enabling network system (ens)

Systems Practice, Vol. 4, No. 6, 1991

Enabling Network System (ENS)

Roger J. Harnden I and Geoff Mullery 2

Received May 19, 1990; revised February 18, 1991

Certain developments in our understanding of language, cognition, and conceptual processes are leading to novel implementations of information technology and the emergence of new families of computer software. This paper outlines the design of one such system and describes the sort of consensual coordinations of actions that this system enables. Implementation of the ENS entails a novel way of understanding the way humans orient and an unusual explanation of how conceptual processes relate to the consensual domain. The underlying concepts are indebted to two major sources: (a) the Biology of Cognition and Language, Humberto Maturana, Univer- sity of Chile, Santiago; and (b) Conversation Theory, developed by Gordon Pask, University of Amsterdam, and the associated software THOUGHTSTICKER.

KEY WORDS: conceptual; consensual; Conversation Theory; expectation.

1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

This paper unfolds as follows. First, we sketch the outline function of an En-

abling Network System. Two distinct but braided domains of operation are described: on the one hand, the play of human conceptual processes; on the

other, public means of representation. In crude terms, this might be said to concern the play of semantics and syntax.

The underlying assumptions of second-order cybernetics are considered so as to highlight the function addressed by Enabling Network Systems as distinct from conventional bulletin boards, expert systems or data bases.

We introduce the notions of " l e a m i n g " and "reflexive conversat ion," in the light of ideas emerged from the cybernetic tradition, notably from an understanding of the biological bases of language and cognition. Learning and reflex-

ive conversation are then demonstrated as concerning conceptual orienting in a consensual space, rather than as modes of approaching or capturing Truth.

This leads to a consideration of the sort of relations which might encourage

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580 Harnden and Mullery

or enable such conceptual orienting, and how these might best be introduced to current computer design.

There follows a brief survey of existing computer " tools" that have a bearing on the problems we are addressing--not in order to imply that we intend to knit such tools into a tool-kit, but to demonstrate the viability of the proposed development in the light of currently available technology and know-how.

A description of conceptual orienting demonstrates the distinct slant of our own approach. The application closest to our own understanding is THOUGHTSTICKER as developed out of the work of Gordon Pask. We make no attempt to describe this in detail but supply the interested reader with relevant references.

Clients and situations served by the ENS are described across a variety of domains, so as to suggest its generality and usefulness.

We conclude by linking the notion of "mult iverse," as developed by Humberto Maturana, to our own insight into conceptual orienting through the closure of the expectation/satisfaction loop of the observer.

2. DESCRIPTION

An ENS concerns the relating of two domains:

(a) the private conceptual domain of the individual user, notable for its indeterminate or amorphous nature; and

(b) Public information resources, characterized by their determinate nature, such as "blackboard" expert systems, bulletin boards, advertisements, and indeed social and cultural archetypes.

This relation is approached or laid down by the application of a " too l" which has a twofold function: first, it enables separate information resources to be approached through one medium; and second, it enables more effective orienting between individuals, through highlighting the distinction between publicly represented models and categories, on the one hand, and the individual's personal interpretation of them, on the other.

3. ENTAILED ISSUES

In another paper one of the authors considers some of the wider issues of second-order cybernetics (Von Foerster 1979, 1981a), the emerging intellectual tradition which includes the work of Humberto Maturana and Gordon Pask (Harnden, 1991). At this juncture we wish briefly to mention some of the prob- lematical consequences of this recently emerged body of writings and research, without dwelling in depth on the entailed issues. Our intention is to highlight the particular function to be addressed by an Enabling Network System.

The Enabling Network System 581

Conversation Theory (Pask, 1975, 1984) and the Biology of Cognition (Maturana, 1978, 1988b; Maturana and Varela, 1980, 1988) both focus upon the domain of human interactions in a community of observers, from the perspective of the observer of them, who might or might not be one of those observed. This is what Maturana calls a "consensual domain.'" In many respects compatible with the thesis of Thomas Kuhn (1970), there is no attempt to transcend or get beyond this domain of conceptually meaningful interactions into some Objective Reality or Truth. There is no attempt to transcend the observer.

Consistent with Richard Rorty (1980, 1989), neither Maturana nor Pask holds with the idea that human cognition works as a mirror of nature, reflecting or commenting upon a neutral external fabric of things. One of Maturana's seminal experiences was when he came to understand experiments on color vision as demonstrating internal correlations alone, rather than as concerning how the organism "grasps" or "seizes" physical stimuli (described by Matur- ana, 1983). An earlier paper with Gabriela Uribe and Samy Frenk had demonstrated that

while one cannot generate the human colour space as a perceptual space by trying to correlate the activity of the retina with the visual stimuli, one can generate it by correlating classes of relations of activity holding between different kinds of retinal ganglion cells, with the name given to the experienced colour. (Maturana, 1983, p. 261)

Given this failure to demonstrate a correlation between physical stimuli and internal coherences (i.e., a failure to secure a fundament for Objectivity), Maturana's ,work since the mid-1960s has concerned the question of how it is that humans come to experience a domain of Objectivity--or more accurately, how cooperative activity is possible if the ground for coherence is not Objec- tivity.

The more recent consequence of his own research endeavor has been to focus upon the phenomenon of language itself as a recursion of coordinations of actions or behaviors in its generation of meaning and understanding. This is in distinction from more conventional understanding, which suggests that the crucial function of language is to allow privileged commentary upon either what is going on inside our minds on the one hand or what is going on outside our bodies on the other. Maturana now describes language as a consensual coordination of consensual coordinations of actions (Maturana, 1988a,b).

This closely parallels Pask's description of "Conversation," which concerns defining the minimal criteria with respect to which a conversation can be said to have taken place. Such a conversation entails the realization of a relation (i.e., a process of sharing), rather than demonstration of tbe understanding of some common domain of Reality.

For Pask, Conversation is significant for theflow or dance of distinct perspectives in the course of recurrent actions to paraphrase Gilles Deleuze,


recurrence of difference. These perspectives might be "internal" to one individual (as thought) or views that are exchanged in the course of talking and acting between different individuals.

What is significant in this understanding is the coordination of actions that are realized while the conversation persists, rather than what any one viewpoint is held to point toward or denote. In this respect, there is a direct congruence with Gregory Bateson's insight into "mind" (Bateson, 1972, 1979).

Thus the stress is upon pattems emerged in the course of recurrent actions-- the process of coordination of action, whether thought or unthought, conscious or unconscious.

Self-awareness is, of such, a dynamic patterning process and how distinct but congruent realities emerge from the "braiding" of different perspectives as they are languaged in the course of coordinations of actions. Hence, one may speak of a constitutive rather than a transcendental ontology, and the bracketing of objectivity (Maturana 1988a, 1988b).

This disposes of the notion that the whole purpose of distinct perspectives is to compete about claims for a privileged vantage over Truth. Hence Matur- ana's use of the word "multiverse" against the conventional understanding of one Universe (Maturana 1988a, 1988b).

With the above in mind, and consonant with the stress upon language as action (Flores et al., 1988; Stefik, 1987; Winograd, 1986; Winograd and Flores, 1986), this paper outlines a computer design which, while fully accept- ing information as a resource, lays stress upon the coherent flow of distinct perspectives in the unfolding of consensuality, as the grounding for "enabling."

We further suggest that this may be the best way to make use of the enor- mous informational complexity that can be related and presented to the user by contemporary HYPERTEXT or HYPERMEDIA systems. Perhaps the consensual richness of such emerging information resources is not to be realized by focus upon increasingly sophisticated classification systems and search procedures. The assumption that such ordering procedures might form a taxonomy for "natural" variety, that they might provide the architecture for some fixed and neutral domain of information that reflects or mirrors Reality, is simply incorrect.

The potential of such systems for human well-being (which I call Com- munity)--as opposed to one-dimensional technological advance--will be realized through mechanisms which enter the conceptual processes of the individual end-user into ordering procedures. The relation between public codes, on the one hand, and individual experience, on the other, then becomes one of mutual specification, rather than hegemony of the code.

To put it another way, in terms of a determinate information resource such as a conventional data base, a query would generally be held to concern access-


ing a laid-down and finite field of knowledge. However, there is another dimen- sion to orienting with respect to such determinate resources. This is to do with bringing forth a changed appreciation of reality given the expectations of the user in a particular consensual context (i.e., their experience). As shown later in this paper, this has concrete implications and is not just some esoteric, the- oretical issue.

In sofar as this paper describes an information system--and in order to distinguish our own understanding--its focus is upon the design of an infrastructure for connectivity which encourages the flow of "observing systems" (Von Foerster, 1981b). We are not at all naive about the useful function of so- called neutral repositories for facts, but they are not our concern. What interests and drives us is preoccupation with the structure of the sort of system via which an observer realizes his or her grounding in consensuality--in other words, His- tory.

This may appear a rather grandiose claim. However, the practical path we are treading is quite modest, and the implicit underlying philosophy merely serves to act as a heuristic for the design of specific mechanisms. These aim at addressing the role of the human being and his or her individual cognitive and conceptual horizons, in the context of information technology.

The crucial design imperative arises from insight into the operational effi- cacy that results from bracketing Objectivity. Instead of robbing the individual of methodological coherence and plunging him or her into solipsism, it encourages understanding of the constitutive function of recurrent consensual coordinations of actions. Our ethical guideline is Heinz Von Foerster's imperative, " to act so as to increase the number of choices" (Von Foerster, 1981c).

4. PRECONDITION AND INTELLIGENCE- -THE EXPECTATION/ SATISFACTION LOOP

Mental phenomena are peculiar for their amorphous nature. The play of meanings, categories, associations, and so on, is generally experienced by the individual as in continuous flux, despite the weighting of stability granted by way of biological and cultural constraints (e.g., recurrence).

"Public" information resources, on the other hand, such as expert systems, data bases, academic subjects as commonly taught in our schools, ency- clopedias, bulletin boards, or advertisements, are peculiar for their determinate nature. Social and cultural impact depends upon the potential of such public resources to be utilized and exploited as formalized models of particular domains of interaction (Harnden, 1990).

What is sometimes overlooked is that the effective use of determinate information systems depends as a precondition upon the user's familiarity with and


acceptance of the conventions of the system: indeed, upon a historical coupling of interactions with respect to such a system or other members of its class.

Thus the answer to the question, "What happened in 1066?" is only obviously "The Battle of Hastings" in one particular historical and cultural context. This context must be shared by a community of observers in order for a responder to be held to manifest intelligence or understanding (because in point of fact, an indefinite number of significant events happened in the year 1066).

Similarly, "whiter than white" is an alluring advertising gimic with an effective message only in a culture already versed in the significance and advan- tage of such a paradoxical notion as "whiter than white."

The demonstration and witnessing of understanding have as their prerequisite that the domain in which a query is addressed and attended is understood and accepted as such. Failure to explicitly name such a context for the testee clouded much of the history of IQ testing (Gould, 1981).

Despite surface differences, the same thing applies for the effective use of conventional "blackboard" expert systems. Effective use requires understanding and acceptance of both the rules and language of the particular domain that is "expertised." For example, a medical diagnostic system demands an understanding of the relevance of particular queries at particular places in the software/human interaction.

To put it another way, the user must already be an expert with respect to the foundations underlying a particular determinate system. If one were to present an illiterate aborigine--or an illiterate English person, come to that--with an expert system concerning corporate strategy, it is highly unlikely that any link will be made between his/her own preconceived notions and the determinate set of relations represented and formalized by the system. The stuff just ' 'won' t make sense.' '

In other words, there is always an implicit precondition before any determinate information resource serves the function of providing expertise (that is, to inform the user). This precondition or "prejudice" (Gadamer, 1975) concerns the readiness of the user--his/her existing mindset or conceptual space. It concems fields of associations, patterns of significance arisen in the course of the unique circumstances that have shaped the history of this individual. It concerns particular understanding of needs and what constitutes his/her satis- fact ion-what I call the expectation~satisfaction loop.

5. K N O W L E D G E AND LEARNING

The design of determinate information resources sometimes ovedooks this precondition for their effective take-up, by taking for granted that access to knowledge is a neutral matter. Thus, while there has been much work on man/


machine interface (ergonomics) and screen layout (user friendliness), there has been little research on the design of the learning medium which might enable the lay person to orient more effectively with respect to disparate and discrete sources of information, or with other users expressing their needs in a diversity of ways.

Sophisticated classification systems exist which pack out particular domains of expertise in great detail, enabling multiple keyword searches and various gathering procedures. However, there is a singular absence of software tools based upon studies which have demonstrated that it is the relations of significance for the individual user that lead to closure of his/her own expectation/ satisfaction loop, rather than relations prescribed by the expert and held to carry some intrinsic objectivity or truth.

6. REFLEXIVE CONVERSATION

The ENS specifically addresses the issue of the grounding or intelligibility of information with respect to the natural horizons indicating individuality ["prejudice" (Gadamer, 1975); "multiverse" (Maturana 1988a,b)]. It does so by encouraging braiding of distinct but amorphous domains of personal concepts and experience while the entailed individuals are structurally coupled to the domain of determinate information resources in the course of their languaging. This braiding is by way of effecting a reflective conversation between two nonintersecting phenomenal domains. In 'other words, by sustaining recurrent flow of differences rather than by seeking to subsume one domain within another [for a rich and detailed description of such a process, see Pask (1975, 1984) and Pask and Gregory, 1987].

The effect of such a reflexive conversation is not to further understanding in the sense of enhancing rationality. Rather it is to encourage a particular appreciation of the functioning of language and languaging interactions.

In this context, the fixed linguistic "atoms" that make up any particular determinate information resource are understood explicitly as terms-in-use instead of as semantic carriers. In this manner, they may become orienting tools for the individual who is interacting with other individuals in a consensual domain (Maturana, 1978; Maturana and Varela 1980, 1987), including the case of the individual in a reflective or analytical mode "wi th" him- or herself as a "P ' individual" (Pask).

Thus, an ENS does not itself function as yet another "meta" determinate information resource. Rather, it acts as an indeterminate field of relations for a system whose closure is effected through the actions of the user. Such a system is enlivened by the user entering into its terms, dynamically affecting and alter- ing its relations by his/her own actions [much as Ted Nelson's (1987) "virtual reality," although in a somewhat different context].


The result is to lure the user into realizing new contexts for apparently familiar and unthought words and phrases [i.e., bedding terms in new conceptual relations, as Pask (1991) has recently described]. This leads to changed understanding of existing fields of knowledge, as well as opening insight into hitherto unfamiliar terms.

Such new contexts are neither random nor determined by the structure of the system itself. They neither encourage angst or solipsism, on the one hand, nor surreptiously constrain the user within fixed categories accessed by some algorithm put in place by the designers (as in a determinate system). Instead, the system enables the user to specify or bring forth novel contexts (i.e., conceptual configurations)--novelty which is at the same time congruent with and coherent with respect to historical horizons (i.e., a consensual domain).

This process of coherent conceptual orienting is achieved through bringing to light secondary associations of the primary associations that are consciously gathered around the user's own description of his/her needs or expectations. There is a flexible yet controlled play between acategorical (i.e., amorphous) feelings or intuitions and the public models which underlie determinate information resources in a eonsensual context.

For instance, my primary term associated with the atom "apple" might be " r ed . " Understanding or appreciation [i.e., closure of the expectation/satisfaction loop, through the relation of various nonintersecting phenomenal domains (Maturana 1988a,b)] is extended when a secondary association "William Tell" or "c ider" is attached (Pask, 1975, 1984).

These new contexts are never random or arbitrary, for they always pack out the historical flow of consensual horizons (Maturana, 1978). This is because the visible working tools of the system--in other words, its top-level language use--are self-organizing in conjunction with their take-up by a user. What is entailed is an intersection in respect of the flow of distinct consensual regions, on the one hand, and the operational coherences experienced and expressed by the individual, on the other. In this sense, the system is open as regards information, but organizationally closed.

A useful summary of the above point is the chapter "Conversational Sys- tems," which clearly describes Conversation Theory, the protolanguage Lp, THOUGHTSTICKER, and the CASTE tutorial system (Pask and Gregory, 1987).

6.1. Example

For one person, the label "higher education" may have no connotation other than "university." For another, it may signal either "adult education," "continuing education," or "training."


This difference is not a matter of accuracy or of instigating all individuals to cohere in their concepts (i.e., to agree about their appreciation of Reality). Human activity systems, in general, and the conceptual space of individual members of communities of observers, in particular, are characterized by con- stituting a "multiverse," and not some Universe (Maturana, 1988a,b). A community of observers, unlike an ant or termite colony, is noted for the variety of viewpoints out of which it emerges.

To repeat, this is not a matter of accuracy in the sense of leaming the Truth about some Objective category "Higher Education." From the point of view of the conceptual domain of the individualwho is attempting to function effectively in the course of day-to-day operational and consensual imperatives, what is required is that individual "prejudice" or bias (meaning as above) can be explicitly ennunciated in respect of some consensual domain.

This has direct bearing on the problematic nudged to light by Michel Fou- cault, variously under the headings of "disciplinary power," "a microphysics of power," and "power/knowledge" (Foucault, 1979; Gordon, 1980). The crucial point, suggesting a possible way out of the impasse implied by Fou- cault's thesis, is that when objectivity is bracketed individual significances can be positively realized in the course of interactions. They are not stifled or dis- torted by a surface accord of consensus, constantly assessed and measured against some norm.

If by "higher education" the individual intends Government Youth Train- ing Scheme (in other words, that is the concept of relevance to an individual at this moment), that is fine as long as it is clear to others (or with respect to some information system), that this IS the concept-in-use. What is operationally necessary for the closure of the expectation/satisfaction loop of the user is to be able to access information about Youth Training Schemes, in spite of the " fac t" that the initial enquiry--and indeed understanding--concerned "higher educa- t ion."

An ENS enables the satisfaction of queries emanating from such unclear or even apparently inaccurate expressions of need. It does so by focusing the attention of the users on the workings of their own conceptual processes and how these relate to visible consensual patterns. It does not demand obedience to the rules and algorithms that constitute a determinate information resource.

7. PRACTICAL ISSUES

Realization of practical ENS support entails exploration and combination of several techniques already in common use, with others less widely known. The recent availability of new hardware in a cost-effective form is also a factor.


7.1. Existing Tools

This section is addressed to the more technical reader and can be skipped by others, who can pick up the argument in the discussion of conceptual orienting (Section 7.2).

(a) ENS users must be able to register with the system from locations remote from the host hardware platform. This is currently supported well enough by modems, networking and bulletin boards.

(b) There must be provision for communication between users, the trans- fer of messages, and exchange of packages. Many current implementations of electronic mail systems support this facility, including commercial operations such as Telecom Gold.

(c) An ENS is not to be restricted to a single source supplier. In particular, it should always be possible for one ENS "node" to communicate with another. The principle for this type of support is well established in the form of facilities for communication across various networks and electronic mail systems.

(d) Each local implementation or node of the ENS can be expected to gather a data base of information concerning the interests of its registered members. Over a period of time and use, this will result in the formation of sub- data bases or communally agreed conceptual models. Such data bases may be made public or remain private to a pair or small group of "sharers ." Whichever constraint applies, access to the apposite data base can be rationally supported by use of techniques utilized for access to contemporary systems used for such purposes as company information searches, home shopping, and stock trading.

(e) In order to facilitate communication among ENS users without forcing the formality imposed by data-base retrieval languages, another type of information retrieval is required. This will enable a user to read an "art icle" (i.e., a message or document available via the system) and go into more detail or clarification on individual elements just as the felt-need arises. This type of facility is already provided by Hypercard/Hypertext systems.

7.2. Conceptual Orienting

Distinct from the types of current systems mentioned so far is the provision of a medium for what we call conceptual orienting. Frequently, a user, neither familiar with nor wishing to extend a predetermined and static set of models, seeks to interact with or orient in respect of such a determinate system. Thus may he/she discover just how his/her own "pr ivate" concepts or notions fit with "publ ic" expressions.

We describe this as a visibility of disjunction. The crucial conceptual process is opposite that indicated by Michel Foucault when describing the "tyranny of the norm" and "the gaze" (Foucault 1979; Gordon, ed., 1980). In Fou- cault's analysis, the claim of some dominant abstract norm carried deep within


the patterns of an episteme or system of rationality serves to fix and subjugate individual variety.

From the perspective of conceptual orienting, difference is what makes a difference, and difference is a prerequisite for any meaningful activity, notably for the exchange of viewpoints and understanding in the course of conversation.

Here we discover the play of consensuality. Here is the dynamic play of language-in-use, the potential for shifts in meaning and significance, the addition of new terms, changes of concepts, and the emergence of hitherto unthought interpretations.

There is an existing body of techniques for description and exploration of concepts, derived mostly from the world of Artificial Intelligence. None of these is entirely satisfactory--partly because they fail to recognize the importance of context in the relationship between terms (i.e., notation) and concepts (see Ringland and Duce, 1988). For example, the word "f lap" is used differently when denoting a state of panic than when it is used to describe part of the mechanics of an aircraft.

One of the reasons for this problem is failure to recognize the importance of conceptual orienting between individuals, as ideas are discussed and exchanged in the course of the coordinations of actions about which language gains its positivity or significance in the form of languaging (Maturana, 1978, 1988a,b; Pask, 1975, 1984, 1991).

People do not, after all, automatically arrive at a state of consensus about the meaning of a particular term or phrase. Rather, particular coordinations of actions give evidence of agreement through their recurrence. It is the norm rather than exception, that when consensus appears to have been reached later actions demonstrate that the involved individuals had in fact arrived at somewhat different understandings and conclusions about one set of statements.

The crucial point, notably in the light of Foucault's critical analysis of power ("power/knowledge"), is that conceptual orienting is only realized within the horizons of a medium that enables visibility of the distinct viewpoints in terms of which conversation sustains recurrent interactions between protagonists. This is in contradistinction to the belief that diversity might or should be folded within one outcome as consensus, or that some norm should serve as a reference point for difference. The drive is not towards institutional solidarity, but towards the coexistence of difference by the braiding of individuality in the course of coordination of actions.

In this context, conversation is understood as a play of difference, the expression of individuality. Conversation makes visible the variety of realities, enabling increasing densities of orthogonal intersection of nonintersecting phenomenal domains in the bodyhood dynamics of those participating in the languaging interaction (the biology of language and cognition--Maturana). This braiding and maintenance of variety over the course of recurrent interactions is


what signals the emergence of science, technology, knowledge, art, social complexity, and cultural diversity.

Crucially underpinning such understanding as that described above is fundamental acceptance of the reality of the individual's private "terminology" (or set of data bases), and yet the essentially indeterminate quality of such a "terminology."

With this in mind, what is required is one of two things: (1) agreement for a common language of intercommunication or (2) provision of a translating mechanism for communication from one private language to another.

The greater the number of protagonists involved in a conversational process, the more efficient it becomes to orient with respect to a common, public domain (i.e. a visible, or consensually embraced, set of marks).

Such a public domain may then be treated as a symbolic medium enabling the consensual coordination of actions through the handling of a common set of markers or terms. This is distinct from the notion that the primary function of language is as a semantic carder or the means for personal representation of Reality (in the sense of reflection, as Rorty's "mirror image of nature").

For the individual, this " common" language acts as a transducer rather than as a means to translate. Its primary function is not to reduce one set of variety to another (as consensus), but to serve as an external frame of reference by which the individual might orient him/herself and others in a flexible manner while maintaining individual integrity and identity.

Given a common medium whose continuing usage realizes a collaborative group through enabling reference for a set of recurrent interactions or behaviors, understanding of its externality addresses the nihilism of Foucault's conclusion as to the inevitability of power/knowledge in the social domain. The common medium is a field that allows the expression and recognition of difference in a manner that serves the purpose of flexible supply and demand. It is not (as in Foucault) a semantic grid, transfixing and permeating the subject as "subject- object" through the dynamics of attributed common meanings.

This is achieved by the visibility and appreciation of the extent to which the unique patterns of languaging of others (their own distinctive consensual coordinations of actions) might symptomize concepts similar to those experienced as described through one's own different language.

Accordingly, the fundamental requirement is for a mechanism that enables comparison between concepts across the barrier of language, through the provision of some common field of relations.

7.2.1. Technical The facility for supporting orientation between concepts, described through

different individuals' (or groups') knowledge representation, has been described in terms of techniques for dealing with uncertainty (e.g., Frost, 1986).


Interesting work is also being conducted by Colin Eden and his group at Strathclyde in the domain of cognitive and strategic mapping (Eden et al., 1986; Eden and Ackennann, 1989).

The most detailed and sophisticated approach to this whole area of study would still appear to be that of Pask and his team of coworkers, dating from the 1960's.

The software tools, CASTE and THOUGHTSTICKER, were constructed explicitly to cater for individual variation and the hidden or private nature of internal conceptual process. The design task was to allow space for this privacy without anticipating or directing its individual form.

At the same time, in order that learning and orientation could take place effectively and in line with operational constraints (i.e. the environment, including other individuals), a medium was needed to enable braiding with other shift- ing and indeterminate domains. Pask referred to the whole of this orienting process, which entailed the individual, learning, knowledge, aquisition, and exchange, as "conversation" (Pask 1975, 1984).

8. APPLICATIONS

A few examples should suffice to illustrate the diversity of potential clients for an ENS implementation and indicate the support for a variety of needs. This demonstration focuses upon present limits, limits which are explicitly addressed and resolved by ENS.

Comments about large organizations (governments or finns) are not intended to address the issues of organizational complexity dealt with by Staf- ford Beer and others (Beer 1979, 1981, 1985; Espejo and Harnden (eds.) 1989). The intention is to pinpoint one particular function and need, visible across a variety of social situations.

8.1. Central Government

One of the principle needs of central government is to reduce bureaucracy while ensuring effective operation through adequate coordination.

The problem is that distribution of control would appear to lead to a loss of communication, itself nurturing demotivation and inefficiency (but see Espejo and Garcia, 1984). Presently, communication--even in centralized areas of control--is supported largely by committees (respectably referred to as think-tanks) and a vast flow of paper reports through the organization.

In practice, there is a day-to-day interdependency and flow between elements of the government process. This cannot be effectively sustained by the above means alone. For example, town planners need to know about population dynamics and changing industrial trends. Industrial planners need to know about


plans for systems of transport and population dynamics. Both need to know about local govemment policies and priorities in the various regions.

Understanding of conceptual orienting, together with appreciation of the utility and validity of distinct perspectives and organizational viewpoints, would aid the braiding together of disparate strands of relevant and pertinent information gathered in terms of the user's own conceptual expectations, given their own organizational and personal growing.

This likely would lessen dependence upon cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and encourage the synergy to be gained when disparate perspectives are seen as contributing to an enriched and multidimensional flow of effective collaborative activities, rather than as striving to buttress particular viewpoints and interests as unitary representations of Reality.

8.2. Local Government

At the local government level there is a similar picture of proliferating bureaucracy in an attempt to deal with the increasing complexity of communication processes. The result is reduced flexibility and lessened effectiveness. The day-to-day nature of local government transactions may differ in scale and content, but the basic principle of recording and retrieving information from and to disparate, frequently unconnected interest groups is identical to that of central government.

Further, there is the need for the exchange of information between adjoin- ing local government regions, between local and central government. Pertinent information is frequently overlooked because it happens to be identified, researched, and produced within a different, unknown, department.

Once more, the requirement is for the expression and visibility of difference and variety--a medium for conversational exchange, which allows effective highlighting of the different interpretations of needs and pinpointing of operational skills required to satisfy them. From this visibility of difference, particular sources or stores of knowledge can be effectively assessed and utilized in a common domain of coordinations of actions.

8.3. Divisions and Departments

Similar conditions apply between sites, departments, divisions, and teams within companies. For multicompany and/or multidisciplinary teams, the matter is worse, because there are frequently problems which cross the boundaries of companies and disciplines.


8.4. Companies and Government

There is a drastic need for reappraisal of what constitutes effective exchange of information between private companies and government.

Companies seek Out the most relevant and effective regional infrastructure services, where new services are planned or have recently come on-stream. Government, on the other hand, needs to know what industry plans in the way of employment and training, investment, import/export--so that it can plan for the appropriate infrastructure improvements.

At present all this is served by still more committees and paperwork in the shape of mountains of forms and reports, often leading to massive oscillatory processes. Messages cross in transit and massive duplication and misunder- standing ensue.

In this complex of interactions, areas of difference, similarity, and com- plementarity, if ever perceived, are often lost sight of. The trees and forest become irretrievably confused.

The diversity of interests and loyal ties, instead of generating the percep- tion of potential for a complimentarity of talents and skills, leads to conflict and mistrust. Information abounds but becomes a truncheon to knock others over the head with, or an argument to berate.

There is a lack of infrastructure to make sense of this diversity of interests and vision.

8.5. Business in Locality

Interactions which take place between businesses and the immediate environment in which they function are another domain served by ENS. Electronics engineers and electricians both advertise their different services; planning con- sultants and architects advertise theirs. But who among the local populace can be sure whether his/her own needs require the service of the planning consultant or the architect?--whether the electronic engineer or the electrician.

The current service for putting customers and suppliers in contact tends to be trade directories with semiarbitrary groupings of trades and professions. Sup- pliers with spare capacity are indistinguishable from those with none. For instance, there is rarely a means of finding out whether an emergency service is supplied or whether a weekend service is available, unless you have already "plugged into" the service and explored the details of its operations. To orient effectively with respect to available resources thus implies the need for a massive memory, as well as anticipation of all future services one might require.This is clearly impractical for our day-to-day functioning.

These limitations are not inherent to the organization of business and locality. They concern problems dealing with a particular stage of development in


our understanding of the handling of diversity. Such problems are lessened by considering the problems of complexity (i.e. information variety), not in terms of ever greater taxonomies and classes in Yellow Pages and other trades directories, but with more complicated search procedures.

The alternative is to design systems that enable a user to arrive at priorities for search procedures at one removed from stored information, and, just as important, addressed by a different (a personal) structure.

8.6. Local Community

Local community is not simply a geographical area. Perhaps it is better described as a field of supportive relations which allow a certain density of communication and orientation to take place. All too often, this is dramatically missing from local regions, as we are well aware. Support groups are unrec- ognized. Individual initiatives founder because of their lack of visibility, not through lack of potential for support and financial backing. Effective buildup is often underresourced because of the lack of a means to express a felt-need or the means to relate such a personal need to the specific.

My feeling of unease if I am informed that a mother, brother, friend-- presently in a hospital environment--is dying rather than seriously ill, may not focus on the problem to be addressed. I may sense an unease in their state of mind that is out of kilter with their own experience of reality.

Perhaps I will feel that there is something amiss with the particular ward or hospital, and seek another. It is quite possible that I never realize that the problem is no longer one of skilled care in a hospital, but relates to the need for a hospice environment. Indeed, I may never discover what a hospice is.

The ENS directly serves the provision of such Community relations (Ham- den, 1991). Disparate individuals or groups with common interests, cultural, or religious ties are enabled to locate each other, arrange meetings, form ongo- ing relationships, and exchange pertinent information. Local societies or clubs are enabled to gain visibility for their potential members, audiences, and patrons.

Today, with the exception of a few scattered and discrete networks and bulletin board services, the mechanism for such local connectivity is "club calls" in the press or notice boards at the local library or in shop windows. These are very much hit-and-miss affairs, relying on one side or the other phys- ically accessing and spotting the existence of the relationship necessary before a need can be addressed by a relevant service.

If readily accessible in and publicized for a locality, the ENS would provide a common field allowing the proliferation of such information. However, it is important to recognize that the system design is such that the system does not swamp the user with unwanted variety. The relating of private conceptual expectations to public forms of representation acts to filter out unwanted infor-


mation and make visible only that information relevant to the need at hand. The expectation/satisfaction loop is maximized.

8.7. Summary

The presence of such a Community function as ENS, at whatever level of recursion--national, corporate, institutional, cooperative, local, professional, public, or voluntary--maximizes flexibility and resilience and limits bureaucratic structures to a minimum. Instead there is participation and increased visibility of relevant information. Such information does not become trapped by red tape, nor is it swamped by a mass of irrelevant information--by "noise ."

For instance, publication of notices in the local press of controversial pieces of planning is frequently linked with limitation on time available to lodge objec- tions, in order to get some measure through with minimum argument and participation. The provision of a linked ENS would ensure that the user with local interests and priorities would be informed automatically of any action which might affect an area of interest he/she has declared. This interest would then have the space to be developed and communicated to other parties, at any level of expansion given the degree of interest in other localities or domains, as these resonnate throughout the global ENS relations.

The above examples are not intended to suggest instances which could be wholly solved through the ENS. Indeed, the strength of the system is not to provide solutions, but provision of a network of connectivity. Such an infrastructure is necessary before any sort of actual effective and democrative social process can emerge from the variety of interests that constitute any society.

9. CONCLUSION

Whereas determinate systems concern words and labels, related according to preset functions prescribed and put in place by their designer, ENS concern a medium for the expression, reflection upon, and exchange of concepts. Such concepts are to do with the intention of the users, to do with their own expectation and understanding in using a particular word or phrase. They are not dependent upon some external standard of accuracy or upon some objective criterion of intelligence, both of which are descriptive statements by an observer of a behavior, judged with respect to that observer's own expectations (Matur- ana, 1985; Maturana and Guiloff, 1980).

In practical terms, this leads to an immensely flexible approach to problem situations. Such situations are now understood as environments which open the possibility for concept building, rather than as one-way streets whose demand is for surrender to the prescribed solution for the prescribed problem [a similar point is made by Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd and underlies the dis-


tinction between "conversations for action" and "conversations for possibili- t ies" inherent in Action Technologies' software tool COORDINATOR (Winograd and Flores, 1986; Action Technologies, California)].

In addition to enabling the user to relate to the relevant determinate source of information, through encouraging the " f i t " or "dance" of amorphous conceptual processes with a consensual domain, an ENS also serves to relate the individual user to other users. Different users are encouraged to overcome the barriers which so frequently arise in the course of ordinary conversations, when words-in-use are unknowingly attributed different and incompatible meanings between protagonists.

This is achieved because within the context of the ENS, the words-in-use are no longer required to be taken at their face value for the user to orient effectively about a consensual space. The client is encouraged to focus upon the associative values underlying a particular personal usage of a word or phrase and, in this manner, to discover the relation of his/her own private concept with some public one (i.e., other individuals). Thus one might talk of a "social support system" (Pask, 1990).

This does not entail giving up or inhibiting the richness of conceptual processes, as is the case for unthought use of determinate information resources or, indeed, when we treat other humans as part of determinate processes. It is a move away from the naive assumption that words or phrases-in-use serve the purpose of conveying some Objective meaning, just because they are the same set of signifiers that everyone else uses (in a particular consensual context).

Values and meaning can now be understood as a function of personal insight into the complementary nature of the multiplicity of concepts, in the course of significant interactions in a community of other individuals ["the conceptual process" (Pask, 1991); "multiverse" (Maturana, 1988a,b)]. They are not han- dled as if they were neutral, inevitable, or expert-defined Truths, before which individual variety is expected to surrender.

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