PREFACE

The workshop was inspired by Ron Weber's (1977) work with Wand to formulate a Foundation for Information Systems. Their formulation, referred to as the Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) ontology, is based on Bunge’s 1970’s three volume treatise on an ontology. The work is referenced by several of the authors in these Proceedings. Whether the BWW ontological foundations proposed will withstand the test of time remains to be seen, but it is clear that the work exemplifies a search for truth that is as exciting as it is fundamental.

This workshop reports glimpses of various journeys seeking the foundations of information systems within the human context of reality. It is not comprehensive, there is important work by Hirschheim et al (1994), Falkenberg et al (1998), and others

The consensus is that there is a foundation - but the argument is about its nature and its emergence. Are the foundation emerging through practice (Colomb), or information systems development and use (Opdahl and Henderson-Sellers; Rosemann and Green), or ontological reasoning (Weber; Milton and Kazmierczak) or by understanding human interpretation as described by semiotics (Shanks)? Can the foundations, especially if based on ontological reasoning, be formalised, applied and gain acceptance (Carter and Freyberg; Dampney and Johnson)?

The workshop helped identify these issues.

A key issue is the nature of information. Without a shared context and common foundation of understanding there is no information - just a representation with no meaning shared between people.

Information appears as some indefinable quantity that exists between mind and nature. We use representations of it, but like energy it has no single form that defines it without context and reference frame. There is, post-modernists would argue, no absolute foundation of our reality. Perhaps there is instead, elemental constructs in our way of thinking, the constructs that enable us to discern, interpret and understand information. Information thus appears to be a primitive fundamental notion. We can only represent information, then seek principles about its representations in nature, in the computer, in speech acts, in our communications, the way we use it, and in formalisms we develop.

Information systems, as Weber argues, are about representations.

Representation requires context and constructs to interpret the information within it. In these proceedings the three threads of ontology, semiotics and practice are drawn and sometimes interwoven to define context and construct. There is an interplay between these threads sufficiently sophisticated that formalism is proposed to delineate the information system representation.

Ontology is the branch of philosophy that deals with existence, the nature of being. It seeks the fundamental constructs with which our reality can be constructed and understood. Semiotics is a science going back to the philosophers of ancient Greece. It is concerned with the science of signs and symbols - what they mean. The dominant semiotic paradigm in information systems thinking is the semiotic ladder from the base of the raw physical world though levels of context to the ultimate human context of values and beliefs. Practice is practice itself, suggesting that we first understand by practice and then discover principles. Perhaps instead we bring principles into existence as artefacts to enable us to more effectively comprehend our reality.

These concerns about information are becoming evident over 100 years since post-modernism emerged:-

There is an appreciation of the plasticity and constant change of reality and knowledge, a stress on the priority of concrete experience over fixed abstract principles, and a conviction that no single a priori thought system should govern belief or investigation.

It is recognized that human knowledge is subjectively determined by a multitude of factors; that objective essences or things-in-themselves, are neither accessible nor positable; and that the value of all truth and assumption s must be continually subject to direct testing. the critical search for truth is constrained to be tolerant of ambiguity and pluralism, and its outcome will necessarily be knowledge that is relative and fallible, rather than reliable or certain.

Tarnas, 1992, pp393.

A rough interpretation is that there are no absolute truths - only truths-in-context.

It is over 70 years since Einstein argued with Bohr concerning quantum mechanics (Pagel, 1991). This marked the beginning of modern physics that deals with issues such as the uncertainty principle and continues the search for deeper unification within nature as exemplified in recent times by Hawkings. It is interesting that Bunge should develop an ontology, a philosophy abstracted from nature that just might help unravel the ambiguities and apparent contradictions that bedevil our use of information.

The investigation and testing of proposed foundations of information systems will obviously continue.

References

Bunge, M., 1970s. Treatise on Basic Philosophy: Volumes 1, 2 and 3 Reidel, Dordrecht, Holland.

Falkenberg, E D., W Hesse, P Lindgreen, B E Nilsson, J L Han Oei, C Rolland, R K Stamper, F J M Van Assche, A A Verrijn-Stuart, K Voss, 1998. A Framework of Information Systems Concepts. International Federation for Information Processing. ISBN: 3-901882-01-4.

Hirschheim, R., H.K. Klein, K Lyytinen, 1994. Control, sense-making and Argumentation: articulating and exploring the intellectual structures of information systems. Proceedings of the 5th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Monash University, 27-29 September, pp 1-25. ISBN: 0 947186 69 7.

Pagel, H.R., 1982 The Cosmic Code. Simon & Schuster, Inc. Also in Pagel, H.R., 1991Uncertainty and complimentarity. in Ferris, T. (Ed.). The World Treasury of Physics, Astonomy and Mathematics. Little, Brown and Company, Boston. 859pp.

Tarnas, R., 1991. The Passion of the Western Mind. Ballantine Books, New York. 544pp. ISBN: 0-345-36809-6.

C N G (Kit) Dampney
Workshop convenor

Proceedings of Information Systems Foundations Workshop 1999
Department of Computing, ICS
Macquarie University
CNG (Kit) Dampney - Web Page Updated 7th September 2000