Ladies and Gentlemen, Let I first introduce myself. I am Ben van Lier and I work for Centric, a privately owned Dutch ICT company, as Director Strategy & Innovation. In this role my focus is on analysing the promising developments for Centric and its clients, with a particular emphasis on Europe. At the end of 2013, I have been appointed as a Professor at the Steinbeis University in Berlin. Interesting about this University is that it is named after Ferdinand Steinbeis, a German entrepreneur which was also a technical advisor, director and chairman of the headquarter for trade and commerce from 1848 until 1880 within the Kingdom of Württemberg. Steinbeis is also known as one of the founding fathers of dual Training a development about which he notes: "Industrial workers of the future depend upon theoretical knowledge combined with practical skills." How actual, history can be. Next to my work for Centric I will participate in Research, do some Lecturing and above all I will go on publishing in Berlin. My main subjects of research are philosophy of science, systems theory, interoperability of information and network-centric thinking now also known as the network centric approach. However the question is: what can a Dutchman working for a Dutch/European ICT company contribute to innovation and knowledge development in Germany? Perhaps the most honest answer is that the subjects with which I am professionally and scientifically involved happen to be independent of place or country and are thus relevant as a scientific and industrial development nearly all over the world. The developments I am referring to here are all related to the massive technological revolution which we are undergoing as people, organisations and society and which determine our daily life and work more and more. We do not often reflect on this fact, but over the past 20 years our world has radically changed as a result of computers, the Internet and the mobile phone. The possibility to exchange and share information on the Internet, regardless of place and time, has produced new applications in the past 10 years, such as social media and the smartphone, for example. All these new technological applications, connections and the exchanging and sharing of information have not only fundamentally changed us as people, but also our organisations and our society. And the end of these changes is not yet in sight. More new technological developments are emerging from the combination of nano, bio and cognitive technology combined with ICT, also known as converging technologies. Such new combinations enable us to fundamentally change physical or organic material, to add information to material or Prof. Dr. Ben van Lier Page 1 of 6 Centric / Steinbeis University Berlijn
components and by means of network interfaces and software to collect, communicate, analyse and visualise huge volumes of data. The information thus generated can then be used to facilitate decisions by man or machine. A new phenomenological question which is arising from these technological developments, for example, concerns the fact that these are technologies which are invisible for us as people and which cannot be consciously perceived. Whether we want it or not, new technological possibilities not only now allow us to intervene in physical elements but also in organisms or man himself. This process of ongoing technologicalisation thus increasingly has an impact on our being as humans. Without always being aware of this fact, we are becoming more and more part of a process in which man, organisations and society as a whole are merging with technology. I often refer to this process of convergence as the process of hybridising man, organisation and society with technology. These increasingly intimate relationships prompted philosopher Rosi Braidotti to assert that: The relationship between the human and the technological other has shifted in the contemporary context, to reach unprecedented degrees of intimacy and intrusion. (2013:89) I think that we can consider the process of hybridisation and the increasingly intimate relationship between man and technology as a new phenomenon in the development of modern man on the way to shaping the post human. However, the process of hybridisation has been continuing for several decades and is thus irreversible. Slowly but surely, we will therefore have to accept that we live and work as post humans in networks shared with technological applications. In order to obtain more scientific insight into the increasingly intensive relationship between man and technology and the subsequent question of being, I use for my research into this new phenomena the postphenomenology formulated by the American philosopher Don Ihde which he calls: a modified hybrid phenomenology. (2009:23). According to Ihde, postphenomenology mainly targets: the role of technologies in social, personal and cultural life that it undertakes by concrete studies of technologies in the plural (2009:23). Ladies and Gentleman, I accept the emergence and development of such a new hybrid world, which I feel is the first condition for being able to observe, analyse and describe this process. I am convinced that only when we accept this process of hybridisation as a fact will we humans be able to take up new positions in this postmodern network society dominated by technology. For me, this society consists of a system of interrelated networks in which people and objects naturally exchange and share and attribute meaning to this information. Attributed meaning forms the basis for awareness or consciousness, which in turn ensures that we are able to take decisions that will lead to further action or activities. In this postmodern network society, we transfer more and more responsibilities to interrelated technological applications while human responsibilities, such as in healthcare, are increasingly subject to question, as referred to by American scientist Insup Lee (2010). Prof. Dr. Ben van Lier Page 2 of 6 Centric / Steinbeis University Berlijn
In my opinion the essence of the process of hybridisation is formed by the ability to exchange and share information between people, between machines and between people and machines. The available information forms the basis for interactions, meaning, decisions and will result in new actions and activities. The new, information-based interrelationships and the resulting (inter)actions create a high degree of complexity in this new and hybrid system. For biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy, this complexity was the reason to claim that an interrelated whole is more than the sum of the separate parts. In my view, the starting points formulated by von Bertalanffy for a general systems theory, still form an excellent basis for scientific research into new complex and hybrid systems as these emerge and are being shaped in the previously mentioned process of hybridisation. The systems theory is based on a more organic approach to complex issues and developments and for decades has addressed issues concerning interconnections and the resulting (inter)actions, regardless of whether these actions involve human, organic or technological components or random combinations. An interesting point is that many of the scientists who studied the development of systems theory in the early years were actually looking for a joint scientific basis as an answer to the, even then, ongoing fragmentation of knowledge development. In her excellent study into the history and development of systems theory, Deborah Hammond expresses this ambition as: to build bridges across the ever widening chasms between the various ways of understanding our world, developing a new paradigm for scientific research that would cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and provide models for integrating the physical, biological, psychological, and social sciences (2010:10). An ambition which I feel has lost none of its relevance today. As I mentioned earlier, networks form the basis for postmodern society. Networks enable us to be connected regardless of time and place and, based on these connections, to exchange and share information with anyone or anything we choose. The ability to exchange and share information between people, between machines and between any people and machines in these networks is also known as interoperability of information. I define interoperability of information as: the realisation of mutual connections between two or more systems or entities to enable systems and entities to exchange and share information in order to further act, function or produce on the principles of that information. My definition of Interoperability of Information is based on the ideas of the German sociologist Nicolaas Luhmann. The starting points he formulated in his social system theory still form the scientific basis for my research into interoperability of information An approach to producing and organising components, machines, products, and factories linked in networks, and the associated organisational forms, demands a fundamentally different way of thinking about organising and (re)structuring organisations. The German sociologist Baecker (2001) believes that thinking of organising and organisations, and the way in which they are led or managed, must change radically to enable organisations to function in globally-operational networks. Prof. Dr. Ben van Lier Page 3 of 6 Centric / Steinbeis University Berlijn
This way of thinking must change from a hierarchical and functionally-oriented approach to a horizontal approach that is oriented towards connections. This new approach should primarily aim at developing and maintaining relationships between the inner world of the producing organisation and the external environment of these organisations. Ladies and Gentlemen, As I have said here, the possibility to connect random subjects and objects and to exchange and share information creates new networks and new forms of interaction and communication. It enables us to invent and build new and smart environments in which technology is always omnipresent, without us experiencing it as such. These smart environments and machines are designed to help and support us as people. The development towards people and machines connected in networks is quickly being reflected in many areas and forms which for me is a firm basis for case study research. Whether we are talking about the concept of Network Centric Warfare which has now been under development for two decades and has contributed to new technological applications such as Drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, for example. We also see similar developments in the emergence of the worldwide Internet of Things. The Internet of Things consists of and is formed by objects which are increasingly connected in networks, such as the Internet. Take existing products, for example smart televisions, smart socks with RFID chips, cars as mobile hubs or washing machines with sensors. Smart televisions for instance are worldwide responsible for a revolution in the way we are experiencing, using and paying for visual content. The fast implementation of Smart televisions makes that we no longer buy movies on physical products as DVD s, but download movies as digital streams. The consumers only pays for this digital stream at the moment he decides where and when he likes to see the movie he has chosen. The American economists Brynjolfsson and MacAfee argue in their latest book that this kind of digitisation of physical products will slowly but surely erode every kind of economic model. For them production in the second machine age as they call it, depends less on physical equipment and structures and more on the four categories of intangible assets: intellectual property, organizational capital, user-generated content, and human capital (pp. 119) Also a relative new phenomenon such as High Frequency Trading within the Financial sector is actually making clear that developments within this sector are being characterized by technology, information, and connections between machines and people within networks. Within the developments of high frequency trading for the first time not man decides what will happen on worldwide stock-exchanges. These markets will be dominated by algorithms, that are not only operating autonomously but also with speeds which are no longer perceivable by humans. As Ahlstedt an Vyllyson stated in 2012 the time aspect of HFT is very important and on today s market the time is measured in microseconds. This means that decisions about buying and selling shares within this markets are now de facto outside human perception and are made by machines which are Prof. Dr. Ben van Lier Page 4 of 6 Centric / Steinbeis University Berlijn
connected on a global scale and are autonomously exchanging and sharing information. That this not always works out right on these markets is for instance made clear by the flash crash on the New York Stock Exchange on the 6th of May 2010. In industry too, terms like the Industrial Internet, Cyber Physical Systems as the Americans call it, the German Industries 4.0 or the Dutch Smart Industries are becoming more and more widely used. In all cases, we are concerned with how industrial products like cars, trains, aircrafts or power stations can not only be operated, managed and maintained more intelligently but also more autonomously by means of network interfaces, software, data-analysis and visualisations. Thinking and working in networks (a network-centric approach) makes up one of the three important and fundamental components of the report Smart Industry Dutch industry fit for the future. Among other things it suggests that: in the coming decade a network-centric approach to production will replace linear production processes with intelligent and flexible network approaches. Two other important pillars of this development named in the report are the digitisation of information and communication within production and service processes, and the application and use of new production technologies. This last named pillar focuses specifically on developments such as robotics, new materials etc. Through the digitisation of information and communication within new globally-organised production processes, these will change in nature and form. The report believes that digitising these processes offers new opportunities: to enable communication between all partners in the value chain, but digitisation of, for example, product quality, user characteristics and production parameters based on sensory systems will also be crucial to new innovations in the production process, products and services. (2014:17). Ladies and Gentlemen in closing, Slowly but surely we have to face that our modern and traditional being and life is being replaced by a new postmodern world. This new world is based on information and creates a new entity in which existing boundaries or values and norms will blur or even disappear completely. This new entity also requires the re-invention of the (post)human and give direction to the development and shaping of this new (post)human. Giving direction to this helps us find new ways, from an existing uncertainty in the present to a new position of the (post)human in a reality in the future dominated by technology. This rapidly developing new reality requires a search for the new being in a highly technological environment. This search is, as Heidegger (2009) states, a question which belongs to metaphysics, because this question transcends the existing: in order to restore it as such and in its entirety for our understanding thereof (2009:66). In order to enable the quest for a new being and to give form and substance to a new metaphysics of being in postmodern organisations and society, there will have to be a discourse between technology and (traditional) science. Within this discourse, the described technological development must be the starting point and, based on this technological Prof. Dr. Ben van Lier Page 5 of 6 Centric / Steinbeis University Berlijn
starting point, a search for a new ontology can be started into a new direction in the interpretation of what we consider to be posthuman in a new technological reality. Thank for your attention Prof. Dr. Ben van Lier Page 6 of 6 Centric / Steinbeis University Berlijn