Kristo Ivanov
Encyclopedia
Kristo Ivanov is a Swedish-Brazilian information scientist
and systems scientist of ethnic Bulgarian origin. He is professor emeritus at the Department of informatics of Umeå University in Sweden.
and Stockholm University
. Further studies in political economy, business administration, statistics, and a degree in psychology at Lund University
His study led to positions at Stockholm University
and Linköping University
. In 1984 he was appointed to a chair as full professor of informatics at Umeå University
. He is professor emeritus since 2002.
From 1991 to 2004 he was scientific advisor to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen). In 1997 he was "president elect" of ISSS, the International Society for the Systems Sciences
, a position which he later had to relinquish because of other demanding duties.
It is the issue of accuracy and precision of data bases as they are related to system development and maintenance, where the systems approach in done in terms of socially framed technical systems, conceived as a further development of the "Berkeley school" in the tradition of professor C. West Churchman
.
The following are some notable ideas in Ivanov's work which eventually lead to ethical and theological organizational issues with consequences for practical applications. In order to clarify these ideas they will be illustrated with references to Ivanov's own work and to literature upon which it relies.
, and its elusive but extremely important concept of error, in order to make them applicable in technical systems which are framed in a social context. Quality of data is then seen as the degree of agreement between judgments of data obtained after periodical monitored negotiations in the context of maximum possible disagreement. For this purpose the definition of data itself, i.e. data elements and data structures in a systems context, was widened to conceive data as information and knowledge.
This part of Ivanov's work parallels, and can be seen as a theoretical contribution to the wisdom of crowds and the Wiki-idea itself, It required, however, some reservations for problems of social psychology as implied by the study of popular mind. Its conclusions appear to be relevant also for general data quality
, information quality
, accuracy and precision
, and control of control, the theoretical framework for democratic security and auditing of audit
whose importance become obvious in times of financial and political crisis when systemic concepts of effectiveness and progress are put into question. In particular, the concept of quality-control of information contributed to the theoretical base of the so called Scandinavian school of participatory design
by anchoring the politically and ideologically motivated action research which flourished in the seventies to a secure scientific conception of information and systems.
This early work was supposed to be completed with a comprehensive research program on the essence of computers seen as a capital-intensive industrial embodiment of the formal sciences of logic, mathematics, and geometry. The purpose was to grasp the why and the whither of the formalization of society which is hidden under an aestheticist mask of audiovisual and tactile graphical interfaces and smart human-computer interaction. One main question was whether you should care about what is presupposed and what happens when you press the button, the keyboard's tangent, or touch the screen, while innocently assuming that you are just communicating or interacting
. Or is it a matter of naively understood trust? The research program could not be realized except for the production and survey of an extensive bibliography which was made available to the research community.
in the Kantian tradition, participatory design
or co-design
in the liberal tradition, conflict in the Marxian tradition or, lately, phenomenological and post-phenomenological postmodernism (and perspectivism
, as in postmodern philosophy
), social networks, actor-network theory
(and its "non-modernism"), and design
aestheticism.
Together with data quality, hypersystems aimed at offering a theoretical basis for understanding participation and "users" in systems development or maintenance. Hypersystems were intended to be developed into a computerizable structuring tool to foster reflexivity, empathy and negotiation among designers and various problematic types of users who do not see themselves and others primarily as citizens, and are not always able to engage in a supposedly democratic, rational argumentation. Common examples are often found in realistic and emotionally loaded economic, political, and military environments. An extreme example is the attitude "I don't argue, I shoot", and so called madness or its milder but most treacherous and common forms such as borderline personality disorder
, which is a legitimate province of psychoanalysis
and analytical psychology
. In this respect the research efforts tend in the direction of psychology including social psychology, reminding that, along with the philosophy of science, it evolved out of philosophy. These problems are known to lead to issues which are exceedingly complex and unsolvable for those who insist in working, for instance, in a Kantian and Habermasian tradition of pure and practical reason eschewing, however, their controversial integration with aesthetics (Kant's famous third critique, of judgement), and affectivity.
and protection of privacy, apparently based on liberal bureaucracy for authorization into a trusted system
, lead to an escalation of protection measures and attack countermeasures, and ultimately to violence or, again, to "I don't argue, I shoot". The principles of hypersystems satisfy the need for a reconciling democratic negotiation and disarmament as monitored by an openly accounted degree of legitimate disagreement or tolerance of error: the heart of diplomacy
in "agree to disagree". Ivanov exposes the problem of political power as related to privacy or personal integrity, freedom of speech
, rule of law
, and ethics, where the clash between privacy and security, supposedly mediated by participatory practices, portrays in terms of political science a fruitless and hopeless clash between socialist and liberal ideologies which lack a "vertical" spiritual dimension. All this is a revival of the research concerns in the early seventies for the impact of Information technology on privacy, democracy, and ultimately on human rights
, concerns which seem to have been obliterated by technological innovations such as personal computers and Internet, by the September 11 attacks, by the USA PATRIOT Act
and related responses in other countries. There seems to be, however, a symptomatic shortage of computer-oriented research publications in this area since the end of the eighties, while there is some surveillance of the political arena by nongovernmental organizations. Through the concept of justice and its problematization in philosophy of law, and in the context of not only privacy and integrity but, for instance, also restorative justice
and forgiveness
it is possible to perceive why Ivanov's work bridges over to theology and religion.
or its controversial historical and theological roots. Ivanov is convinced of the necessity of an explicit relation between theology and ethics in systems philosophy and practice, in order to avoid that technology remains an "excuse for questionable ethics" in the computer-supported edutainment
and financial games of affluent societies.
Information scientist
The term information scientist developed in the latter part of the twentieth century to describe an individual, usually with a relevant subject degree or high level of subject knowledge, providing focused information to scientific and technical research staff in industry, a role quite distinct from...
and systems scientist of ethnic Bulgarian origin. He is professor emeritus at the Department of informatics of Umeå University in Sweden.
Biography
He was born in 1937 in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, grew up and was educated in Italy and Brazil. In 1961 he moved to Sweden where he worked as electronic engineer in the telecommunications and computer industries, with assignments in France and the USA. In 1972 he obtained a Ph.D. degree in informatics at the Department of computer and systems sciences of the Royal Institute of TechnologyRoyal Institute of Technology
The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...
and Stockholm University
Stockholm University
Stockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
. Further studies in political economy, business administration, statistics, and a degree in psychology at Lund University
Lund University
Lund University , located in the city of Lund in the province of Scania, Sweden, is one of northern Europe's most prestigious universities and one of Scandinavia's largest institutions for education and research, frequently ranked among the world's top 100 universities...
His study led to positions at Stockholm University
Stockholm University
Stockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
and Linköping University
Linköping University
Linköping University is a state university in Linköping, Sweden. Linköping University was granted full university status in 1975 and is now one of Sweden's larger academic institutions. Education, research and PhD training are the mission of four faculties: Arts and Sciences, Educational...
. In 1984 he was appointed to a chair as full professor of informatics at Umeå University
Umeå University
Umeå University is a university in Umeå in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present borders....
. He is professor emeritus since 2002.
From 1991 to 2004 he was scientific advisor to the National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen). In 1997 he was "president elect" of ISSS, the International Society for the Systems Sciences
International Society for the Systems Sciences
The International Society for the Systems Sciences is a world-wide organization for systems sciences.- Overview :The initial purpose of the society was "to encourage the development of theoretical systems which are applicable to more than one of the traditional departments of knowledge."The idea...
, a position which he later had to relinquish because of other demanding duties.
Work
In his research and teaching Ivanov focused initially on the application of systems theory to information systems and especially on practical problems of quality-control of information in industrial data bases.It is the issue of accuracy and precision of data bases as they are related to system development and maintenance, where the systems approach in done in terms of socially framed technical systems, conceived as a further development of the "Berkeley school" in the tradition of professor C. West Churchman
C. West Churchman
Charles West Churchman was an American philosopher and systems scientist, who was Professor at the School of Business Administration and Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley...
.
The following are some notable ideas in Ivanov's work which eventually lead to ethical and theological organizational issues with consequences for practical applications. In order to clarify these ideas they will be illustrated with references to Ivanov's own work and to literature upon which it relies.
Quality-control of information
This was the subject of the doctoral dissertation. It resulted in widened definitions of information accuracy and precision that are grounded in the philosophy of science, especially theory of measurement or metrologyMetrology
Metrology is the science of measurement. Metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement. The word comes from Greek μέτρον , "measure" + "λόγος" , amongst others meaning "speech, oration, discourse, quote, study, calculation, reason"...
, and its elusive but extremely important concept of error, in order to make them applicable in technical systems which are framed in a social context. Quality of data is then seen as the degree of agreement between judgments of data obtained after periodical monitored negotiations in the context of maximum possible disagreement. For this purpose the definition of data itself, i.e. data elements and data structures in a systems context, was widened to conceive data as information and knowledge.
This part of Ivanov's work parallels, and can be seen as a theoretical contribution to the wisdom of crowds and the Wiki-idea itself, It required, however, some reservations for problems of social psychology as implied by the study of popular mind. Its conclusions appear to be relevant also for general data quality
Data quality
Data are of high quality "if they are fit for their intended uses in operations, decision making and planning" . Alternatively, the data are deemed of high quality if they correctly represent the real-world construct to which they refer...
, information quality
Information quality
Information quality is a term to describe the quality of the content of information systems. It is often pragmatically defined as: "The fitness for use of the information provided."- Conceptual problems :...
, accuracy and precision
Accuracy and precision
In the fields of science, engineering, industry and statistics, the accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to that quantity's actual value. The precision of a measurement system, also called reproducibility or repeatability, is the degree to which...
, and control of control, the theoretical framework for democratic security and auditing of audit
Audit
The general definition of an audit is an evaluation of a person, organization, system, process, enterprise, project or product. The term most commonly refers to audits in accounting, but similar concepts also exist in project management, quality management, and energy conservation.- Accounting...
whose importance become obvious in times of financial and political crisis when systemic concepts of effectiveness and progress are put into question. In particular, the concept of quality-control of information contributed to the theoretical base of the so called Scandinavian school of participatory design
Participatory design
Participatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...
by anchoring the politically and ideologically motivated action research which flourished in the seventies to a secure scientific conception of information and systems.
This early work was supposed to be completed with a comprehensive research program on the essence of computers seen as a capital-intensive industrial embodiment of the formal sciences of logic, mathematics, and geometry. The purpose was to grasp the why and the whither of the formalization of society which is hidden under an aestheticist mask of audiovisual and tactile graphical interfaces and smart human-computer interaction. One main question was whether you should care about what is presupposed and what happens when you press the button, the keyboard's tangent, or touch the screen, while innocently assuming that you are just communicating or interacting
Interaction
Interaction is a kind of action that occurs as two or more objects have an effect upon one another. The idea of a two-way effect is essential in the concept of interaction, as opposed to a one-way causal effect...
. Or is it a matter of naively understood trust? The research program could not be realized except for the production and survey of an extensive bibliography which was made available to the research community.
Hypersystems
This was a further development of the concept of social systems of the Berkeley school mentioned above, with the intent to prevent that its applications in systems design be reductively transformed into other approaches such as communicative actionCommunicative action
Communicative action is a concept associated with the German philosopher-sociologist Jürgen Habermas. Habermas uses this concept to describe cooperative action undertaken by individuals based upon mutual deliberation and argumentation...
in the Kantian tradition, participatory design
Participatory design
Participatory design is an approach to design attempting to actively involve all stakeholders in the design process in order to help ensure the product designed meets their needs and is usable. The term is used in a variety of fields e.g...
or co-design
Co-Design
Co-design is a philosophy in the American pragmatist tradition, which argues that all people have different ideals and perspectives and that any design process needs to deal with this. Co-Design traces its roots to Immanuel Kant, who in the Critique of the Pure Reason observed that to put a...
in the liberal tradition, conflict in the Marxian tradition or, lately, phenomenological and post-phenomenological postmodernism (and perspectivism
Perspectivism
Perspectivism is the philosophical view developed by Friedrich Nietzsche that all ideations take place from particular perspectives. This means that there are many possible conceptual schemes, or perspectives in which judgment of truth or value can be made...
, as in postmodern philosophy
Postmodern philosophy
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical direction which is critical of the foundational assumptions and structures of philosophy. Beginning as a critique of Continental philosophy, it was heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism and existentialism, including writings of Georg Wilhelm...
), social networks, actor-network theory
Actor-network theory
Actor–network theory, often abbreviated as ANT, is a distinctive approach to social theory and research which originated in the field of science studies...
(and its "non-modernism"), and design
Design
Design as a noun informally refers to a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system while “to design” refers to making this plan...
aestheticism.
Together with data quality, hypersystems aimed at offering a theoretical basis for understanding participation and "users" in systems development or maintenance. Hypersystems were intended to be developed into a computerizable structuring tool to foster reflexivity, empathy and negotiation among designers and various problematic types of users who do not see themselves and others primarily as citizens, and are not always able to engage in a supposedly democratic, rational argumentation. Common examples are often found in realistic and emotionally loaded economic, political, and military environments. An extreme example is the attitude "I don't argue, I shoot", and so called madness or its milder but most treacherous and common forms such as borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder
Borderline personality disorder is a personality disorder described as a prolonged disturbance of personality function in a person , characterized by depth and variability of moods.The disorder typically involves unusual levels of instability in mood; black and white thinking, or splitting; the...
, which is a legitimate province of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
and analytical psychology
Analytical psychology
Analytical psychology is the school of psychology originating from the ideas of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. His theoretical orientation has been advanced by his students and other thinkers who followed in his tradition. Though they share similarities, analytical psychology is distinct from...
. In this respect the research efforts tend in the direction of psychology including social psychology, reminding that, along with the philosophy of science, it evolved out of philosophy. These problems are known to lead to issues which are exceedingly complex and unsolvable for those who insist in working, for instance, in a Kantian and Habermasian tradition of pure and practical reason eschewing, however, their controversial integration with aesthetics (Kant's famous third critique, of judgement), and affectivity.
Security
Data quality together with hypersystems led further to a new view of problematic issues of administrative and statistical information systems as also observed by other systems scientists, and statisticians. Measures for securitySecurity
Security is the degree of protection against danger, damage, loss, and crime. Security as a form of protection are structures and processes that provide or improve security as a condition. The Institute for Security and Open Methodologies in the OSSTMM 3 defines security as "a form of protection...
and protection of privacy, apparently based on liberal bureaucracy for authorization into a trusted system
Trusted system
In the security engineering subspecialty of computer science, a trusted system is a system that is relied upon to a specified extent to enforce a specified security policy...
, lead to an escalation of protection measures and attack countermeasures, and ultimately to violence or, again, to "I don't argue, I shoot". The principles of hypersystems satisfy the need for a reconciling democratic negotiation and disarmament as monitored by an openly accounted degree of legitimate disagreement or tolerance of error: the heart of diplomacy
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
in "agree to disagree". Ivanov exposes the problem of political power as related to privacy or personal integrity, freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, rule of law
Rule of law
The rule of law, sometimes called supremacy of law, is a legal maxim that says that governmental decisions should be made by applying known principles or laws with minimal discretion in their application...
, and ethics, where the clash between privacy and security, supposedly mediated by participatory practices, portrays in terms of political science a fruitless and hopeless clash between socialist and liberal ideologies which lack a "vertical" spiritual dimension. All this is a revival of the research concerns in the early seventies for the impact of Information technology on privacy, democracy, and ultimately on human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, concerns which seem to have been obliterated by technological innovations such as personal computers and Internet, by the September 11 attacks, by the USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
and related responses in other countries. There seems to be, however, a symptomatic shortage of computer-oriented research publications in this area since the end of the eighties, while there is some surveillance of the political arena by nongovernmental organizations. Through the concept of justice and its problematization in philosophy of law, and in the context of not only privacy and integrity but, for instance, also restorative justice
Restorative justice
Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims, offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing the offender...
and forgiveness
Forgiveness
Forgiveness is typically defined as the process of concluding resentment, indignation or anger as a result of a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines forgiveness as 'to grant free pardon and to give up all...
it is possible to perceive why Ivanov's work bridges over to theology and religion.
Cultural criticism
In later years the emphasis switched to the furthering of systems thinking in face of perceived cultural decline of society, with emphasis on universities and research. This is cultural criticism of inadequate uses of the system concept as well as criticism of some modern and postmodern trends in research and development of computer applications, under labels such as critical theory, phenomenology, design, or sheer eclectic ad-hoc theoretical frameworks. Ivanov perceives that they are often misused to downplay not only economic and political realities but also, and mainly, ethical concerns. His criticism follows from his summarizing statement about the future of the systems approach and its limitations when technology and science lead to philosophy, and further to ethics and theology. Therefore, as emeritus, Ivanov pursues research on current trends of informatics and science to be explained or countered by an understanding of the interface between information, philosophy of technology, and theology. In this respect, and except for his adduction of theology which he shares with West Churchman, Ivanov may be seen as working along a stream of earlier criticism of the ideology of computer culture. Such ideology can be seen as obviously rooted in earlier trends subsumed under the label "technocracy and the American dream", and in the still earlier French revolution., the Age of EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
or its controversial historical and theological roots. Ivanov is convinced of the necessity of an explicit relation between theology and ethics in systems philosophy and practice, in order to avoid that technology remains an "excuse for questionable ethics" in the computer-supported edutainment
Edutainment
Edutainment is a form of entertainment designed to educate as well as to amuse.-Overview:...
and financial games of affluent societies.
Publications
Ivanov published numerous articles and a few books, a selection:- 1972. Quality-control of information: On the concept of accuracy of information in data banks and in management information systems. The University of Stockholm and The Royal Institute of Technology. Doctoral dissertation.
- 1989. "Computer applications and organizational disease". In C. W. Churchman (Ed.), The well-being of organizations (pp. 283–312). Salinas, Calif.: Intersystems.
- 1991. "Critical systems thinking and information technology". In: J. of Applied Systems Analysis, 18, 39-55. Original research report.
- 1992. Proceedings of the 14th IRIS: Rev. papers of the 14th information systems research seminar in Scandinavia. Umeå-Lövånger, 11–14 August 1991. Umeå: Umeå University - Inst. of Information Processing. (ISSN 0282-0579.)
- 1993. "Hypersystems: A base for specification of computer-supported self-learning social systems". In C. M. Reigeluth, B. H. Banathy, & J. R. Olson (Eds.), Comprehensive systems design: A new educational technology (pp. 381–407). New York: Springer-Verlag. (NATO ASI Series F: Computer and Systems Sciences, Vol 95.)
- 1995. "A subsystem in the design of informatics: Recalling an archetypal engineer". In B. Dahlbom (Ed.), The infological equation: Essays in honor of Börje Langefors (pp. 287–301). Gothenburg: Gothenburg University, Dept. of Informatics (ISSN 1101-7422).
- 1996. "Presuppositions in information systems design: From systems to networks and contexts? Accounting". In: Management and Information Technologies, renamed Information & Organization, 5, 99-114.
- 1996. "Future foundations of inquiring systems: Reformed pragmatism or spirituality?" In J. M. Carey (Ed.), Proc. of the AIS Americas Conference on Information Systems, August 16–18, 1996, Phoenix, Arizona, USA (pp. 829–831). Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Katz Graduate School of Business, Pittsburgh, PA
- 2000. "Platonic information technology. Reading Plato: Cultural influences and philosophical reflection on information and technology. In: Proc. of ISTAS 2000, IEEE Int. Symposium on Technology and Society, 6–8 September 2000, Rome, Italy (pp. 163-168).
- 2001. "The systems approach to design, and inquiring information systems: Scandinavian experiences and proposed research program". In: Information Systems Frontiers, 3(1), 7-18.
- 2006. "Whither computers and systems?" In: J. Bubenko, et all. (Eds.), ICT for people: 40 years of academic development in Stockholm. pp. 125–134.