Andrew Basden's Web Site
Welcome to my web pages. This page tells you a bit about me, and links to quite a network of pages about various topics.
I hope you enjoy this site.
For my paid work, I am a Professor of Human Factors and Philosophy in Information Systems at the
Salford Business School, at the University of Salford.
Since October 2012, I have taken 80% retirement, in order to find time to write the kind of end-of-career papers that should go out, and focus on getting website resources as they should be. I have several wonderful PhD students whom I am supervising.
My academic interests lie right across most areas of information technology, from assembler language programming through to usefulness and long-term benefits and detrimental impact in society of information technology. I have just completed 6 months study leave, during which time I wrote a draft monograph, A Philosophy for Information Systems, which makes a threefold contribution:
- It attempts to bring together five disparate areas of concern in information systems in a way that has seldom been attempted:
- the nature of computers,
- the shape of information technologies,
- development of systems for human use,
- human usage of computers, and
- information technology as an environment we inhabit).
- It seeks to explicitly employ philosophy to create frameworks for understanding these five areas - and a single philosophy, so that the frameworks of different areas are commensurable with each other.
- The philosophy it employs has certain unique characteristics that make it suited to all areas, technical, human, societal - that of Herman Dooyeweerd.
A draft summary of the five frameworks and how Dooyeweerdian philosophy has been used, is available.
A full Curriculum Vitae is available.
I have compiled and convene
The Dooyeweerd Pages,
a sizeable network of pages whose aim to promote discussion, understanding and refinement of the radical ideas of Herman Dooyeweerd, a 20th century Dutch philosopher. Because of the highly interlinked nature of his ideas, the WWW is an ideal medium for such discussion.
If you want a sample of the software results of my research work,
try the Istar KBS software and knowledge server, the Annotator. I'm a keen fan of the Amiga computer - the computer that made Babylon 5 possible.
For further details, see my Curriculum Vitae and my
Work pages.
My Main Contribution?
Clarifier & Stimulator
I'm one of the 1.7 billion people called 'Christians' - those
who, at least in theory, model their lives and everything else
on Jesus Christ. What brand? I'm what might be called
evangelical, rather than liberal, fundamentalist or anglo-catholic, in outlook. Click here for the main Index to this part of the site, of which the following is a selection:
Did you know? In 1996 Christianity became a non-Western religion; since on that date the (estimated) number of Christians in the non-Western part of the world exceeded those in the Western. That puts me in the minority!
My wife, Ruth, two sons, Alastair and Stuart, and about five
Amiga computers and one Google Nexus 10 tablet comprise my family. They're great (which I have managed to link together). Oh, and a Morris Traveller and a few cacti.
And I too hold Tolkien's Lord of the Rings to be the Book of the (20th) Century, as found by polls by Waterstones (25,000 people), the Folio Society (10,000) and The Daily Telegraph in the U.K.
In May 2002 I was diagnosed as having that common complaint among academics: Apserger's Syndrome.
Since the early 1970s I've been interested in Green and environmental
issues. Jesus Christ emphasized that our actions and lives should
match our words, so I am also an activist in Green matters. I am or have been involved in Green Politics in a number of areas:
I'm also involved in the
North Cheshire Rail Users' Group and a member of the Manchester Pedestrians Club.
It's all so easy to condemn us greens for being hypocritical just because we have to make use of some of the things of modern, technical life - and then to despise those who try to minimise their links with modern life as crazy unrealistic hippies. In doing this are you not yourself guilty of hypocrisy?
People sometimes say I have useful ways of looking at things, so I'm starting to put up a few of these.
If they are helpful, use them.
Web pages express knowledge. Just as the pieces of our knowledge are intertwined with many others, so can web pages be, and it is this easy interlinking that makes the World Wide Web a better medium for knowledge than all the others except the human mind itself. So, in this site I have focused on interlinking rather than on some other more visual facilities that the Web might offer.
Like many other sites, this one is always 'under construction'. You'll
find a few 'notyet' pages - pages that I intend to fill up
at some time or other.
My page policy is to provide useful information and discussion, richly linked both within itself as a network (not just an hierarchy) and to other pieces of knowledge worldwide so that knowledge may be shared. Not much surplus graphics, which eat up phone bills and memory, and minimal use of fancy constructs - Frame-free and Java-free, and Tables mainly used for real tables. Like Eric Schwartz'
site, my pages are not 'enhanced for IE/Netscape' - 'cos I use AWeb.
This site is designed to suitable for any browser.
My pages are created on the Amiga, and so probably look best thereon.
The main sections of the site are:
- The Dooyeweerd Pages - a growing site, of which I am the gatekeeper, for discussion and understanding of "the most profound, innovative and penetrating philosopher since Kant" (Delvecchio).
- Software - various software systems that I am responsible for. Currently three main software products for the Amiga. Several megabytes of stuff.
- Various pages and papers on research topics I have been involved with as part of my academic work. Around half a dozen pages for archive or discussion.
- Amiga-related web pages, mainly for discussion within the Amiga community. Half a dozen pages.
- Green thinking and action - a few pages on various Green issues, as described above. Gradually growing.
- Pages on various spiritual topics, listed above. Around a dozen pages, growing.
- Some links to other pages or sites.
- Some rantings.
However, since text and pictures can never fully or properly express the author's real meaning and purpose, you are advised to treat what I have written with some care. Many of my pages express 'knowledge in progress' rather than fully-fledged, completed edifices. Therefore, just as knowledge (both mine and that of the whole world) is developing, and becoming expressed more fully, so most of my web pages are dynamic in their structure and more or less tentative in their content. Unless otherwise stated, you should not take what is written as expressing perfectly what I meant or intended.
Disclaimer: In particular, you should not take what I have written in a legal manner. e.g. if anyone quotes what I have written as evidence against something that I hold dear, or to destroy something I believe, then I reserve the right to deny that the quotation is a true reflection of what I truly meant.
Bye.
I'd be delighted to hear from you (as long as you're not a junk mailer!). .
To the
Basden Index Page
Page revamped 2 September 1997, updated 19 September 1997, 17 October 1997, 30 August 1998. 20 September 1998 added how to read. 29 September 1998 re-did Green section. 4 November 1998 papers. 24 December 1998 Amiga reference now points to /amiga/ not /Amiga/ (what a pain unix is!! Amiga is much better!!) 27 December 1998 a couple of dead links made OK. 10 January 1999 added link to spiritual history. 31 January 1999 renamed link to 'spiritual journey'. 8 February 1999 major revamp to structure of page, describing site structure etc. 21 March 1999 extra link. 28 March 1999 Added "What is God Saying?". 27 June 1999 pointer to aspectual analysis of marriage. 19 August 1999 link to xn/index.html. 9 September 1999 altered CVE to ISI and added link to BHG. 21 November 1999 links to Shit and Atonement. 16 January 2000 Creation. 10 October 2000 link to links and rants. 1 November 2000 new link to CV. 7 February 2001 removed mailto. 13 May 2001 a bit on amiga. 18 May 2001 Elaine Storkey tftd link. 30 September 2001 new link to usa attack. 17 December 2001 work index better. 6 March 2002 started comment section. 20 March 2002 better link to ncrug. 22 September 2002 links to Bab5 and Asperger page. 11 November 2002 slight changes, extra links. 22 September 2003 removed some old stuff from start. 14 November 2003 ffuis. 18 January 2005 rants links. 2 March 2005 Climate Change Programme Review response. 8 June 2005 various links corrected. 25 March 2006 unet. 16 September 2007 greens and modern life. 11 October 2007 link to cv. 19 January 2008 isi->basden,dooy. 19 October 2009 link to green, wind. 23 November 2009 Andrew.jpg->andrew.jpg. 28 December 2009 NV; better BHG link. 28 May 2010 clarifier, Stimulator 17 May 2011 links repaired. 10 March 2013 nexus 10. 7 March 2016 corrected xn links.