Proceedings of 8th European Assembly on telework (Telework2001)

149We can now temporarily observe that the technological networks have structurally increasedthe degree <strong>of</strong> connectivity among organisations and this has clearly changed the project <strong>of</strong> theorganisations we are involved in.«A universe is born when a space is cut in two» 63. Cyberspace is always a social spaceAt this point we should not incur in the risk <strong>of</strong> doing bad sociology. Already on an intuitionlevel it seems clear, as Fernando Flores observes, that «Cyberspace is always a social space» 7 .However we must avoid being generic and the solution should not be seek in a generic ‘infosocio-psycho-matics’.We must, instead, have a sufficiently rigorous model that can guide us in theproject design.Let’s now preliminarily give a definition <strong>of</strong> language and its function:«… the fundamental function <strong>of</strong> language as a system <strong>of</strong> oriented behaviours is not the transmission<strong>of</strong> information or the description <strong>of</strong> an independent universe <strong>of</strong> which we can speak <strong>of</strong>, but ratherthe creation <strong>of</strong> a consensual behaviour domain among systems that linguistically interact throughthe development <strong>of</strong> a cooperative domain <strong>of</strong> interactions.» 8This means to understand that in the human language no banally educational interactions arepossible, but its communication functioning origins from the creation/construction, throughrecurred interactions among persons, <strong>of</strong> a consensual domain 9 <strong>of</strong> interactions that cannot bereduced to the physical domain nor to the interaction domain if separately seen. Its functioning isthe result <strong>of</strong> a ‘entrenched’ 10 history <strong>of</strong> linguistic behaviours.«Language, as a consensual domain, is patterning <strong>of</strong> ‘mutual orienting behavior’, not a collection<strong>of</strong> mechanism in a ‘language user’ or a ‘semantic’ coupling’ between linguistic behavior and nonlinguisticperturbations experienced by organism … language is connotative and not denotative,and that its function is to orient the orientee within his or here cognitive domain, and not to pointto independent entities.» 11Accordingly, the project designing <strong>of</strong> hardware, protocols and applications in a network context isno longer designing <strong>of</strong> processes that creates the organisation <strong>of</strong> which the technological network,the applications, the protocols and ourselves are part.6 Humberto R. Maturana - Francisco J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization <strong>of</strong> the Living, Kluwer AcademicPublishers, 1980.7 Fernando Flores, The Impact <strong>of</strong> Information Technology on Business, Address to the 50th Anniversary Conference <strong>of</strong> theAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM97), mimeo, 19978 Humberto R. Maturana, «Biology <strong>of</strong> Cognition» (1970), in Humberto R. Maturana - Francisco J. Varela, Autopoiesis andCognition: The Realization <strong>of</strong> the Living, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1980.9 See for the meaning <strong>of</strong> Consensual Domain: Humberto R. Maturana - Francisco J. Varela, Autopoiesis and Cognition: TheRealization <strong>of</strong> the Living, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1980 and, Humberto R. Maturana - Francisco J. Varela, The Tree <strong>of</strong>Knowledge: The Biological Roots <strong>of</strong> Human Understanding, Shambhala Publications, 1992.10 For the meaning <strong>of</strong> ‘entrenched’ cf: Nelson Goodman, Fact, Finction and forecast, The Bobbs-Merryl Company Inc., 197311 Terry Winograd - Fernando Flores, Understanding Computers and Cognition. A New Foundation for Design, Ablex PublishingCorporation, 1986.