Angell Ian O. - Sciences First Mistake

This book grew out of the authors concerns over the popular, almost casual, use of the term information. Added to that was their aversion towards the obsessive use of theory in the mainstream academic study of Information Systems (IS), and the way that enforced consistency with such theory masquerades as rigour: Structuration Theory, Neo-institutionalism, Actor Network Theory, the Technology Acceptance Model, Systems Theory etc. The authors were concerned that despite all this theoretical overkill, and possibly even because of it, the history of computerization was (and still is) one of the highly expensive failures marching alongside the computers domination of business and society. However, the deeper they looked into the issues, the more they began to suspect an enigma, although one that did not lie with IS per se. They now see it as implicit in every field that makes a claim on the production of knowledge, including every scientific endeavour, and every technological development.

This book then is the authors catharsis. Both of them eventually came to accept that all theories are limited by intrinsic paradoxes, and not just those theories favoured by their own IS Community. Consequently, this book is intended to have relevance for researchers and students of other subjects far beyond IS, by pointing out that the control the scientific establishment attempts to exercise over a myriad of human activities is both fanciful and misguided. In principle, the book reflects on the limitations in the processes of constructing knowledge, as well as in the methods used to gain that knowledge: epistemology. It sets out to describe both how the processes by which knowledge is created are infested with paradoxes and how these paradoxes come to undermine all epistemological endeavour.

In expressing their dissatisfaction with all the pretence of profundity in their own subject, and in others, the authors are not trying to undermine the utility of theory per se, far from it. This book itself is nothing if not theoretical. They simply, but paradoxically, want to reflect upon the processes that tend to weaken critical thinking whenever theoretical positions are treated as an incontestable reality, when at best those positions exhibit a mere internal ).

Often trapped within the vast abstract realms of individual theories, the human species has created conceptually rich yet limited theoretical streams, which appear to grow, and grow, and grow in scale and influence. From such a continuing expansion springs the belief of having achieved a deeper understanding of the world of phenomena in which we are constrained to operate, rather than merely a different, albeit a more detailed and more sophisticated, description; or as Nietzsche would have it, a more granite foundation of refined ignorance.

To demonstrate the validity of their concerns, in this book the authors consider how scientific knowledge comes to be constructed, showing how that construction is fundamentally flawed. These flaws are not contingent on each theory in itself, rather they are a precondition for each theory to exist. Despite being flawed, communities nevertheless arise around the application of such theories. Why? Because kept within limits, each community-accepted theory is an excellent means of temporary communication within that community. There each theory, as the chosen one, bestows the benefits of legitimacy on any consequent analysis. However, take any theory beyond its limits, beyond its life span, beyond its utility, beyond its community, and claim for it an absolute truth, then it becomes absurd; and hubris beckons.

In order to illustrate these ideas, this book will dip into an eclectic mix of deeply theoretical issues that propagate across many disciplines, and not just those popular in study of IS, or more generally in the social sciences. Indeed, examples from physics and mathematics will be used liberally to make the point. These latter examples, guided as they are by specific theories, and with their predictive aspects, are the envy of the mere normative theories prevalent in the study of the social sciences including the so-called management sciences. However, the authors concur with Nietzsches introductory quotation above, taken from Beyond Good and Evil, and insist that physics and mathematics too have feet of clay. In pointing at such an irony, this book acknowledges the debate raging within the IS field, and more widely in the social sciences: namely whether the testing of hypotheses in quantitative research is more legitimate than in qualitative research: a position taken by a good majority in the social science communities, at least until recently.

In a detour, the book rather grandiosely, and with not a little irony, challenges the endeavour in physics of searching out a Grand Unified Theory (sciences ultimate dominion over the human condition), and to a small extent considers what such a contradiction might entail. The main message of the book itself encapsulates a paradox, entailing the rejection of the proposition that a movement towards a deeper understanding is possible, because for the authors there is no understanding, only a description constructed for the sole purpose of utility.

The authors will not be restricting themselves to physics, or for that matter to the natural sciences, which to them are far from natural. Nor are they mostly interested in the mathematical framework that supports the efforts for a Grand Unified Theory. Much more interesting is the projected purpose behind such theories, and particularly the underlying epistemological contradictions that theories inevitably entail. Actually, the authors propose that such contradictions, far from being problematic, are a necessary prerequisite for theories to evolve in the first place. They will argue that there can never be a theory of everything, for reasons based on the fundamental epistemic nature of human observation and cognition. The authors insist that there can be no separation between sensing and the making sense of things in the world. Observation and cognition are inextricably linked; they are structurally coupled. This they claim will impact the nature and scope of every scientific, indeed every theoretical endeavour that insists on such separation, and so will have profound implications for any consequent research.

Even though the authors recognize that some philosophical similarities can indeed be drawn to Gdels Theorem of Incompleteness ().

The authors will postulate that there is no way out of several of these paradoxical contradictions, and describe each scientific construct as a multitude of intrinsically paradoxical and co-evolving self-referential systems: a phrase that hopefully will come to mean much more to the reader after absorbing the analysis of the major concepts involved.

The human urge to uncover the ultimate information about how reality functions remains as strong in us as ever. For example, Hungarian philosopher Ervin Lszl ( Field: the field of information that unifies all things. Many highly reputable scientists (physicists in the main) have been, and are still, optimistic about eventually uncovering such a Theory of Everything. Just before the turn of the twenty-first century, one of the authors (Dionysios Demetis) was present at a physics colloquium where the distinguished professor Stephen Hawking was a speaker. Hawking outlined his vision of such a Theory of Everything, saying that we might be very close to fulfilling this promise. A decade later that promise looks equally remote; but few scientists have given up on that dream.

The authors aim in this book is not to undermine that aspiration, but instead to demonstrate that a belief in such unification can considerably restrict other perspectives. They are not alone in claiming that humanity is incapable of articulating such a Grand Theory. Many have expressed doubts over such an endeavour (), although most recent attention has been supportive of the notion. The authors intend that the justification of their stance will gradually become apparent as this book proceeds; all the while their treatise on self-reference, paradox and observation, and various interrelationships, will hopefully approach the subject matter in a way that will clarify the issues, although they will be the first to admit that their own underlying substance is also paradoxical.