Aspects on availability : a teleological adventure of information in the lifeworld

Abstract

Availability is a feature of information. Availability is frequently connected to information security. So it is now. But in this thesis, the viewpoint is slightly different form the usually understood context of information security. Here, availability is dealt with as a compulsory feature of the information, which is essential to make as optimal decisions as possible for making the future. Security is understood as a state, which will be reached by using information that is available. The approach to security in this thesis is broadly understood as "making security with available information".

The overall frame of this thesis is based on European philosophy represented by Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Karl Popper, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jurgen Habermas. The philosophical approach is chosen to be able to deal with the rather broad and abstract wholeness of the overall problem. The philosophical approach is something new for the researcher, as well, thus offering new challenges and an opportunity to learn something new and broaden the worldview. The philosophical background is supplemented with theories about time, information and knowledge management and problem solving to reach more practical solutions. Finally, a representative entity of the information availability environment is analysed to validate the philosophical-theoretical construction.

The hypothesis of this thesis is formulated around the theories of time, information and problem solving concluded with the description of social systems conducted in the theory of communicative act by Jurgen Habermas. Research questions will deal with the combination of time and information to reach understanding to construct a model, which is used to solve information availability issues in temporally demanding decision-making environment.

This thesis is hermeneutical, reaching towards understanding those phenomena that concern information availability. Features of availability that are dealt with are connected to information itself and the purpose of using information, the refining process of information in a purposeful action, and time from few viewpoints. All this is connected in a context of a social system. On the basis of all this, a suitably abstracted model is constructed to understand how information can be used and what kind of aspects availability contains.

On the basis of that, a complex entity of information availability in a temporally demanding decision-making environment is analysed. This entity contains the temporal and meaningful divergence of information. This system is solved on the basis of the theoretical frame. A new kind of solution to model the use of available information in a temporally demanding decision-making environment is constructed. Finally a number of new research questions will emerge, which is well suited to the science philosophical frame that is selected to be obeyed in this thesis.