Clue Two: Thomas Kuhn

As I mentioned earlier, clues are not given to you by some guiding force. And clues are not discovered along the way. Clues are merely ideas or patterns that resonate with what we are thinking and help us put form to those nagging fuzzy ideas in the backs of our minds. So, my second clue seems even more unrelated than the first one.

I have been working on a very difficult paper on the philosophy of information systems. Earlier in the data gathering stage I was reviewing a lot of books and articles that I though might be useful in helping me write the paper. I went off on several side roads which is not at all uncommon in these pursuits. One of those side roads was into the philosophy of science. I was wondering, at the time, how the philosophy of science might be different for research in information systems than it is natural or social sciences. As I was pondering this I picked up some classic works by Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn along with a variety of lessor known books that I felt might be useful.

While pondering Kuhn, the idea of "normal science" kept ricocheting around in my subconscious. At the risk of over simplifying this idea allow me to explain it in a very cursory manner. Most of the time, in a scientific field, there is a fair amount of agreement on what problems it is trying to solve, what methods lead to legitimate results, what counts as evidence and so on. The questions appear to be answerable. And the methods appear to be adequate for answering the questions. This is what is referred to a "normal science". Then a disruption comes along. There are anomalies that cannot be explained or important questions that cannot be answered.

When this happens, the field must adjust. New ideas and methods must be considered as scientists attempt to account for the anomalies or make progress on the unanswered questions.   Over time some of these new ideas will become mainstream and the field will settle back down to "normal science"

Now, I did not intend this post to be a short lecture on the philosophy of science. But, I needed to explain that in order to explain how it became a clue.It occurred to me that my goal setting behavior was disrupted because it was not clear to me what was important to achieve. I could not fix on a goal or set of goals because things were in such a state of flux - that not only were the targets moving but what qualified as a target was changing as well. Thinking about Kuhn's concept of "normal science" I thought the pattern fit well to the social, economic and political spheres as well. There are normal times when you know what your are trying to achieve and how to achieve it. In normal times you can set goals and pursue them. However, in the times between normal times, the times I refer to as "chaotic" things are in a state of flux and it is difficult to set goals in order to make progress.