INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS FOR A
VIABLE WORLD
Proposal for a Feasibility Study
Bruce Buchanan
Presentation to the 14th World Congress of Sociology,
Montreal, Canada, July 26 - August 1, 1998.
WORKING GROUP ON SOCIOCYBERNETICS AND SOCIAL SYSTEMS (WGO1)
Session 2: Sociocybernetics and Human Values (Chair: B. Buchanan)
Paper #2.4 - Information Requirements for a Viable World.
ABSTRACT
I. BACKGROUND:
1.1 A Perspective on Societal Problems:
1.2 Rationality and Power
1.3 Holistic Approaches:
1.4 Conceptual Requirements
1.5 A Note on Method:
1.6 Design Requirements
1.7 Strategic Desiderata:
II. PROPOSAL:
2.1 Rationale:
2.2 Distinctive Features:
2.3 System Perspectives:
2.4 Objectives and Methods:
2.5 Strategic Considerations:
2.6 Further Development:
REFERENCES
II. PROPOSAL:
It is proposed that a World Health Information Letter be published regularly, and posted
on the Internet, to provide reliable information to the public on priority issues
concerning requirements for environmental integrity and world order. Obviously some
specific vehicle is required, and the following discussion outlines the substance which
underlies the format and processes proposed. The challenge is to identify a format which
can contain and promote the evolution of many strategic approaches.
2.1 Rationale:
A proposal for a World Health Information Letter is likely to meet with a predictable
question: Who needs it? Many may feel that there are quite enough, perhaps a surfeit of,
scientific and other sources of advice on environmental and related issues. Many feel that
the real problems relate to action. These concerns are valid, and are addressed by the
proposal.
Among the specific problems that the Letter would be designed to address are those of
information overload as well as irrelevance. If the mounting volume of data, analyses and
concern are to be priorized and dealt with effectively, there is a considerable need for
credible instruments and criteria for helping in this task. In the usual news media the
selection of items as newsworthy is very often based upon transitory criteria.
Information overload may come about because of sheer volume, which may have the effect of
censorship. Lack of context may also rob raw information of significance. In this regard
the Letter would be designed according to
criteria of relevance which would be open and transparent, subject to discussion and
evaluation. The governing values would be freedom of inquiry and expression concerning
sustainable ecosystems.
With respect to societal problems, much attention and effort is focussed on seemingly
isolated problems, e.g. over-population, unemployment, governmental incompetence or
corruption, endangered species, and many more.
Yet these are interrelated in many ways, and there is value to be found in a better focus
on complex networks and even vicious cycles of problems.
Organizational strategies and programmes that focus on only one problem in the chain tend
to fail because the cycle has the capacity to regenerate itself. Worse still is that such
cycles tend to interlock, creating the complex of global problems which causes so many to
despair.
A cycle is a chain of problems, with each aggravating the next -- with the last looping
back to aggravate the first in the chain. Such cycles are not obvious to the average
observer, and identifying them is not an easy matter. Yet they are self-reinforcing and
repay study by possibilities for strategic leverage. A first requirement is to make small
beginnings at several points to reduce the pressures on such cycles to reassert
themselves.
These are some of the considerations which have led to the proposals which follow. While
the underlying rationale and strategic values are complex, they they are designed to
contribute to a democratic process, which, after all, can only exist where the public is
adequately informed on the important issues.
This paper is limited by requirements for brevity, and sets out only some of the
considerations involved in this proposal. It points to only some of the major elements
which would need to be included in any agenda for future
discussion.
2.2 Distinctive Features:
What are the special advantages of the present proposal that make it worth consideration?
Certainly there are many apparently similar programs for providing information, along with
resources and training to make use of
such knowledge. Yet these approaches mainly compete for time and attention within the
existing paradigms of thought, and moreover may be based upon many of the same assumptions
that have lead to past problems. There appear to be no precisely equivalent projects,
although there are many on offer with worthy objectives. Some organizations appear to some
to have an ideological bias, which lessens their impact.
The present proposal has its focus on societal information processes per se, and is
intended to operationalize value assessments and subject these to debate as part of the
task of developing more open systems of thought
and communication.
All human enterprises need to take an adequate account of the effects of their activities
on a continuing basis. For this, a systematic high level approach ("high level"
in the sense of inclusive and objective) is needed which is independent of the interests
of any vested power group. The historical divisions of political Right and Left,
insofar as they involve assumptions which may prejudice observations, will only be
misleading.
The problems are serious, and many of the winners under present social arrangement will
not continue with their present influence. Without significant changes in approach there
is no realistic prospect of reaching sustainability, however defined.
Societal changes will come about, not by replacing one power agency with another, under
the same rules, but only if there new kinds of social information processes consciously
designed to provide the information and structures needed to manage salient problems.
There are obviously many problems to be clarified and resolved in carrying
out such a task. But without some new strategies we are like the dinosaurs
flailing about in lands of diminishing resources. We need to identify and
learn the new adaptive skills, comparable to those possessed by the early mammals - small,
insignificant in size and numbers in the early stages - but were able to respond through
learning. Soon, of course, we need useful specific answers to many questions. However a
more important, if less urgent, need is for better methods of providing information and
analyses in support of acceptable answers.
As with the early mammals, our continuing existence may be an improbable long shot. But
when the stakes are high and the options are few we cannot afford to overlook any
possibilities. The potential risks of this proposal
are few. Most of the risks consist of disturbing those who are comfortable with the
present situation, and dealing with expressions of their resistances to the challenges of
the future.
2.3 System Perspectives:
There does appear to be a stage in the evolution of complex living organisms and societies
where information handling capacities are developed to make continuing survival possible.
Such a brain and nervous system
requires:
* accurate ongoing perception of environmental conditions and realities;
* interpretive mechanisms for evaluating the importance and relevance of perceived
events to the needs and interests of the system;* anticipatory response mechanisms which can evaluate priorities and select strategic
responses which are likely to be most successful.
Each of these groups of functions - perception, interpretation and selective response -
make distinctive contributions. Moreover they are tied into various functional
relationships by other systems of connections which
relate them in complex ways. Not only does the brain receive messages about the world, but
it selects and priorizes those messages while receiving them. Such processes, as found in
natural systems, have been supplemented in all human cultures through the addition of
formal systems made possible by language and systematic processes, including those of
politics, arts and sciences.
A cybernetic and holistic model points to the need for some valuation and measure of the
situation at the level of the total system, which effectively compares some measure of the
actual situation with the goal, followed by feedback of this information to actors and
agencies whose action affect the goals. Such a linkage is required if the behaviours
throughout the complex system are to be integrated within the whole. While such feedback
linkage is a necessary condition it is of course not sufficient. This cybernetic idea is
also reflected in the dictum to "think globally, act locally".
In the present stage of development of civilization it may be argued that the health of
the earth is threatened not only by a variety of physical imbalances, but also by a lack
of systems sufficiently detailed and attuned to potential outcomes. The global patient is
infested with multiple autonomous and uncoordinated agencies which are feverishly
generating wildly disordered growth, thus resembling cancers and parasitic infection.
Framed in the confused and subjective language of components which lack adequate
perception and vision, and which also , in effect, lack an intelligence system adequate to
meet the challenges, there would appear to be little hope for useful progress. Such
problems may in fact be more amenable to rational appraisal in the objective language of
medical and systems sciences. These may help lead to clearer diagnosis and suggestions for
therapy.
At present there are many publications e.g. Worldwatch Institute reports, Greenpeace,
newspaper columns, etc., on environmental and related issues. Many influential journals
with various specific objectives and distinct readerships address a variety of important
issues. These make invaluable contributions within a free society. But in themselves, as
autonomous agencies, they operate within the current conventions of news selection and
distribution. They have contributed greatly to progress, but a quantum leap as well as
more adequate public educational processes may now be required.
2.4 Objectives and Methods:
If there is to be progress in raising public consciousness - of registering information
about facts and events, about priorities and strategies for action - a primary educational
target must be the court of general public opinion. Government and business can be reached
in many ways, but none are as effective as through the mobilization of public opinion.
Efforts made in this direction may have direct influence, but they may also have
synergistic effects through other media because of their potential in highlighting
significant developments and alerting public interest.
The objective of influencing public awareness raises complex questions of purpose and
methods which cannot, at this stage, be described in detail. Even the conditions for an
adequate discussion and trial are complex and will require very careful study and
resources to undertake in a way that can be adequate to the problems.
A systematic approach would seek to identify information which would present key
considerations and decision criteria relevant to political, economic and financial
decisions. A detailed discussion of these is beyond the scope
of this paper, and is indeed a subject for necessary research. Nor is specific content
likely to be the whole story. Changes in common values and social processes, such as those
involved in choice of information which shapes public opinion, are required if there is to
be any change in social relationships.
The values and social processes which are required can only be sketched here. The
basic principle is that in open systems the information which may be considered cannot
constrained by any preconceived or fixed ideological criteria. Yet information requires
evaluation to assess its relevance to needs and circumstances, and its potential
usefulness. An adequate assessment process would require careful design. While the system
would be open, in principle, to all potential inputs, it would also require evaluative
processes subject to regular reevaluations Processes would distribute responsibilities and
allow iterative rounds to converge on consensus.
Not all agencies and persons would need to be part of or agree to such processes. That
would not be a realistic expectation. The requirement would be to involve a sufficient
number of interested and committed individuals and groups to undertake the necessary
action. Nevertheless, a transparent process would be essential, for it cannot be supposed
that any one group could know what is good/best for all others.
A major problem is that we live in and deal with open, potentially unlimited systems of
the world, and arbitrary constraints would not be acceptable. We cannot draw boundaries in
advance and expect accommodate novelty, or to recognize and provide for diversity and
creativity . Yet the overriding need is to learn how to think, as a society, "outside
the box" of previous assumptions.
The focus and objectives of this project would be on holistic/earth/human relationships.
There are unquestionably many other important and related problems to be addressed. But
the unique contribution of this proposal would be to a more reliable and comprehensive
perspective on the world as a whole. Without a clearer understanding of the whole picture,
even as it changes, no one can know where the decisive priorities lie.
2.5 Strategic Considerations:
Considerations relate to strategies of such a Newsletter, on the one hand, and to the
processes of acceptance and development of such an approach on the other. Clarification of
features of the proposed Letter is a first step.
The key decision points in the development of items for inclusion in the proposed
Newsletter are (1) the intake and selection of items of priority importance, and (2) the
preparation of perspectives for comment and response suggestions to a limited number of
chosen items. From a strategic point of view these processes - open and contained in
sequence - would need to be transparent for any interested inquirer.
The integrity and reliability of the processes of registering and processing information
would be of first importance. Thus the essential organizational focus would be on the
processes involved, and other criteria would be developed in that light. Processes would
be facilitated via the Internet.
The processes of perception, of registration and analysis of problems, and of the
selection of appropriate advice and response recommendations would be separated, ordered
in logical sequence, and delivered in a form which
would be evaluated over time and revised for increasing effectiveness.
Thus:
(1) from among the larger number of items which may be suggested, a smaller number would
be selected according to importance in relation to the agreed criteria, or as otherwise
relevant to problems and conditions at levels of concern which involve the planet as a
whole. Clear priorities would be set in terms of importance to the public interest, and
not to any special interest group. The items selected might relate to current concerns up
for
political consideration, but in any case the criteria for inclusion would always be open
for explicit assessment. How this might be done would pose many questions, but methods
would be provisional and open to change and
improvements. The selection processes would not be ideologically driven, would be
eclectic, transparent, and regularly reassessed.
(2) Priority items from among those selected for attention would be subject to another
stage of assessment, ensuring a decentralized process with decisions based as far as
possible on objective considerations. This next stage would provide relevant analyses of
the problems selected. A variety of analyses would be possible, and a kind of social
science laboratory might be developed to explore the value of various contributions.
The processes for the selection and development of the information would need to be well
understood and of transparent integrity in order to maintain relevance, objectivity and
credibility, yet would only be accepted over time as justified by the usefulness of the
product.
A regular report, perhaps bimonthly to begin with, would allow for a rotating selection of
items covering many topics over time, with a limited focus in each issue. Over several
months all major problem areas could be touched upon, and updated according to changing
circumstances with shifting emphases.
In the world of social power it is necessary to earn respect and even to call the bluff of
those who pretend to understand power but do not grasp the consequences of what they are
actually doing. The prospects of accomplishing this must depend upon an adequate game plan
backed by experienced advisors and sufficient resources for a fair trial run.
A strategic requirement would be an early public recognition that the Newsletter may have
unique features related to the basic problems that confront us all together. High on the
initial agenda would be items demonstrating the clear linkage of the World Health
Information Letter to priority problems of most pressing public concern, and the
demonstration of a potentially valuable contribution to democratic processes.
2.6 Further Development:
This proposal is intended as a journey of discovery, to which participation is invited,
and is indeed necessary for any process of consolidation.
It is not proposed, at this stage, to publish the Letter as such. Preliminary tasks
must be accomplished, including the acceptance of a plan and the design of an initial
feasibility study. There is a need for an architectural phase, quite distinct from the
building or construction phase. There is need for an Advisory Board of experienced
individuals with credibility over a range of social groups and intellectual disciplines.
In such a proposal as this it may be doubtful that anyone has the knowledge and experience
to make a definitive judgment in advance as to feasibility and potentiality. And much
depends on the specifics of its development. So
the practical questions are modest:
* Are there valid grounds for believing this proposal is necessarily flawed? If so, what
are the key ideas and considerations, and conditions lacking. Are these remediable?
* What steps might be taken to help overcome or avoid serious defects? Who might
be able and willing to provide useful advice and help in this regard?
* Any other comments/suggestions on the overall theme/objectives/plan?
At any early stage some validation of the proposal in terms of intellectual support and some financial sponsorship would be necessary to justify further work. In addition, some acceptance by agencies currently competing for public attention in this field would be highly desirable to allow for full cooperation within a coordinated public educational approach. From the point of view of conventional politics, the support of such a program may be a position on which many varied parties in opposition may be willing to take a chance. The risks seem small, and alternatives that are not simplistic are few.
REFERENCES:
(1) Wallerstein, I. (1998, "Sociology and Useful Knowledge", Presidential Letter No. 8, International Sociological
Association, 23 Feb 1998.
(2) Judge, A. (1997), Global Strategies Project, Encyclopaedia of World Problems and Human Potential (Union of
International Associations) - http://www.uia.org/strategy/stratcon.htm
(3) Flyvbjerg, Bent (1997), Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice (University of Chicago Press)
(4) Buchanan, B.(1997) "Assessing Human Values", Kybernetes, Sept/97.
(5) Buchanan, B.(1997b) "Values, Systems, and Consciousness", The Noetic Journal, Vol 1 No. 1 June, 1997