now suggests that it is adequate to study the
human societies as complex systems and the culture as an emergence of
them. Systems thinking is not against any of the concepts seen before, it
enables to re-read what has been said and to articulate the main concepts,
without to reduce their usage capabilities, and, additionally, giving a solid
and rather well accepted explanation to question of ‘vitality’ as I have putted it
before.
Cultures’s diversity and autonomies
Morin claims for the need of a “knowledge ecology” that considers the
knowledge from the point of view of the socio-culturo-historical conditions of
its constitution. He says, “it is truth that all knowledge, including the scientific
one, is rooted and dependent from a cultural, social and historical context.
26
cultural uniqueness
The pair of concepts, emergence and hierarchy, referred by Checkland
enlightens this issue. “The general model of organized complexity” considers
that there “exists a hierarchy of levels of organization, each more complex
than the other below, a level being characterized by emergent properties which
do not exist at lower level”. Being the “emergent properties meaningless in
the language appropriate to the lower level (Checkland, 1988, p.78). So, if the
concept of holism gives us an answer to the individuality of a culture as an
whole (Checkland, 1988), with the ideas of emergence and hierarchy it is
possible to answer to the last question of Morin. This multi-level ontological
approach puts a powerful tool in our hand to study it. “The idea that the
architecture of complexity is hierarchical and that different languages of
description are required at different levels” (Checkland, 1988, p.81) is very
important not only to look at this issue but also as a theoretical tool to
understand the causal relationship between productivity, a structural value of
the industrial era, and cultural homogeneity. We can say that the beings at
each level have their relative autonomy constrained by the lower and upper
level, but at the same time they are, themselves, constraining them. This
constraint must be looked not as a mechanistic one, but as a dialogic
relationship.
cultural diversity
But the problem is to know which are these embodiments, roots, dependencies
and to inquire ourselves about the possibility, and the conditions of an autonomy
and emancipation of the knowledge and the ideas” (Morin, 1992). The problem
is, then, to understand the very nature of culture and to have a clear ontological
view of the multiples inter-relationships between individual human beings,
their different levels associations and culture.
The hierarchic view of the world can be a dangerous one if we let our
thoughts to become prisoner of the “Big Machine” metaphor. It is adequate to
learn the existence of levels, their relationships and emergences. But it must
be expanded to enfold other kind of relationships characteristics of human
society.
When analyzing the “macro-social conditions of the knowledge”, Morin states
that “it is the relative autonomy of the several instances of society (the
economic, the political, the religious) that enables and assures at the same
time the relative autonomy of the knowledge. As a conclusion, and following
an analogy simultaneously explainable and explanatory, they are the conditions
of social plurality, of economic commerce, of political dialogic, that establish a
relatively stable and open society, which enables to set up the conditions of
plurality/commerce/dialogic needed to the culture and the knowledge”
“Even when he is comanded and controlled by the set of the programs that we
talked about, the individual has permanently his personal computer” (Morin, 1992).
27
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
Dimensions of culture
Hofstede argues that “mental programs can be found at the universal, the
collective, and the individual level”. “Culture is defined as collective
programming of the mind” (Hofstede, 1992, p. 13). He suggests a scheme of
how culture patterns are rooted in value systems of major groups of the
population and how they are stabilized over long periods of history. He also
analyses “how marginal phenomena in societies can be as meaningful as
modal phenomena” to understand cultural variety. To study it, “the concept of
dimensions of culture is introduced by an inquiry into the philosophical
opposition between the specific and the general, the different and the similar”. I will use the practical results of his work in a latter step of my research
to help to characterize the portuguese culture.
Societies as seen before can be studied as ‘complex systems’ or as ‘organized
complexity’. To study them is helpful to refer to the General Hierarchy of
Systems as defined by Boulding and Bertalanffy (Hofstede, 1992, p.14). The
systems are ordered in nine levels of complexity: 1 – static framework; 2 –
dynamic systems with predetermined motions; 3 – closed-loop control or
cybernetic systems; 4 – homeostatic, self-controlling systems like the biological
cell; 5 – the living plant; 6 – the animal; 7 – man; 8 – human organizations and
society; 9 – transcendental systems. The object of social sciences is level 8
being man-socialscientist level 7. “So he is less complex than his object”
(Hofstede, 1992, p.15). “The collective level of mental programming is shared
with some but not all”; “the individual level of human programming is the
truly unique part – no two people are programmed alike...”; “…it is difficult to
draw sharp dividing lines between individual personality and collective culture
or to distinguish exceptional individuals from their culture systems”.
Human groups have certainly ways of conserving and passing on mental
programs from generation to generation. At the level of the individual they
can be “inherited-transferred in our genes – or they can be learned after
birth”. However the transference of “collective mental programs” is a social
phenomenon (“nothing with race”...). Hofstede suggest that must be
mechanisms in societies which permit the maintenance of stability in “culture
patterns” across many generations. The model of the inter-influence proposed
(Hofstede, 1992, p.22) agrees totally with the model of ‘knowledge ecology’ of
Edgar Morin. The former, in his model, considers as “Outside Influences” the
forces of nature and the forces of man: trade, conquest, scientific discovery.
These are directly related with the “Origins” seen as the follow ecological
factors: geographic, economic, demographic, genetic/hygienic, historical,
technological, urbanization; acting upon the “Societal Norms” (value systems
of major groups of population) and reinforced by these ones, and by the
Consequences of the societal norms (structure and functioning of institutions:
family patterns, role differentiation, social stratification, socialization
emphases, education, religion, political structure, legislation, architecture,
28
Conclusion
We have seen that Nature, Society and Culture are in a triune, mutually
generator, relationship. The view of culture as a “cognitive machine which
praxis is cognitive”, being the language one of its constituents, as stated by
Morin, brings up, with the idea embodied in the referred triune relationship,
a deep theoretical foundation to understand the cultural phenomenon and to
explain cultural diversity and uniqueness. From this genetic theory we can
derive the whole theoretical building. As was seen different disciplines’
knowledge are used. Different cultural dimensions were shown. The human
agency was clearly stated. John Lukacs in “Historical consciousness or the
remembered past”, gives his historical contribution to the last statement,
without any contradiction with what has been said. “History is spoken and
written, taught and thought in our common every national language which, in
turn, are historical and not scientific phenomena” (1968, p.110). “Not only do
ideas influence everyday thinking, but everyday thinking, too, influences ideas
and interferes with them” (1968, p.148). The Human Being has, without of
any kind of possible doubt, the key role in this Life Play. History is nothing
but her record.
cultural uniqueness
To master the culture patterns we can find in the literature several
approaches. Hofstede did studied the differences of the countries cultures
under four main dimensions: power distance, uncertainty avoidance,
individualism and masculinity (Hofstede, 1992). Parsons and Shils in ‘General Theory of Action’ claim that all human action is determined by five “pattern
variables”: affectivity vs affective neutrality, self-orientation vs collectivity
orientation, universalism vs particularism, ascription vs achievement,
specificity vs diffuseness. Inkeles and Levinson distil from literature three
standard analytic issues (dimensions) relation with authority, conception of
self and primary dilemmas or conflicts (Hofstede, 1992, p.37). Finally Fons
Trompenaars analyzed the cultural differences looking at seven dimensions:
the five of Parsons and Shils under the broader category of relations with
people, plus attitudes to them and attitudes to the environment
(Trompenaars, 1993).
cultural diversity
theory development) which are themselves reinforced by their consequences.
Trompennars (1993, p.22) considers the existence of three layers of culture:
outlayer explicit products (language, food, buildings, houses..., fashions and
art), middle layer norms and values (what is right and wrong, and definition
of good and bad), core assumptions about existence (the most basic value
people strive).
29
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
Beer, S., “Decision and controV”, John Wiley & Sons, 1966.
“Brain of the firm”, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, 1981.
Carrithers,M., “Why humans have cultures. Explaining anthropology and social diversity.”, Oxford
Paperbacks, 1992.
Checkland,P., “Systems thinking, systems practice.”, Wiley, 1988 (1981).
Delatre,P., “Teoria dos sistemas e epistemologia”, (“Systems theory and epistemology” portuguese
translation from the french original), a regra do jogo, 1981.
Hofstede, G., “Cultures consequences”, Sage, 1992 (1980,1984).
Lukacs,L, “Historical consciousness or the remembered past”, Harper & Row, 1968.
Morin,E., “0 metodo IV. As ideias: sua natureza, vida, habitat e organização”, (Method IV. The
ideas : its nature, life, habitat and organization portuguese translation from the french original),
Europa America, 1992.
Trompenars, F., “Riding the waves of culture”, Nicholas Brealey, 1993.
Henrique Marcelino
London, LSE
December 1993
30
qualidade dos serviços na área de informática – um modelo para avaliação
References
A deep understanding of information is of vital importance to explore the
role of culture 2 in taking advantages from the present and forthcoming
information technologies (IT).
For my purpose, it is adequate to study information within knowledge
phenomenology. Its nature is ontologically and epistemologically related with
knowledge. As I will argue in this text, information is a vital element of life.
And, information is a vital element of knowledge which is a vital element of
human life.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a multidimensional3 phenomenon, in the sense that it is a whole,
simultaneously, physical, biological, cerebral, mental, psychological, cultural, social
(p.15). The multi-dimensionality of knowledge is itself one dimension of
information 4.
the philosophy of information
The philosophy of information1
The approach to explaining knowledge through life it is not a new one.
Piaget argued the existence of a “structural homomorphism between the
biological and the cognitive5 organizations” (Piaget,1967). Dilthey said that the
fundamental processes of knowledge are in the life, and thought cannot go beyond it.
Husserl thought that the concepts, the ideas, the arguments of a conscious subject
have their roots in the Lebenswelt, world of life, ante-predicative and pre-categorial
(p.39). However no one did find the auto-eco-regulation6 as a starting point to
the understanding of the cognitive processes7 .
Biologists were the first to use systemic thinking, to study complexity which
is one of the basic characteristics of life and living organizations. Now, modern
biology is using the metaphors “information” and “program”, to describe central concepts to understanding cellular organization. But, is there a cognitive
dimension inherent to the cellular organization? (p.40). Biology says that there is
an informational program embodied in DNA8 : “genetic program”. Nevertheless,
The base for this work is the book of Edgar Morin “O metodo III. O conhecimento do conhecimento/1” (Method III.The knowledge of the
knowledge/1). When I reference just a page number, I am referring or quoting from this book.
“Culture consists in patterned ways of thinking, feeling and reacting, acquired and transmitted mainly by symbols, constituting the distinctive
achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e. historically derived
and selected) ideas and specially their attached values.” (Kluckohn, 1951, as quoted in Hofstede, 1992).
3
Dimension is used here with the meaning of “ an aspect or facet of a situation, problem, etc.” (COD).
4
Assuming information in the narrowest sense as the meaning of signs, the complexity of information is the complexity of knowledge. In the
broadest sense, if information is the meaning of signs used in a communication process between human beings, then the information’ complexity
is the result of the knowledge complexity and of the communication complexity. So far, the dimensionality of information is the combined
dimensionality of knowledge and of communication.
5
Cognition – knowing, perceiving, or conceiving as an act or faculty distinct from emotion and volition(COD).
6
The concept of auto-eco-regulation introduces the idea that, a living system’s action of regulation has a simultaneous effect on itself(auto) and on
its metasystem(eco). This argument is of paramount importance, when we intend to study the usage of IT to improve the human communication
processes in a social context, aiming the regulation of the social system (...and subsystems).
7
Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd in their book “Understand computers and cognition” (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1987), study the relationship
between information and computing through the understanding of knowledge. Despite the usage of some important common references(Chomsky,
Maturana, Varela, Hofstadter, Gardner), Morin and Flores & Winograd have (implicitly) different views of information. Their differences are rooted
in this very concept of auto-eco-regulation.
8
Deoxyribonucleic acid, the self-replicating material present in nearly all living organisms, esp. as a constituent of chromosomes, which is the carrier of genetic information (COD).
It is important to note, in the above definition, the implicit notion that DNA is not information but just “the carrier of genetic information”. This
conceptual difference will be fundamental to understand the following argumentation.
1
2
31
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
these terms (information, program) are imported from a machine (artificial
and inanimate), the computer, to a living “machine9 ” (organism). However, is
this conceptual transplantation an adequate one? To give the answer to this
question the concepts of computation, living computation and computo are
analyzed.
Computation
Morin introduces in his work the concept computation in a way that, in a non
Latin language like English, can lead to some confusion. However, I think
that, when understood, the argument helps to clarify the possible role and
the limitations of IT. For his argument is built on a process of re-biomorphism10
from the machine known as computer (ordinateur in French, which literally
means to give an order). He argues that Turing at 1938 defined computation
as symbols processing, with numeric calculation just a non essential aspect
of computation. This becomes more clear when we learn that the word compute has its origin in the latin word computere – “com putere” or consider together11.
Following Morin, computation is regarded as a complex12 organizer/producer
with a cognitive character and holding an informational instance, an symbolic
instance, an memorial instance and an logical instance. Let us analyze the
nature of these instances. (p.41-43).
The informational instance. Given an observer or receiver related to a situation
which can have at least two different meanings to him, information is here
considered as what substitutes the unknown by the known, the uncertain by
the certain. While a program is seen as a set of information which assumes
the form of imperative instructions to the execution of operations, so, at this
instance, computation can be seen as the processing/interpretation of signs/
symbols holding information.
The symbolic instance. Information is codified in signs/symbols and the act
of computation operates on these signs/symbols. These are ordered forms,
patterns, that are systematic differences/resemblances to which correspond
in the external world, eventually, differences/variations/discontinuities or
resemblances/repetitions/continuities. Though, the notions of information and
sign/symbols have a relationship which is, somehow, circular. Being
information coded in sign/symbols and holding these, eventually, information,
they sent one to another. It is this very fact that enables some confusion
about computers processing information, while they process just signs. Even
Morin, in this work makes some times this type of erroneous statement.
The metaphorical use of the word machine doesn’t make any mechanistic assumption of life. The focus shall be put on the dichotomy inanimate/
living and not on the sameness of the word machine. However,it is interesting to note that the word machine can also mean “the controlling system
of an organization etc.” (COD)
10
With biomorphism, I mean the attribution of a living form or quality to a thing or idea. “Re” is a prefix meaning “back; with return to a previous
state (reassemble; reverse)” (COD). In this situation I am using “RE-BIOMORPHISM” as a metaphor, to express the idea of importing a concept from the
artificial world, giving it a meaning in the living world, and exporting it back to artificial world AS IT WAS BORN IN THE NATURAL WORLD. The main
consequence of re-biomorphism is that, when using the re-biomorphic metaphorical language, the inanimate phenomena must be understood
as restricted/reduced/simplified realizations of living ones.
11
Even in English we have much more freedom on the usage of the word, when we think the association compute-reckon-calculate.
12
Complex is used as a noun, metaphorically, to stress the idea of being “made up of related parts”(COD).
9
32
the philosophy of information
The memorial instance. Computation demands memorization capacity (engram
of signs), it works in the memory of its subject according to the operational
needs: extracting, inscribing, duplicating, modifying, deleting. LeMoigne argues
that “increasing emphases on the role of memorization in communication
processes”13 should be put on the analyses and design of Information Systems.
The logical instance. This instance consists of principles/rules/instructions
which govern and control the calculations, perceptive operations and
reasoning14. The history of computing of the last twenty years, has written an
important chapter about the effort to automate this instance. At the beginning,
the ambition of computer scientists to achieve full automation created illusions
about its possibility. Scholars from other disciplines, such as Searle, Austin
and Chomsky, gave their important contribution mainly from the point of view
of linguistics. However the relatively poor results, vis-a-vis the expectations,
are the main reason to justify the present situation of discredit for this
aspiration 15.
It is under these conditions and within this framework that computation
operates. It manipulates/processes in different ways signs/symbols. In the
centre of this activity there are operations of association (conjunction,
inclusion, identification16 ) and separation (disjunction, exclusion, opposition).
I assume that computation “computates17 ” information, then the meaning of
signs/symbols is embodied in its operation. So far, computation has both a
syntactical and semantic dimension, and therefore, computation cannot be
restricted to numerical computing18 . Also, computation cannot be reduced to
information, or as it is being perceived in the IS domain, as a component of
information. Information is only information when related to a computation;
unless it is a trace, a vestige19, there is not meaning.
Information is an element, a moment, an aspect of an organizing complex
which is computation. Indeed, the computation’s organization deals beyond
information and symbols. Computation deals with problems, through
information and symbols, following principles and norms. So, Morin refers
Gordon Pask’s proposal for the creation of a “computation science – COMPUTICS”,
not as the science of the computers, but as the science of the computations
needed for every piece of knowledge and, according to Morin, for every
organization using a cognitive dimension to solve their problems.
Jean Louis LeMoigne proposes a new paradigm to study Information Systems- Organizational Information Systems (OIS)- that supports his new
view. In an article with van Gigch, this theory is well expanded (van Gigch, J., LeMoigne, J., “The design of an organization information system”,
Information & Management, vol.19 n.5, p.325-331, Dec 1990).
14
To reason – form or try to reach conclusions by connected thought (COD).
15
Ian Angell in a caustic paper (Angell, I.,”Intelligence: logical or biological?”, Working Paper Series n.45, LSE- Department of Information Systems,
1993), makes a balance of the results of Artificial Intelligence, and concludes with a rather positive statement- “I can happily leave Artificial
Intelligence to bathe in the sea of its own futility and...utility!”.
16
Identification is used as the attribution of an identicalness(the quality or condition of agreeing on every detail(COD)), and not of an identity(the quality
or condition of being a specified person or thing(COD)).
17
I am neologizing computate as the verb referring computation, because the verb compute is too related to the computer machine, so it would
be unfair to use it in my re-biomorphic language.
18
We can conceive computation restricted to numerical computing or to syntactical manipulations, only in the “ultra” simplified and reduced
universe of inanimate machines, like the computer.
19
The Searle’s notion of intentionality is a similar view of the same fact. When stating that intentionality makes the difference between
“incomprehensible” and “comprehensible”, Searle is implicitly referring computation in the sense used by Morin.
13
33
caderno 8 — novembro 1999
This is a very different way of looking at information. When considering the
issues of information intrinsically related to computation, the proposal is to
change the main focus from information to computation, in order to understand
information. To a certain extent semiotics is already such an approach, even
accepting that its upper level (pragmatics) is outside computation.
Living computation (p.43-46)
The biologists Watson and Crick have perceived the computer paradigm as
appropriate to explain the cellular activity. Therefore, and as a consequence
of the concept of DNA, the idea of living organization took the place of the
living material. A program (genetic program) governs the cellular being’s
activities. However, such conception20 hides computation behind information
and program, as its inspirer (the computer science) already did.
Simon looked at computers as problem solvers. Popper refers the living
beings, beginning by the unicellular, as problem solving machines. This is
understandable when they conceive themselves as “computating21 machines”.
Whether living alone or within an organic structure (polycellular), the cellular
being can and must be considered as a computating being-machine. I strongly
note that this usage of the concept of machine, must be looked not as an
independent metaphor, but within the process of re-biomorphism that I referred
before.
Living computation shall, continuously, solve the problems of living, being
the first key problem of living/surviving to avoid death. This non stopping
operation implies, according to the second law of thermodynamics, a permanent
movement towards disorganization. Living computation regenerates and reorganizes permanently the living machine (autopoesis). The second key problem
are the feeding and the defence of the living being, in a non deterministic and
non predictable environment. So far the living being computates its environment
getting the information that enables it, to acknowledge the existence of what
can to feed and to destroy itself.
Living computation at the same time that produces life, obeys to its command
to solve the problems of auto-producing/auto-reproducing and living/thriving.
That is “the will to power” of Nietzsche. Living computation has,
simultaneously a cognitive and an auto-cognitive character, once it enables
the being to recognize materials, events and modifications either from the
environment or from its inside. However, this cognitive character is intrinsically
related to the vital organizer activities of the being.
To understand the originality of the living computation, we need to
differentiate it from inanimate computation. Therefore, we shall confront
inanimate organization with living organization, inanimate machine with living
machine.
20
21
34
This conception belongs to the main stream of Biology in the years 1950-1980(p.44).
I am using the verb COMPUTATE as I noted before.
An inanimate machine fits into an environment that is different from itself.
A living machine holds in itself, somehow, the environment to which it belongs.
In fact, being unique and autonomous, the living “auto-organization” integrates
in itself the order and the organization of its environment – the “eco 22 organization”, so far it is an “auto-eco-organization23”. Seen in this way, the
existence of the living machines looks much more unstable and fragile than
the inanimate. Indeed, the existence of a living machine is dependent on its
ecological relationship, and the auto-organization depends on the ecoorganization. That is a facet of the complexity of life. However, from this very
dependence it gets the autonomy unknown to inanimate machines24.
the philosophy of information
An inanimate machine, even the most sophisticated, is artificial and,
consequently, it has been designed and built by humans. A living machine,
even the most primitive one - bacteria –, came from the section of another
bacteria that is, simultaneously its mother, its sister and itself. Inanimate
machines has “received” its programs from human. The program of a bacteria
is transmitted from bacteria to bacteria without being designed or built in by a
third party. Programs of inanimate machines are improved according to the
scientific and technical developments of human societies. Genetic programs
of living beings did evolve as a consequence of a complex evolutionary process
where no deus ex machina resides. The outcome of inanimate machines are
objects, parts, effects being these results ontologically and teleologically
different from them. Moreover, an inanimate machine is produced and organized
from outside (allopoesis). A living machine is self organized, produces its own
constituents, it is its own production, i.e., it is self produced (autopoesis).
Inanimate computation does not take care of the physical organization of
the computer, and does not have to deal with a vital permanent relationship
between the computer and its environment. Operations and tasks of living
computations are of an non measurable richness and complexity, as a
consequence its permanent needs of: a) to refer at same time the internal
states and the external conditions of the being-machine; to guarantee at the
same time the internal organization and its external behaviour. What all this
means is that living computation is at same time organizational/productive/
behaviourial/cognitive.
Conceptually, living computation and living auto-organization are
intrinsically related. The newness of living computation is, simultaneously,
the originality of the living auto-organization.
Morin says: Living computation is essentially devoted to organizing and reproducing
the being. The cognitive difference between artificial (inanimate) computation and living
computation emerges, now, with all its radicalness: machines (inanimate) solve our
ECO is used in the sense of environment. Its origin is the Greek word oikos that means house. Using the language of systems we can say that the eco-system is the meta-system.
23
We could explain the “auto-eco-organization” through the systems thinking approach, using the concepts of hierarchy and emergence. STAFFORD BEER, in the “Brain
of the Firm” uses a similar concept in his FIVE LEVELS’ MODEL.
24
It is relevant to note the implications, from this point, to Information Systems. It really means that an inanimate machine is, perhaps, more robust but it is,
simultaneously more vulnerable. According systems thinking that is a problems of the capacity to generate variety.
22
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problems, said Von Foerster(p.46). But, a living machine computes for the self
organization, the self (re)production – it is a problem solving machine. The
neat classifications used in the universe of inanimate machines are not
appropriate to the universe of living machines. Algorithms is appropriate to
inanimate machines, they are perceived as mechanisms. Systems thinking is
appropriate to living machines, they are perceived as organisms.
Computo (p.46-47)
Living computation is a computation of the self, from the self, function of
the self, for the self and upon the self. From this point, Morin proposes the
concept of computo to define this complex computational act “from the self/for
the self25”. Living computation is a vital computation. The formulation computo
ergo sum is appropriate to the living being, even unicellular, which produces
and organizes its existence by computation. Therefore, the notion of computo
enables, in its living and vital nature, to conceive the notion of subject. To be a
subject is, in a co-related way:
1) To be in its world for computating the world and itself;
2) To operate an ontological disjunction between the self and the non-self;
3) To operate the auto-affirmation and the auto-transcendentalization of the self (p.46).
In this way it is constituted and instituted the auto-ego-centrism, i.e., the
primary and fundamental character of subjectivity. The idea of ego-centre
embodies a principle of exclusion and a principle of inclusion. The principle of
exclusion sustains that no one other can be in the ego-centre, even its twin.
So far, even when the bacteria divides itself in two beings, they are: identical
to the origin’s being and identical one to the other, but they still are each one
a subject-being. By the principle of inclusion the egocentrism is integrated in
the genocentrism (progenitorship), as well as into the sociocentrism (partnership
of group). This concept of subject is radically different from the one of the
philosophers of the transcendental Ego or the founder conscience. The “living
subject” emerges from the complex process of auto-eco-organization. In this
process “being”, “machine”, “computo”, “subject” constitute notions which are,
simultaneously, inseparable and founders ones of each others. Every living
organization operates due to and function of a computo. The computo produces/
maintains the identity26 of the being.
Auto-reference is the concept used by Morin to express the ability to self
computate, simultaneously, as an object and as a subject. It means the ability to
refer to the self, and simultaneously to what is not the self. In a similar way of
the auto-organization, the auto-reference is auto-exo-reference27. This characteristic
of auto-exo-reference of a computo, is of fundamental importance, to understand
the possibilities and limits for a living being to have an “objective knowledge”.
This concept does not implies the notion of conscience. It implies the notion of (autonomous) life, as it says that living computation has its original
impulse in itself(from the self) for satisfy its own needs (for the self).
26
IDENTITY is used with its normal mean of “the quality or condition of being a specified person or thing”(COD).
27
It links the reference to the self with the reference to what is another.
25
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Systems thinking gives the needed complementary theory to explain the
functioning of the computo through the multiple feed-back of the auto-ecoorganizing regulation in ego-exo-centred/referred organisms.
the philosophy of information
In auto-exo-reference there are, simultaneously, unity, complementarity
and opposition between egocentrism and objectivity. However, complementarity
takes over the opposition, as the egocentrism, in its own interest, demands
the objective validity of computating operations. The incapacity of the “ego” to
recognize the “exo” is, ipso facto, the incapacity to live. Therefore, the concept
of auto-exo-reference can underpin the concept of an “objective information
processing” from/function of the “subjective interest (interpreting)”. Then
the ability of the computo to computate objectively some aspects of the external
world, does not mean that living knowledge can avoid subjectivity, i.e., the
indispensability to place oneself at the centre of the world to know.
Consequently, “the unavoidable problem, at any level, even human, of the ego-(genosocio-etno)-centric character of every knowledge” (p.48).
Information
Knowledge, even being not only computation, implies every time computation.
Computation is an operation upon/through signs/symbols/forms. To know is
to do operations the overall of which means translation/construction/solution.
This implies that a subject’s knowledge can never reflect directly the external
world28, it can only translate it into its own reality, through the translation/
interpretation of signs. Information is the very meaning of those signs/
symbols for the knowledge and through the knowledge.
What makes a symbol symbolic? What creates information from noninformation? The answer to these questions are natural foundations of
Information Systems conceptual structure.
Information, sign/symbol, engram, computation they inter-create
themselves, as: computation creates the symbol which creates a computation;
an information creates the symbol that creates an information, which is created
by a computation. They are co-born together, at the same time that the autoeco-organization is born, and they know together.
Conclusion
Computation, living computation, computo, auto-eco-regulation, auto-ego-centrism,
auto-exo-reference, are appropriate concepts to explain the complexity of the
informational component, of the cognitive process needed by the living being
to interact with its environment. So far, semiotical and hermeneutical theories
can be revisited, and some of its less clear points can be enlighten. Different
approaches to study Information and Information Systems, such as the social,
the anthropological, the technological, can now be seen as complementary
and having a common “genome29 ”.
28
29
Often called real or reality.
I am using this concept as a metaphor. It was imported from the Biology, its original mean is “the genetic material of an organism”(COD).
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38
Everything that has been said can only be realized, recognized, conceived,
understood if a chained conceptual reorganization takes place. Against the
genetic-molecular main-stream linear point of view, we shall put the autoeco-organization and the computo in the place of the “genetic program” (without
forgetting or understating the genetic engram). We need to use, conceptually,
circular approaches, every time that an auto-generator/organizer process needs
its products/effects to its own the production/causation. We need to come
into the realm of complex thinking, and to substitute the present use of
mechanistic/linear concepts/methods/practices by multi-disciplinary systems
thinking, to be able to cope with the inherent complexity of social organizations.
Finally, against the Information System’s main-stream, we must put the
computation in the place of the information to be able to understand information
and to master the usage of IT.
eventos
C
ursos de formação, seminários, workshops, conferências ou quaisquer tipo de encontros, realizados em Portugal ou no estrangeiro, onde
a temática tratada no presente caderno é directa ou indirectamente,
abordada.
20th International Conference on Information Systems
12-15 Dezembro, 1999
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
www.icisnet.org/1999
5th Joint Conference on Information Sciences
27 Fevereiro – 3 Março, 2000
Atlantic City, USA
www.ee.duke.edu/jcis
Human Factors in Computing Systems
1-6 Abril, 2000
The Hague, Holanda
www.acm.org/sigchi/chi2000
8th European Conference on Information System
3-5 Julho, 2000
Viena, Austria
www.ecis2000.wu-wien.ac.at/version2/c
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