Some perspective problems of Information Science.
Towards a Global Sustainable Information Society
Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Associate Professor, Vienna University of Technology
President Elect, ISIS
President, Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science
Academician, International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Sciences
Perspectives of information in Global Education as a new approach in the 21st century
FIS 2013
Moscow, 21–24 May, 2013
Some perspective problems of Information Science.
Towards a Global Sustainable Information Society
Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Associate Professor, Vienna University of Technology
President Elect, ISIS
President, Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science
Academician, International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Sciences
Perspectives of information in Global Education as a new approach in the 21st century
FIS 2013
Moscow, 21–24 May, 2013
Contents
• 1 The Age of Global Challenges
• 2 The vision of the Global Sustainable Information Society
2.1 A global society
2.2 A sustainable society
2.3 An information society
• 3 Education for the Global Sustainable Information Society
3.1 Zeitgeist
3.2 Information
3.3 The reflexive imperative
1 The Age of Global Challenges
• global challenges
= challenges that
• (1) affect (the survival of) all humanity (objective factor) and
• (2) can successfully be treated only by humanity as a whole
(subjective factor)
1 The Age of Global Challenges
• global challenges
are owed to disparities in the relationships between
– humans and society (among humans):
parochial cultures, nationalism, fundamentalism;
authoritarian or technocratic rule;
uneven distribution of wealth, of chances for development
– humans and nature: degradation and pollution of the environment
– humans and technology: warfare, high-risk technologies
1 The Age of Global Challenges
global challenges are complex challenges:
their complexity exceeds the problem-solving capacity of any currently
existing social system – complexity needs to be reduced in order to
enable the system to cope with the challenges*: by establishing a
meta-level**)
*) Ross W. Ashby: requisite variety =def. the amount of variety a
system needs to have to be able to steer another system (at least the
same variety as that system has)
**) Arkady D. Ursul: information =def. the variety contained by an
agent reflecting the variety of an object
2 The vision of the Global Sustainable Information Society
• that complexity might be reduced by an
informationalised, sustainabilised, globalised social system, that is, a
system that is
• (1) existent on a planetary scale – "global" –
• (2) capable of acting upon the dangers of anthropogenic breakdown
– "sustainable" – because it is
• (3) capacitated, by means of ICTs, to create requisite knowledge –
"informational"
2.1 A global society
• world society is a higher-order organisation of societal systems; it
can catch up with the complexity that ensues from civilisation's own
development, if it provides unity through diversity
2.2 A sustainable society
• as long as societies could externalise effects at the cost of other
societies, their self-organisation was compatible with the enclosure
of the common(-good)s; now that they are interconnected as they
are, the enclosure of the commons is not tenable any more
2.3 An information society
• informationalisation is the process of raising the problem-solving
capacity of the nascent world society to a level that allows for
successfully tackling the problems that arise from society's own
development
• this process is based upon informatisation, that is, the spread of
information and communication technologies that makes society
more and more responsive to information;
but informatisation has to be tamed so as to be harnessed for
informationalisation (Ivan Illich: conviviality)
3 Education for the Global Sustainable Information Society
3.1 Zeitgeist
• education
• has been streamlined according to short-termed economic
development
• in the sense of Antiquity or Humboldt has been reduced to training
of skills (life-long learning for the information society?)
• does not contain critical thinking any more, no ethics, no values
other than values of self-regarding individuals
3.2 Information
self-organisation
of an agent
vis-à-vis its environment
agent
input/output
option
environment
3.2 Information
self-organisation
of an agent
vis-à-vis its environment
environment
behaviour
perturbation
macro-level
micro-level
(agent)
agent
self-organisation
3.2 Information
self-organisation
of an agent
vis-à-vis its environment
environment
behaviour
perturbation
macro-level
micro-level
(agent)
agent
self-organisation
3.2 Information
self-organisation
of an agent
vis-à-vis its environment
environment
behaviour
perturbation
information
macro-level
micro-level
(agent)
agent
self-organised order = generated/utilised information (mediator)
3.3 The reflexive imperative
social self-organisation
structure
of common(-good)s production/provision:
3
the "third"
that mediates
between
ego and alter
macro-level
micro-level
(society)
ego 1
self-organisation (individual and societal)
interaction
alter 2
3.3.1 Unevolved information (tribalism)
top-down self-organisation
structure
of common(-good)s production/provision:
macro-level
micro-level
(society)
in-sync
cognition co-operation
cognition
incarnation n 1 communication
incarnation n+1 1
information in tribalism
"We" 1
3.3.2 Restricted information (individualism)
bottom-up self-organisation
structure
of common(-good)s production/provision:
restricted
restricted
macro-level
co-operation
cognition
micro-level
(society)
"I" 1
information in individualism
restricted
cognition
restricted
communication
"You" 2
3.3.3 Extended ("third"-regarding) information (cosmopolitanism)
full-fledged self-organisation
structure
of common(-good)s production/provision:
extended
macro-level
cognition
micro-level
(society)
"Me" 1
information in cosmopolitanism
extended
cooperation
extended
cognition
extended
communication
"Thee" 2
"Us" 3
extended
cooperation
3.3.3 Extended ("third"-regarding) information (cosmopolitanism)
• the reflexive imperative:
• education today means
education for becoming common(-good)s-regarding individuals
able to cope with the global challenges