Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 7.9.
thoughtsticker. source: g. Pask, “organizational closure of Poten-
tially conscious systems,” in m. zeleny (ed.),
Autopoiesis: A Theory of the Living
(New york: North holland, 1981), 269, fig. 1.
importance in sustaining him and System Research, but I am going to give
them relatively short shrift here. The reason for this is that much of the tech-
nical development in this area circled around the problematic of representing
articulated knowledge within a machine, and that is not a key problematic of
this topic. Pask quickly arrived at the position that bodies of knowledge con-
sist of sets of concepts related to one another in what he called an “entailment
mesh” (Pask and Scott 1973) an idea which was itself central to what he called
“Conversation Theory” and later to his “Interaction of Actors” theory (Pask
1992). I leave it to others to explore the historical evolution of this aspect
of Pask's work, set out in three topics (Pask 1975a, 1975b, 1976a) and many
