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JAIST Repository https://dspace.jaist.ac.jp/ Title A Vision of New Era of Knowledge Civilization Author(s) Kameoka, Akio; Andrzej, P. Wierzbicki Citation Issue Date 2005-11 Type Conference Paper Text version publisher URL http://hdl.handle.net/10119/3834 Rights ⓒ2005 JAIST Press The original publication is available at JAIST Press http://www.jaist.ac.jp/library/jaist- press/index.html, IFSR 2005 : Proceedings of the First World Congress of the International Description Federation for Systems Research : The New Roles of Systems Sciences For a Knowledge-based Society : Nov. 14-17, 2044, Kobe, Japan, Symposium 6, Session 1 : Vision of Knowledge Civilization Future of Knowledge Civilization Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology A Vision of New Era of Knowledge Civilization Akio Kameoka (*), Andrzej P. Wierzbicki (*,**) (*) JAIST (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology); (**) NIT (National Institute of Telecommunications, Poland) [email protected] ; [email protected] ABSTRACT However, most other aspects of this development are uncertain and have diverse interpretations. Moreover, After stressing the importance of having a vision on the much of what was published on this subject is related to verge of the new era of knowledge civilization, we turn to marketing or political hype, or to unfounded optimism concepts and ideas leading to a cultural platform, that new technology will automatically solve all old meaning the set of fundamental concepts essential for problems. understanding the world in the new era. Then we turn to current perceptions about the nature of the new era and Yet we feel that an informed and objective vision of the address the essential part of the vision: what problems of new era of knowledge civilization is needed. Because of humanity should we solve (and how we could solve them). the property of globalization of this new civilization, such We then discuss the main megatrends of the new era, the an informed vision is needed for all people of our world, socio-economic impact of digital and network many of whom are uncertain, distrustful, divided technologies, the main predictable conflicts of the coming politically and not ready to accept marketing or political era, the main stages of the coming era and our essential hype and – in developing countries – suspicious of what obligations. they see as attempts to intensify the existing domination of developed countries. People deserve, however, to know Keywords: knowledge civilization era, informational both risks and opportunities that might come with revolution, megatrends of new era, complexity change, reasonable certainty as the result of the developments of management of technology, management and systems knowledge civilization. science, dangers and conflicts of knowledge era We are aware of the trends in sociology and philosophy that deny the importance and possibility of objective 1. INTRODUCTION judgements. We have learned in technology to construct new reality, to create big technological systems, but this The starting era of knowledge civilization is known also is not done arbitrarily, we also have learned to greatly under many other names postindustrial, information, value the attempt to make knowledge as objective as postcapitalist, informational, networked etc. society. possible. Without this dedication to objectivity as a goal , However, this is a civilization era, a long duration we could not develop travel technology – railways, cars, historical structure, thus it is necessary to create a vision airplanes – and telecommunications – stationary of this era, outlining the chances of solving humanity’s telephony, television, mobile telephony, and the Internet. current problems, but also noting the diverse dangers and threats resulting from the main megatrends of this era. Thus, we feel that an objective vision of the new civilization era, though it must be interdisciplinary and There is a voluminous literature on the subject of the include some aspects of philosophy, history, sociology, information society and the current informational economics, should be attempted by researchers whose revolution. A thoughtful book of A. Mattelart [1] quotes background is technological and systemic. We thus aim to over 270 publications on this subject, and this excludes apply what we know about management and systems the more technical ones, see, e.g., [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. In sciences, about interdisciplinary rational enquiry, to this voluminous literature, there are diverse views and a obtain a synthetic but as objective as possible vision of universally accepted, slowly evolving core. the era of knowledge civilization. There is universal agreement that we are living in 2. CONCEPTS LEADING TO THE CULTURAL times of an informational revolution and this PLATFORM OF NEW CIVILIZATION ERA revolution leads to a new civilization era, in which knowledge plays an even more important role than We could start very early in the history of the concept of just information, thus the new epoch might be called information society, as in [1]: from Bacon, Pascal, knowledge civilization era. Leibnitz, Newton, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Boole. Many thinkers over a long time contributed to the first However, the way of perceiving the world during a conception of such a computer – given by Babbage in civilization era is defined by its cultural platform – see [5] 1832 – and eventually to the construction of first analog – that consists of basic concepts and ideas that are usually computer by V. Bush in 1932, followed by the first digital formed before this era or in its beginning stages. 1 Before computer (the principles formulated by A. Turing, 1936, Watt we had Newton and the French encyclopedists; actual construction in the USA during the Second World before the Internet we had Einstein and many scientists War, Univac I given to civil use in US Bureau of that contributed to essentially new concepts that shaped Statistics in 1951). These tremendous delays would have the cultural platform, the way of perceiving the world been even longer, had it not been for the demand of typical for the new civilization era. While often most military and later space applications. Similarly, the attention is given to writers popular in the media, development of telecommunications, starting first with sociologists or futurologists – Innis [8], McLuhan [9], electrical telegraphy (developed since 1837) and later Bell [10], Masuda [11], Toffler [12], who contributed stationary telephony, much later mobile telephony etc., greatly to the popularization of the concept of change of was characterized by similar delays and accelerations. cultural era – more important are the concepts developed in 20 th Century science and technology that contributed to These two developments – of telecommunications and of the new perception of the world. computers – although important, did not themselves determine the coming of the new civilization era. The first of such concepts came from physics: from Telecommunications was stuck for a long time on the Einstein – the concept of relativity of time; from Bohr and level of classical stationary telephony; computers were his group – the concept of quantum theory, denying the giant machines that could be used only by specialized infinite divisibility of matter and at the same time personnel. Such was the situation until around 1980, when showing that the same particle can be equally well two parallel developments – of computer networks and of described as a corpuscle and as a wave; from Heisenberg personal computers – brought digital information – the indetermination principle, showing that the act of technology potentially to every home in the world. Both measuring influences the results of measurement, thus developments are slightly older, but broad civil use of the uncertainty cannot be diminished below certain value. All Internet started with the definition of its seven ISO/OSI these concepts date from the beginning of 20 th Century layers and TCP/IP protocols just around 1980, which by and contributed to relativism and pluralism, which had chance paralleled the development of the first personal full impact on philosophy at the end of the century; they computers. With Internet and personal computers, the were integrated into technological and informational broad social use of digital information technology was sciences much earlier. These physical concepts are much enabled. better known and popularized in the media than some other concepts coming from technology that also have The issues of periodization – the determination of changed our way of understanding the world. We shall historical dates defining certain historical eras – are best therefore discuss some of these concepts developed by the decided by historians. Therefore, we follow here the technological and informational sciences in more detail. example of F. Braudel [7] that defined the long duration preindustrial era of the beginnings of capitalism, of print Soon after the new concepts in physics other new and geographic discoveries, as starting in 1440 with concepts originated from telecommunication technology. Gutenberg (promotion of broad applications of printing H. Nyquist [13] and others, as early as 1930, studied the press), and ending in 1760 with Watt (possibility of broad concept of feedback – the circular impact of the time- applications of steam engines); this started the next, stream of results of an action on its time-stream of causes industrial era. Note that neither were new