Envisaging a paradigm-shifting software package (Part #1)

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The concern here is the possibility that, with relatively little cost and effort, a software package could be designed and disseminated that would make a major difference to the way in which individuals and groups organize the knowledge of concern to them.  

The specific concern here is to highlight 'global' dimensions in the organization of knowledge. Global is taken here to mean integrative in ways beyond those currently achieved by setting up knowledge hierarchies and checklists of topics. Global is not taken to mean world-wide in the geographical sense that is now characteristic of most discussion of 'globalization'. Rather global is conceived as integratively meaningful to a person or a group. It is also to be understood as holding together the concerns of a policy-maker faced with the full messy array of societal issues. The challenge of interrelating diverse perspectives, including those from a variety of cultural perspectives, is also inherent in this proposed understanding of global. 

The approach taken here is necessarily relatively simple, if not simplistic. However the software framework envisaged is designed to be developed and to encourage further development by users and those with software skills. It is not a closed and completed system. This paper builds on arguments developed in earlier papers by the author on this theme (Judge, 1994-1997).