2. QA systems
QA has existed as a rival to the signal-processing tradition of knowledge pioneered by
Shannon and Wiener from the origins of modern computing (McCulloch, 1974). At the
1951 Macy Conference (Pias, 2003), MacKay (1951) representing an English school of
cybernetics stemming from the work of Mackay, Gabor and Cherry (in the tradition of
Fisher, Wittgenstein and Pearson), proposed a operational view of information:
[. . .] information is that which logically enables the receiver to make or add to a
representation of that which is the case, or which is believed or alleged to be the case.
In “What makes a question?” MacKay (1960) proposed that in addition to Shannon’s
intentionally context-free conception of information (which he termed
selective information), there was a contextualised version that was conceived of as a
response to the need to acquire information (structural information).Moreover, therewas a
third role of validating information that can only be conceived of as a response to a question.