UMEÅ UNIVERSITY

Department of Informatics

Kristo Ivanov

(version 021011-1150, updated after versions distributed on 18 and 25 september 2002)

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/ProfTestament.html

 

PROFESSORIAL WILL OR TESTAMENT

Seminar call and documentation

 

SEMINAR CALL

 

http://www.informatik.umu.se/seminarier/2002/ and (this document)

http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/ProfTestament.html

 

Time: Wednesdays 2002-09-18 and 2002-09-25, 13:15-15:00

Place: MIT-huset, MC 413

Kristo Ivanov: PROFESSORIAL WILL OR TESTAMENT: PARTS I and II

This double seminar scheduled for September 18th and 25th will report some outspoken summarizing reflections upon my universitarian experience which can have some importance for younger departmental and disciplinary colleagues, and also for my own future work. It will NOT focus on my own disciplinary contributions which otherwise were addressed in earlier seminars, and are available through links to my home page in the form of headings in e.g. http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PerspSem2000.html, or, in full text at http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/Chu-SysAppDes.html and http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/WorkEnv.html. The seminar will have the same form as my related earlier will or "testament" upon leaving as department-chairman on June 30th 1998, as documented at http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/HeadTestament.html. As usual, the seminar will be held in Swedish unless there are participants who only understand English. Paper copies of the seminar's documentation will be distributed on place, and a web-version will be available earlier as a link on my home page for education at the address http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/ProfTestament.html.

 

DOCUMENTATION

 

 
  1. Here follows the seminar-documentation in the form of headings and shorthand notes grouped in 5 subheadings which initiate each text, (1) This seminar, (2) Favorite ideas, (3) Delusions [villfarelser], (4) Knowledge, and (5) The future vs. the past. Please be indulgent and have patience with shortcomings of overlaps and duplications due to imperfections in the structuring of the material and due to its nature.

    2. ==============================

  2. THIS SEMINAR: its organization and deeper questions during the last 30 minutes. Personal or in my "role"? Today oriented towards the personal dimension integrated with the organizational "bureaucratic" one. (Cf. prof. Kallinikos' seminar 17 September 2002.) It is also an "apologia" (not really apology, cf. Webster's Third New International Dictionary. I will minimize ref. to achievements and self-satisfaction (shared with most of you!) for the department's development in 18 years, apparent good psycho-social work environment, and it rosy future (if not analog to the dot.com crisis, or WorldCom/Enron, and such!). A building is usually easier to build than to destroy (how often considered in archi-tecture?): cf. also the changes in university institution itself. The "final" test will depend upon you and the followers, the choice of future chairmen and directors of studies, and critical attitudes to theoretical mainstreams/counterpoints, including my "hobbyhorses" [Swedish: käpphästar] concerning postmodern relativism, rhetorical aestheticism and virtuality, and opportunistic future bywords after post-phenomenology and such. Apparent future vitality can also be a result of submission to the phenomenal world (ref. Plato) or "the less we understand, the more we want to know" (ref. Ackoff as applied to operations analysis). What is informatics, or what it should be or, rather, what should it strive for: "operationally" it will be the result of our-your continued research, dissertations, etc., rather than definition of an "essence" in a time where definitions and essences are postmodernly put into question: cf. the differentiation between IT and ICT without dwelling on the differential definition of information and communication (Design of Inquiring Systems, chap. 7 on dialectics). And what about VR without dwelling on reality and truth?
  3. This seminar. I feel proud but not satisfied...("Stolt men inte nöjd" as social democrats in the Swedish elections this month).
  4. This seminar - On occasion of "why retire?". Why my joke on "When I retire"? Instead of "burnout" and in face of loss of meaning of "university". Ref. Universitetsläraren and the background of PUL personal data act.
  5. This seminar. Complement to "achievements". See seminar call, above, about "Dialectical systems design and beyond" and "The systems approach to design", but a short introductory note will be given here. The first years applying the dissertation to the personal data-act, statistical information systems, Scandinavian participative systems development, and to the concept of "university" as working environment: http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/WorkEnvRefs.html. Legitimating in institutional terms (our department) other than purely technical IT-studies, and introduction of systemic organization theory, applicable 30 years after dissertation, including security and personal data act. Ref. http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/Chu-SysAppDes.html and http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PerspSem2000.html. The last year dedicated to "University and Society", http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/UniversitySociety.html. The latest publication at http://www.sulf.se/univlar/artiklar/20021308.html, applied dissertation at the interface between science, philosophy, and politics/ethics. Expanding the systems concept in its aesthetic dimension (design and VR) and, further, theological dimension as the Buddhism of autopoietic theory or Taoism of bricolage-shift-drift. Finally, return to the roots: Plato & Aristotle followed by Christianity, alternatively Eastern religiosity or Heideggerian postmodern "theology without god". Applications of Plato & Aristotle e.g. in "ethics and politics in design and system cultures", seminars October 10th and 24th 2001, http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/DesSysCulture.html and http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PlatoIT.html). Further and ultimate application of catechism and encyclical letters on Faith and Reason (and Splendor of Truth) as exemplified in http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PerspSem2000.html, and http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/ccc_toc.htm.

    6. =================================

  6. WHY TESTAMENT - Historical dimension. As implicit in otherwise meaningsless celebrations of birthdays and such. In may case it could be celebration of e.g. 19 years as Umeå-professor, 30 years for disputation, 41 years working life and tax-paying in Sweden and meeting my wife, 65 years age. Why it is important to respect and take into consideration the will and intentions of the "dead". Example of secular application of pragmatist thought (possibly in the spirit of William James): integration of causality & teleology (and theology?). Cf. the dialectical counterpart of "future generations". The eternal return. Time as chronos vs. cairos, set against the excessively obvious idea of progress and development, closely related to technology (cf. magics vs. science). T.S. Eliot: "We had the experience but missed the meaning, And approach to the meaning restores the experience In a different form, beyond any meaning We can assign to happiness. I have said before That the past experience revived in the meaning Is not the experience of one life only But of many generations..." (Four Quartets—The Dry Salvages—1941).
  7. Why testament. My past sacrifice and/or success? The joke(?) on the "perfect manager" being the one who makes himself superfluous.
  8. Why testament - downloading the mind? Possible approach in terms of need to "download" a network of increasing size and weight (Design of Inquiring Systems, kap. 2). Alternatively a biological and exitential phenomenological "body" downweighted by accumulated and multicultural "experiences" in Merleau-Ponty's meaning...
  9. Why testament - fixating ONE message. Citation about everybody who wants to express himself want essentially to say ONE thing, but through life it is expressed in different ways and different context. Ref. T.S. Eliot's quotation.
  10. Why testament. Compensatory expression of my sacrificed philosophical disposition (cf. electronic engineering) vs. rough empiricism of "naive empiricism", aggravated by my the dialectics between counterpoint vs. mainstream (kontrapunkt mot huvudfåra) as expressed in studies of science, e.g. Gothenburg.

    11. ==================================

  11. FAVORITE IDEA: Churchman & The Design of Inquiring Systems. Perceived as some students "It's gold". Inexhaustible. Everything which shines is not gold but: not all gold shines. Cf. metaphor of knowledge as labyrinth.
  12. Favorite-Ideas. Ethics and its theological substrate as implicit in IT/ICT relativistic and "pragmatic" (not only pluralist pragmatist) practice and theorizing (difference information vs. communication?). Implicitness in theories, frameworks, models, or reports on practice requires some degree of explicitation! Very concrete and important issues as in The Economist. Cf. misunderstanding of "tolerance" and "debate" including uncritical trust in "peer review". (ref. Tage Lindbom vs. "methodological doubt"). Why my suspicion about post-modernism or, lately, post-phenomenology, after my own studies of Heidegger.
  13. Favorite-Ideas. Example of source of relativism in (after Nietzsche) Heidegger's "What is called thinking?" (Harper & Row, 1968, p. 71): "A dialogue of Plato -- the Phaedrus, for example, the conversation on Beauty -- can be interpreted in totally different spheres and respects, according to totally different implications and problematics. This multiplicity of possible interpretations does not discredit the strictness and the thought content. For all true [sic!] thought remains open to more than one interpretation -- and this by reason of its nature. Not is this multiplicity of possible interpretations merely the residue of a still unachieved formal-logic univocity which we properly ought to strive but did not attain. Rather, multiplicity of meanings is the element in which all thought must move in order to be strict thought. To use an image: to a fish, the depths and expanses of its waters, the currents and quiet pools, warm and cold layers are the element of its multiple mobility. If the fish is deprived of the fullness of its element, if it is dragged on the dry sand, then it can only wriggle, twitch, and die. Therefore, we always must seek out thinking, and its burden of thought, in the element of its multiple meanings, else everything will remain closed to us." Compare this with C. West Churchman's definition of "system" versus the following excerpt (originally reproduced in http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/SysTechnBodyMind.html) from Merleau-Ponty, M. (1983) The structure of behavior, Pittsburgh: Duquesne Univ. Press, reprint of orig. Beacon Press, 1963, (Trans. from French La structure du comportement, PUF, 1942): "Perception, which has appeared to be the assimilation of consciousness into a cradle of institutions and a narrow circle of human "milieus", can become, especially by means or art, perception of a "universe". The knowledge of a truth is substituted for the experience of an immediate reality. The knowledge of a universe will already be prefigured in lived perception, just as the negation of all the milieus is prefigured in the work which creates them."
  14. Favorite-Ideas. Anti-relativism in Plato (Collected Dialogues, Princeton, 1961, Epis. VII, §§ 343c-344c): "Now in cases where as a result of bad training we are not even accustomed to look for the real essence of anything but are satisfied to accept what confronts us in the phenomenal presentations, we are not rendered by each other—the examined by the examiners who have the ability to handle the four [name, definittion, image, and account] with dexterity and to subject them to examinations. In those cases, however, where we demand answers and proofs in regard to the fifth entity [the real object itself], anyone who pleases among those who have the skill of confutation gains the victory and makes most of the audience think that the man who was first to speak of write or answer has no acquaintance with the matters of which he attempts to write or speak. Sometimes they are unaware that it is not the mind of the writer or speaker that fails in the test, but rather the character of the four—since that is naturally defective. Natural intelligence and a good memory are equally powerless to aid the man who has not an inborn affinity with the subject. The study of virtue and vice must be accompanied by an inquiry into what is false and true of existence in general and must be carried on by constant practice throughout a long period. Hardly after practicing detailed comparisons of names and definitions and visual and other sense perceptions, after scrutinizing them in benevolent disputation by the use of question and answer without jealousy, at last in a flash understanding blazes up, and the mind, as it exerts all its powers to the limit of human capacity, is flooded with light. For this reason no serious man will ever think of writing about serious realities for the general public so as to make them a prey to envy and perplexity."
  15. Favorite-Ideas: University education. Teacher+litterature+organization, but based on students' contribution, motivation, pre-requisites, talent, or, ultimately, controversial selection vs. misunderstood "democracy" vs. supposed "elitism". Compare with music, dance, sports.
  16. Favorite-Ideas - comparative advantages. As in international trade theory. University should not compete with others trying to do the same thing unless necessary and you have the expectation that they will do it badly. University should not compete with software or hardware developers or with consultants. Try to grasp the difference between cosultancy business and universtiy, in view of historical debates concerning business schools and institutes of technology, and lately between consulting and production services. If not: university and IT departments will follow "framtid.nu" (http://www.framtid.nu) and business fads on share markets. Today's temptation at all levels of neo-universities: "huggsexa" ("there was a proper scramble: everyone tried to grab what they could"). As an alternative to "framtid.nu" you also have the Enron and WorldCom or ABB-Barnevik as prototypes of quarterly capitalism and pseudo-evaluation.
  17. Favorite-Ideas - work environemt. Universities and the effects of "borderline narcisistic personalities" (possibly interpreted also as one form of "bricolage" and excessive sensitivity to criticism perceived as "destructive", and escape from seminars to double relationships) http://www.shef.ac.uk/~psysc/psa-public-sphere/msg00417.html or (in Swedish) http://utbildning.lhm.lu.se/student/exarbete/psy/psyket/storningarfordjupninglit.html. Careerism and "statistics" that is not appreciated as a necessary in-depth knowledge but is OK for superficial "citation-index" and divinization of "peer review" (as of "depth interviews") in the spirit of supposed local democracy of sub-cultures. Concomitant problems of ressentiment in face of advising (constructive vs. destructive) criticism vs. bubble "ego inflation". and self-complacency.
  18. Favorite-Ideas. Implications for sacrifice and self-marginalization. Delusion [Villfarelse] of multiple fragmented petty-provincial "sub-cultures" with own prophets and sometimes for reciprocal admiration.
  19. Favorite-Ideas. Acharya, S. A. (1917). Prolegomena till Arya Metafysik. Stockholm: Norstedts. (Föreläsningar vid Stockholms Högskola 1915-1916.). Roughly "Philosophy starts where science ends, and religion starts where philosophy ends". Today there seem to be many who in a postmodern spirit think that it is aesthetics and art (or design) the ones that are supposed to start where philosophy or (science) end".
  20. Favorite-Ideas. The search for a "key issue" [Swedish "grundbult"], from which much of the rest follows, realizing that a fragmented assembly has no beginning and no end.
  21. Favorite-Ideas. T.S. Eliot. "They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good." (Choruses from "The Rock"—1934). "And what there is to conquer by strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate—but there is no competition— There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seems unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." (Four Quartets—East Cooker—1940). "With the drawing of this Love and voice of this Calling We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time." (Four Quartets—Little Gidding—1942). Concerning "has already been discovered" Svante Nordin's book Förlåt jag blott citerar - Om citatets historia.
  22. Favorite-Ideas. Democracy as a new god? I keep to the old one. Cf. Tage Lindbom's The myth of democracy. Gran Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996. Alternative for many researchers: Heidegger's "theology without God" (cf. Heidegger vs. Voegelin http://www.artsci.lsu.edu/voegelin/EVS/PANEL4.html#Voegelin). Or: non-commitment to exotic, supposedly permissive, Eastern religiosities (cf. François Jullien's book Treatise on efficacity, and its unrecognized influence on e.g. C. Ciborra's IT-organizational studies) which can reasonably be expected to be less understood than our own Western Christianity.
    23.

    ==============================

  23. DELUSIONS [VILLFARELSER] - in the systems approach. Not to be equated to "problems". "Indeed, if I were to think of one theme that has been in the back of my mind as I wrote thses chapters, it is the theme of deception" or "The systems approach goes on to discovering that every world view is terribly restricted". (Churchman, "The Systems Approach", Laurel-Dell, 1979, p. 228 and 232). But not postmodern relativism!
  24. Delusion [Villfarelse] - Ecclesiastes [Predikaren] in the Bible. Encouragement of perceiving that one own's contribution is no more requested or not even necessary, neither in terms of argumented opinions nor in terms of advice. "So I applied my mind to understand wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, and I came to see that this too is chasing the wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and the more a man knows, the more he has to suffer."(1:17-18). "The more words one uses the greater is the emptiness of it all." (6:11). "Speed does not win the race nor strength the battle. Bread does not belong to the wise, not wealth to the intelligent, not success to the skilful; time and chance govern all." (9:11). [Cf. IT-theorizing on "bricolage" and "technology's drift".] "One further warning, my son: the use of books is endless, and much study is wearisome." (12:12). Optimism - pessimism. Why lost one dimension of work-enthusiasm? Cf. Kantian conception of work and social or ethical (Aristotelian and Christian) dimension of man. Basically the answer is found in the correct interpretation of the Ecclesiastes. Optimism Pessimism, Resignation? It fits the deeper and hardly grasped meaning of Bible's Ecclesiastes [Predikaren]. Carl Mitcham book on "theology and technolology". Tage Lindbom's quotation, approximately: "Optimisn and pessimism are the secular human being's attempts to escape, respectively confront, its existential anxiety. Or the recurrently expanding horizon of ever expected results. "Rastlöhet" in e.g. "Sancho Panzas vederkvarnar" (1962) pp. 126 ff.
  25. Delusion [Villfarelse] of puer-senex pseudo-news. [Cf. later items on "respect for old age" puer-senex related to future research.] Further enhanced by unfortunate eclecticism by which any sort of ad-hoc mix of available stuff is sensed as being "creativity". Among the latest: differentiation between use and utilization. Cf. discussions about productivity, efficiency and effectiveness, or between growth and development, tactics vs. strategy (overhead by the departmental copier), networks vs. systems (cf. J. Kallinikos' critique of network-neooptimism), bricolage and technological drift vs. decision theory and planning vs. narcisistic opportunism vs. François Jullien's "treatise on efficacy". Decision theory's SDOW=Techne+phronesis (structure+funtion), cf. observation of practice is not to be opposed to planning but, rather, it is a teleological complement to it. Cf. bricolage vs "intended use", intended by whom and OK? And bricolage at "unexpected S" (in SDOW) or missed t O=f(D) upon which new D is invented [constructed], or intended O missed certain W-problem owner. Understanding or sense-making is SDOW capacity to do or, rather, to act wisely. Weick's "double interacts" as Lockean cell of agreement. Or what about phenomenological "sense making" with scanty reflection upon what "sense" is or should be, and upon how to know whether it has been "made"? Cf. the latest "High-tech companies: IT grows up" in The Economist, August 24th 2002 as compared with the management information systems and MIS of the sixties. Compare further with the fad of the "networks" and "new economy" and young researchers' declaration of the supposed "death of systems". Also in software: software as systems in Parnas' work. And, ultimately: "the engineer is always trying to make his way out of and go beyond the constraints imposed by a particular state of civilization while the 'bricoleur' by inclination or necessity always remains within them...The engineer works by means of concepts and the 'bricoleur' by mean of signs" (Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind, p.19-20; cf. with C.G.Jung's "trickster"): downgrading of "manual users" of a given capital-intensive, "decisive" engineering product. "Evolution by variation" (from Weick?) to be compared with Singerian IS in Design of Inquiring Systems. See further examples of "reinventing the wheel" in "Dialectical systems design and beyond", http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PerspSem2000.html, as well as in fashionable speculations about turning our discipline in a "design discipline" without even taking stand on the relation between engineering, bricolage and philosophy. Concerning bricolage, cf. Merleau-Ponty in The structure of behavior, p. 175, as quoted in http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/SysTechnBodyMind.html: " What defines man is not the capacity to create a second nature -- economic, social or cultural -- beyond biological nature; it is rather the capacity of going beyond created structures in order to create others..."
  26. Delusion [Villfarelse] behind overvalued Internet. "Divine fascination" suggested by Leibnizian Godly fact net, or "idol", or "flow" as suggested by Kantian aesthetics?
  27. Delusion [Villfarelse] by prophets. How easily new prophets are enthusiastically adopted, in parallel to non recognition of fatherhood (or motherhood?) Cf. Castell vs. Bell, for instance, in the light of Plato's quote about the impact of apparent phenomenal reality (descriptive and fluid in a postmodern sense (see below in this very same item) which is often misunderstood and called by the buzzword of complexity. Cf. Plato vs Heidegger quote on the nature of reality (above, in this documentation). And "Too many of our modern philosophers in their search after the nature of things, are always getting dizzy from constantly going round and round, and then they imagine that the world is going round and round and moving in all directions. And this appearance, which arises out of their own internal condition, they suppose to be a reality of nature; they think that there is nothing stable or permanent, but only flux and motion, and that the world is always full of every sort of motion and change. (Crat. 411b-c, my emphasis, see http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PlatoIT.html, search by keyword "flux").
  28. Delusion [Villfarelse] of young researcher at university. I am not sure whether I would look for a university today as I looked for it when working in the IT-business during the sixties and wanted to study and reflect (in the "ivory tower") upon the problems which eventually became the object of my dissertation. Why university instead of business product development or centralized industrial laboratories? Cf. my ideas of a university as attempted to present to our new students in an introductory lecture. http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/ISVP-Presentation.html.
  29. Delusion [Villfarelse] - "respect for old age". Cf. earlier item on puer-senex pseudo-news. Eventually I understand the meaning of perceived contempt or disdain by some individual graduate students, despite of all regard for the importance of Aristotelian "phronesis". Cf. my e-message to "Informatik" on December 9th 1999 ("Tack till alla som hedrade mig med sitt deltagande i mitt seminarium igår. Jag skall försöka förvalta kritiken som riktades mot mig helt bortsett från att en del av den kläddes i en sådan form [efterlysning av "hemläxa"] som jag själv inte kan tillåta mig att använda i seminarier som hålls av andra på institutionen. Eftersom en poäng var uppmaningen att jag i min kritik av utvecklingen skulle beakta alla av oss använda ansatser och empiriska detaljer..."). This is possibly in view of assumption of an old professor having "conservative" thoughts concerning genus equality or affirmative action, so called depth interviews, "homepage hit-statistics", or "citation-index" and distance from "mainstream" front of research, with related name-dropping. My naïveness in believing to be spared from these experiences of "generation gap" because of no contact with children and late generations. Cf. ego-inflation. Asked to give introductory guest-lecture and left alone with new students-beginners. Comments to manuscript and neither thanks nor simple acknowledgment. Concerning no thanks, ref to "Ordet Fritt" in VK 011006 p. 4 by "DS". Bitterness of these experiences only comparable to the involved in latest debates about "university and society" http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/UniversitySociety.html, and in experiences related to earlier ref to "borderline narcisism".
  30. Delusion - Pseudo-news. What is a news? Example of new young researchers' "name dropping". Cf. Churchman's reply to St. Gallen's student: do'nt ask me what I think and the one or the other or whether I have read this or that but, rather, what is the named author trying to say? And question to Kristo introducing his dissertation: what are you trying to do/say? (and do'nt ask me questions but rather, what's the issue? It is OK to call it "problem" if it is indeed a deviation from a valued outcome.
  31. Delusion [Villfarelse]. Other researchers' "aesthetic" attitude to debate and polemics, whereby they regard combatants' engagement as a "gladiators' struggle" (bread and spectacle, bröd och skådespel, "panem et circensem").
  32. Delusion [Villfarelse] - why not empirical. Since the eighties. Cf. Plato's criticism of phenomenal reality. Related to my attitude to "projects".
  33. Delusion [Villfarelse] - departmental fragmentation. "Feudal hotel" and narcisism?
  34. Delusion [Villfarelse] - PUL personal data act case. Cf. Västerbottens-Kuriren 25 and 27 April 2002, and http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/SemPUL.html.
  35. Delusion [Villfarelse] of seeing "The systems approach" dropped from our undergraduate education and research.
  36. Delusion [Villfarelse] - ethics. Disappearance of ethics, Marxist, Aristotelian, or Christian from our research and dissertations. T.S. Eliot: ""They constantly try to escape From the darkness outside and within By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good." (Choruses from "The Rock"—1934).

    37. ==============================================

  37. KNOWLEDGE - Types. Different conceptions of knowledge: accumulation vs. teleological and theological illumination (similar to jungian conception and, further to "process of individuation" or particularization). Ref. to The Design of Inquiring Systems, chap. 2 vs. chap. 3 and following: Leibnizian vs. ranking of nets. Or compare with the "labyrinth" of not knowing whether one is on the wrong way "out", unless one espouses Eliot's quote. Compare with Leibnizian networks in Design of Inquiring Systems. Not sure that one discovers or perceives of being on a false or fruitless track. No valid "social darwinism" or homeostasis in the search of knowledge. Contrast with postmodern relativism. The problem of not recognizing goodness and knowledge, e.g. experience in education in The Design of Inquiring Systems, (e.g. chap. 12 experience in education), whose applicability has not been recognized not even by those who have tried to study it. "Democratic" unwillingness of acknowledge degrees of excellence (Aristotle). Cf. innovation vs. adoption and diffusion, or the age-old established discussion of "implementation".
  38. Knowledge: Conferences or seminars and expensive participation. If it is not for delivering our own contribution it is better do stay home and save resources (1000-2000 dollars abroad or in foreign countries) saving also time for the reading proceedings (or possibly preceedings) or earlier already published works by the interesting participants or "gurus". On the other hand, especially concerning our own participation in our local seminars, it is absurd if we ("have no time" or) do not go to listen to someone who has traveled or has been brought from far away, on the ground that we are not sure whether we will (egoistically) "get out" something valuable from him or her. It is also a question of our "putting in" in him or her something valuable that we might have to share. Unfortunately it may also be the case that our participation in meetings (analog to conferences or seminars) is not due to our wish to contribute but mainly on our fear that our interests are not being watched for. But knowledge is obtained or constructed dialectically and we must be ready to give and take in trust (the Greek philosophy's friendship in trust), and not only in a coarse utilitarian way. This has in turn a lot to do with the problem of our possible self-complacency or unjustified trust in ourselves, to the point of believing that we can pre-judge others without listening to them or listening only once or twice, on the basis of our superior knowledge, and then "throw them away" (cf. the Kantian ethics of not treating humans "as means only"). Cf. finally Plato's quote that the worst ignorance is to not know that we don't know, below.
  39. Knowledge - Socratic: the most serious type of ignorance: of not knowing that one does not know. Cf. lately in one seminar (as in earlier ones on knowledge management) about "non-knowledge" as "driving force". Cf. the reason why I accepted the challenge of a professoral chair despite of doubts because of my own perceived shortcomings vs. others' apparently unjustified self-confidence. Cf. the paradox of "why not?" strategy I did write about elsewhere, and the supposed importance of self-confidence, when the worst sin would be that of unjustified self-confidence. Cf. the postmodern culture of youth. See The Economist's survey of the young, December 23rd 2000, http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=455142. Cf. below on Future-Research: Puer vs. Senex.
  40. Knowledge of teaching vs. researching. Eliot's quote (below, in item on Knowledge vs. good knowledge) about emulating what has already been thought and said, often even better than we can (Cf. Svante Nordin's book "Förlåt jag blott citerar" and the history of citation). You either invest effort in deep understanding of what already has been said, or then you try of "invent" your own stuff. In the first case you can become a prestigeless teacher, in the other a successful or vital researcher, apparently the more successful the less people exist who can evaluate your real contribution (my expression of "why not" strategy). In the first case you read and listen to others, in the second case you hope that others will read and listen to you. Cf. the difficulty of taking care of guests (cf. the otherwise prized "hospitality") vs. being yourself a distinguished guest, loving vs. being loved. Obvious possibility of dialectical counterpart (bad teacher just repeating anything and despised researcher achieving unrecognized good things).
  41. Knowledge vs good knowledge (in the definition itself: cf. later "non-knowledge" as the driving force of IT). Cf. my home page link to "biography" http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/Bio.html: "To trendy bywords like change, flexibility, creativity, innovation, and learning Ivanov likes to contrast questions like 'change caused or imposed by whom or by what?', 'change of what, to what, and whatfor?', 'is flexibility as adaptation to change always good or can its perceived necessity be caused by lack of knowledge or courage?', 'is creativity or innovation always good or is there a good and a bad creativity?', and 'is learning by itself always good, and how to foster the learning of good things?'". My satisfaction and regret: loss of social or, rather, ethical content of the discipline, its teaching and research. Discipline? Of "informatics"? Loss of philosophical content along philosophical relativism. My success and perceived failure with my students, undergraduate and researchers, but for few exceptions. It may be legitimate OK. Cf. T.S. Eliot quotation "Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" (Choruses from "The Rock"—1934). Or " And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate—but there is no competition—There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seems unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. (Four Quartets—East Cooker—1940). Cause? My limitations including time during departmental build-up, and money (fund raising), and "spirit of the time" (crisis in philosophical or societal trends).
  42. Knowledge as "service relationship" of mutual involvement. It is a secular ethics ("theology without God") expression of e.g. Christian charity or love (but what about conflictual or dialectical "justice"?), which makes the idea attractive for westerners who are still imbued by a Christian spirit they rather wish to ignore, invoking therefore an apparently more permissive Eastern mysticism. Cf. Paul's Corinthians letter. Cf. Aristotelian ethics and types of friendship, for mutual pleasure, usefulness (contracts and economics), and real friendship. Cf. the Bible on knowledge Predikaren [Ecclesiastes] 1:16-18 "Jag sade i mitt hjärta: 'Se, jag har förvärvat mig stor vishet..." -------1 Korintierna 12 [on "system") "Vad nu angår dem som hava andliga gåvor..."--------1 Kor 13: 1-2 och 8-10 (System) "Om jag talade både människors och änglars tungomål...Ty vår kunskap är ett styckverk..."------1 Kor 14:1-5 "Faren efter kärleken, men varen ock ivriga att undfå de andliga gåvorna, framför allt profetians gåva." För övrigt, jämför samtliga vishetssböckerna utöver Predikaren: Job 28, ur Ordspråken [Proverbs], samt apokryferna Bar 3-4, och särskilt Vis [Wisdom] samt Syrak [Syrah-Ecclesiasticus] 37-38. The strongest expression is in terms of knowledge for human charity contrasted to postmodern relativism, which in its secular form was expressed, for instance, by Ellen Key (in Swedish): Ju starkare ungdomsviljan dess ofördragsammare är den. Framför allt ungdomen bekräftar Goethes sats att 'liberala meningar icke finnas, ty en mening måste alltid vara absolut; det kan endast finnas ett liberalt sinnelag'. ----De, som aldrig förmå sig taga något parti, som förbli dyrkare av 'den heliga relativiteten', dessa äro de slags naturer, om vilka en ung brinnande själ en gång yttrade: 'Den, som har tjugutre synpunkter på var fråga, får aldrig någon ståndpunkt'.-----Det finns några ord, som inom människolivet verka vad möglet verkar i naturen. De orden äro: Vad tjänar min insats till? Genom dessa fem ord hava otaliga livsvärden gått till spillo, ej endast så, att enskilda låtit dem växa över sina egna livsmöjligheter. Nej, även så att de värden, genom vilka den enskilde blir betydelsefull för samhället - rättrådighetskänsla och offervillighet, dådlust och nydaningsvilja - gått förlorade. -----Släkte efter släkte födes med mod att våga. Men innan det nya släktet utträtt ur ungdomens ålder upprepar det redan de fem orden. Ty runtom sig har det hört försäkras: att ingen kan ro mot strömmen; att ingen är skyldig att så för vinden, att ingen bör tömma sin källa genom att bära vatten i ett såll! Och så lönlösa te sig verkligen de samhälleliga rättfärdighetskraven och nydaningsmödorna för envar, som endast ser på samtiden. ---Den åter, vars synkrets även innesluter förtid och framtid, vet hurusom intet är vissare än att: Allt gott tjänar till något" (Ref. Key, Ellen, 1903-1906. Livslinjer III: Lyckan och skönheten, del II, Stockholm: Bonniers, 1925, utg. 1903-1906, pp. 116, 124.) Cf. "Allt gott tjänar till något" with coarse positivistic pragmatism or, worse, the idea that the goal justifies the means or, its misunderstood remedy of ignoring teleology.

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  43. FUTURE - My future as related to my departmental work. Why did I arrange for the department library's purchase the Bible and Jerome's New Biblical Commentary (and Plato's and Aristotle's collected works, and Copleston's History of Philosophy, and Dictionary of the History of Ideas, and Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Webster's Third New International Dictionary, or Barzun & Graff's book The modern researcher. E.g. for the Ecclesiastes (and for hermeneutics, and mytho-poeic "metaphoric" thought, etc.). And Ecclesiasticus/Sirach concerning the nature of intellectual work and wisdom ("sapiential books").
  44. Future - Projects. Problematic concept characterized by limitation of commitment in time and to people (and through the Internet somehow also in space). Cf. project management agains the "classic" phenomenology by Ida Hoos and informaticians as foxes in the henhouse (Systems analysis in public policy, 1972 and 1983, cf. e-democracy...)
  45. Future as against personal history. Approach to IT from the technical side of electrical engineering, and from social-organizational side of IBM-user. Small experience as programmer, not to be equated with "technology" (what is it?) Also experience from both private and public sectors.
  46. Future (my) as against history. I witnessed and studied several, if not most, among the "computer ages". Including the latest IT-bubble [risk of becoming also our bubble, analog to http://www.framtid.nu ?!] and scandals including WorldCom and executives' rewards for their "success" with the "new economy" which would render systems thinking and traditional auditing (information systems) obsolete. Ref Anonymous. (2002). Corporate governance: Designed by committee. The Economist, (June 15th), 75-79. (Cf. also "An economy singed", "American companies. Trial and error", "Chief executives", "Auditors", in same journal, June 22nd, pp. 14, 71-75. Leader "WorldCom. Accounting for change. The need for radical audit reform in America grows ever more pressing","WorldCom: Another cowboy bites the dust", and "WorldCom and financial markets: Another scandal, another scare", June 29th pp. 13, 61-62, 75-76. "Corporate scandals and politics", "Chief financial officers: Too creative by 50%?", "Called to account", and "Accouting scandals and the SEC" July 6th, pp. 43-44, 61-62, 68, 73-74. "Thumped. But don't write off American capitalism just yet", "Bush and big business", "Fund management: Actively cheated", "European companies: Not so different after all", July 13th, pp. 22-24, 32, 54-55. "Stock options: Use and abuse", "In praise of the unspeakable", "Corporate reform: Clambering back up", "Stockmarkets in America and Europe: Stop this dream", July 20th, pp. 14, 43, 51-52, 61-62.) and "White-collar crime in America: Out to catch the big fish - How goes the war against corporate crooks?", September 14th 2002 (Try retrieval at http://www.economist.com). Refer to the too easy dismissal of old ADB/ADP "administrative-MIS" label of our discipline in favor of trendy "informatics" or "new informatics" seen as a "design discipline", disregarding further the essence of engineering (vs. bricolage). Distribution of extra documentation: copy of computer-generated follow-up document of a new computerized car Citroën-Xsara through a computerized French car-maker. What has a design-oriented informatics to say about this?
  47. Future research - Why enthusiasm and fascination of technology, alternatively continental European thought, first Marx, later Nietzsche and Heidegger. In Sweden, for instance, Hans Larsson (interesting for "design theory"), influenced or close to Henri Bergson. Few who really understand it and its history (problems) but (therefore?) are fascinated, as in postmodernism, or "post-phenomenology". Or enthusiasm for phenomenology can be explained through the Platonic quotation about the fascination by "phenomenal reality"? (Refer back to item on "Delusion by prophets, quote by Plato".)
  48. Future research - Puer-Senex. [Refer to earlier items on youth culture, "Delusion of puer-senex" and "Knowledge - Socratic"]. Consider prizing so called creativity, risk taking (vs. Greek philosophy's courage), action-practice and empiricism, and flexibility as opposed to supposedly negative rigidity and weakness, not to mention "obsolete death"! Contrast this with supposed value of experience (but what about "phronesis"?) But older people have been young and not the other way round. Related to "yesterday was better" ["det var bättre förr"]. Compare with classical Enlightenment's "progress-development" as set against earlier "ages of gold, bronze and iron". Young people lesser perception of "derivative" of change which requires memories. Older people's apparent "loss of motivation" and "loss of memory" can be interpreted in depth in terms of increasing need to set priorities by evaluation of competing and large "fact nets" grown during a longer time, even if growth and competition between nets is larger in young years (Design of inquiring systems). Cf. my search for key issues or (in Swedish) "grundbulten", and need to avoid "fighting with windmills". Cf. colleague - retired professor of materials technology from Lunds university and institute of technology (risks) and his supposedly "obsolete" books stored away from the departmental library.
  49. Future vs. homeostatic social darwinism? Surprised by superficial implicitly assumed "evolutionary social darwinism" and otherwise despised "statistics" for evaluation of "progress", paradoxically countered by rhetorical uses of postmodern statistics in citation-index, peer reviews, and VR-media including mass media and gambling on the "statistical market". Cf. the return of sophistry in advertising and the "new economy" or "new entrepreneurship" exposed in http://www.framtid.nu. Do not forget the important "read it yourself", as the case of prof. Staffan Persson as opponent in my own dissertation on "Quality-control of information" or as in his role as expert in the recruitment committee for my professor chair. Cf. also Gudmund Smith (2001) on Att inte lita på sitt eget omdöme [To not trust on one's own judgment]. Universitetsläraren, (3), 21
  50. Future - My own work. Search along technology-philosophy-theology. Jung's two ages of man in the process of individuation. Why Jung, not for "mysticism" but psychology (cf. HCI-CHI) as part of philosophy and bridge to humanism and theology.
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  51. Future - Limits of my work. Estimated maximum (!) left time of 10-20 years. Completing my Plato-Aristoteles (and Christian late counterparts) application to IT: http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PlatoIT.html. InformationÅcommunication+economics (Åpsychology and politics including Platonic-Aristotelian, not to mention Marxian dialectics of communication as in The Design of Inquiring Systems, chap. 7 on Hegelian I.S.), trying to find or express the meaning of the "basic issue". Cf. favorite psychologist Carl Jung who retired at the beginning of his career to figure out what to teach about. Hoping for resolution of my paradox of teaching vs. reading vs. writing, parallel to the metaphor of physician's contact with sick vs. sane people. My purchased but not yet read literature leading possibly and eventually to book(s) rather than unrelated short articles which always have to take for granted what the particular readers of the particular journal is supposed to know and share (vs. not to know or disapprove of).
  52. Future research and emeritus-activities. Not managerial "business as usual" but, rather, contrary to pure bottom-up "let 1000 flowers bloom", with deep commitment to my own deep convictions. Ref to my doubts concerning the importance of oppositions, advising, supervising in a pluralistic and relativist context. I have been clear in my doctrinaire position despite all thousand flowers blooming, to the point of sometimes being misunderstood in the light of peculiar conceptions of "tolerance" and "loyalty" to advised (cf. "supervised") graduate students, for instance, not enough with "freedom of expression". Example of expressed opinion by some colleague, that I do not share: "if the dissertation has been approved then further internal criticism should be suspended". This is further related to excessive or exasperated sensitivity to criticism, that is said to cause psychic depression and loss of enthusiasm by the student. Cf. also menace to seminar-culture where lack of tact or diplomatic sensistivity in expressing criticism can be misused to suffocate justified criticism. The solution?: OK to criticize, even violently, if combined with Christian charity in the sense of prior or concomitant care and concern for the student.
  53. Future research. The meaning of "mathematizing" everyday life vs. the meaning of "successful" logic and mathematics at the (separable?) basis of aesthetic of interfaces. The attractiveness or fascination of technological aesthetics and "gambling" (as the lottery of shares market).
  54. Future research. I will make myself sensitive to your feedback. This is contrary to the implicit assumption of all these years that because of my role as supportive "professor" I am supposed to give and give, giving the impression that I do not need support beyond some peace and time allowance for "sabbatical" work and such. Conscious of the dangers of lonely researchers and thinkers who do not belong or share the supportive social context of a differentiated university, to embark upon esoteric and unchallenged own grand schemes and "theories". Cf., however, fortunate exceptions like Tage Lindbom (history of ideas) and Richard Marz (Swedish translator of Heidegger), both in guest seminars at our department.
  55. Future as "lonely wolf"? Undervalued and misunderstood essence of supposed "lonely wolf", in the same spirit av "ivory tower"? Historical reflections upon having being labeled "lonely wolf" somewhen in March 2001 by a younger colleague belonging to what I call "mid-generation", i.e. the same generation I wrongly supposed would feel responsible for mediating my work and my messages to the youngest colleagues and students, instead of only starting their own "race" with their own pet theories and hobby-horses. Roughly equivalent to not having been a fund-raiser for larger projects involving several graduate students. I have never had scholarship [doktorandtjänst] for my four years of graduate studies. Never had post-graduate position like forskarassistent or docent. Still I gave legitimacy to humanistic and social-science perspectives to our discipline in an age where many wanted to crush it in the name of only technical studies. And this was done by means of Churchman and pragmatism: a big academic battle where our discipline risked to be crushed between big-brother computing science and big-brother business school. All this followed by big struggle for change of disciplinary name from ADB (administrative data processing) to informatics (could have been also systems science). And, then the build-up of the department with no PhD colleagues, only advisor-supervisor, no funds to be raised, no disciplinary journals that fitted the particular discipline unique for Sweden, no support from professor colleagues with same orientation in Sweden, but only some in Finland and a couple in Norway. No support of sympathetic peers in peer-review for possible application for research grant applications. Subsequently: alone until first dissertation after four years. Difficulties with non-popular and heavy Churchman contrasted to the hardships of completing dissertation work. I myself tried to cooperate with and support graduate students and support without expecting support or cooperation with me, or doctrinaire following of Churchmanian pragmatism (cf. definition of "cooperation"). I estimate that I did read more than I myself and my recommended literature was read by graduate students. In the meantime empirical work was dependent upon availability of fairly expensive mainframe computer. No streamlined simple experimentation was possible with PCs/Internet. Need of somebody, the only available candidate, for managing the department and create the presupposition for others to apply in due time for research grants ("bottom-up" policy). In compensation, grateful for the freedom of work of the last past three years.
  56. Almost each one of the previous 55 items could be a subject for a future seminar. But it is not my responsibility to take any initiative in this direction after the promotion to emeritus!