“ “You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.” ”
—attributed to Albert Einstein, cited in WildCat, Some will be Gangsters of Poetry, Some will be Pan-Symbolists, Polytopia, May 30, 2011.
May 2011
23 posts
“ “The modern hyperconnected mind, by the sheer velocity of the rush of information being absorbed and digested, is in the process of transformation. This is not a regular transformation but a transit of boundaries of perceptions and sensations which when taken together allow a fresh kind of sight to emerge. The contemporary infocology of the hyperflowing-hyperconnected mind no-longer is subject to boundary projections based on her localized physical phenomenon.” ”
—WildCat, writer, futurist, A Cyber Soaring Humanity, Polytopia, Jan 1, 2010.
“Bertrand Russell on mind
“The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways, but without material from the external world it is powerless, and unlike the sausage machine it must seize its material for itself, since events only become experiences through the interest we take in them; if they do not interest us, we are making nothing of them.
The man, therefore, whose attention is turned within finds nothing worthy of his notice, whereas the man whose attention is turned outward can find within, in those rare moments when he examines his soul, the most varied and interesting assortment of ingredients being dissected and recombined into beautiful and instructive patterns.” ” —Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic, (1872-1970), The Conquest of Happiness, Allen & Unwin, London 1930
“The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways, but without material from the external world it is powerless, and unlike the sausage machine it must seize its material for itself, since events only become experiences through the interest we take in them; if they do not interest us, we are making nothing of them.
The man, therefore, whose attention is turned within finds nothing worthy of his notice, whereas the man whose attention is turned outward can find within, in those rare moments when he examines his soul, the most varied and interesting assortment of ingredients being dissected and recombined into beautiful and instructive patterns.” ” —Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic, (1872-1970), The Conquest of Happiness, Allen & Unwin, London 1930
“ “Science is what you know. Philosophy is what you don’t know.” ”
—Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic, (1872-1970)
“ “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin — more even than death… Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.” ”
—Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic, (1872-1970)
“Alain de Botton on traveling
“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.
At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. (…)
Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.” ” —Alain de Botton, Swiss writer, television presenter, and entrepreneur, The Art of Travel, Pantheon, 2002
“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.
At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. (…)
Instead of bringing back 1600 plants, we might return from our journeys with a collection of small unfêted but life-enhancing thoughts.” ” —Alain de Botton, Swiss writer, television presenter, and entrepreneur, The Art of Travel, Pantheon, 2002
“
“Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what unsavory; some we discriminate by habit, and some we perceive by their utility. By this we distinguish objects of relish and disrelish, according to the seasons; and the same things do not always please us. And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us, some by night, and some by day, and dreams and untimely wanderings, and cares that are not suitable, and ignorance of present circumstances, desuetude, and unskillfulness…
I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when the brain happens to be in a sound state. But the air supplies sense to it. And the eyes, the ears, the tongue and the feet, administer such things as the brain cogitates. For in as much as it is supplied with air, does it impart sense to the body. It is the brain which is the messenger to the understanding.” ” —Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC), On the Sacred Disease, 400 B.C.
Hippocrates: ‘It is the brain which is the messenger to the understanding’
“Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear, and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet, and what unsavory; some we discriminate by habit, and some we perceive by their utility. By this we distinguish objects of relish and disrelish, according to the seasons; and the same things do not always please us. And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us, some by night, and some by day, and dreams and untimely wanderings, and cares that are not suitable, and ignorance of present circumstances, desuetude, and unskillfulness…
I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. This is the interpreter to us of those things which emanate from the air, when the brain happens to be in a sound state. But the air supplies sense to it. And the eyes, the ears, the tongue and the feet, administer such things as the brain cogitates. For in as much as it is supplied with air, does it impart sense to the body. It is the brain which is the messenger to the understanding.” ” —Hippocrates, an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC), On the Sacred Disease, 400 B.C.
“Edward De Bono on lateral thinking
“With logic you start out with certain ingredients just as in playing chess you start out with given pieces. But what are those pieces? In most real life situations the pieces are not given, we just assume they are there. We assume certain perceptions, certain concepts and certain boundaries. Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces. Lateral thinking is concerned with the perception part of thinking. This is where we organise the external world into the pieces we can then ”process”.” ” —Edward de Bono, a physician, author, inventor, and consultant, Lateral Thinking & Parallel Thinking
“With logic you start out with certain ingredients just as in playing chess you start out with given pieces. But what are those pieces? In most real life situations the pieces are not given, we just assume they are there. We assume certain perceptions, certain concepts and certain boundaries. Lateral thinking is concerned not with playing with the existing pieces but with seeking to change those very pieces. Lateral thinking is concerned with the perception part of thinking. This is where we organise the external world into the pieces we can then ”process”.” ” —Edward de Bono, a physician, author, inventor, and consultant, Lateral Thinking & Parallel Thinking
“Charlie Chaplin’s speech in “The Great Dictator” (1940)
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an Emperor - that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible — Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers: Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, “the kingdom of God is within man” — not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!”
Charlie Chaplin’s speech illustrated
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an Emperor - that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible — Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me I say, “Do not despair.” The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass and dictators die; and the power they took from the people will return to the people and so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers: Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel; who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate; only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural.
Soldiers: Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, “the kingdom of God is within man” — not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men, in you, you the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power! Let us all unite!! Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie! They do not fulfill their promise; they never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people!! Now, let us fight to fulfill that promise!! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.
Soldiers: In the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!”
Charlie Chaplin’s speech illustrated
“ “All war must be just the killing of strangers against whom you feel no personal animosity; strangers whom, in other circumstances, you would help if you found them in trouble, and who would help you if you needed it.” ”
—Mark Twain, American author and humorist (1835-1910), The Private History of the Campaign That Failed
“ “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.” ”
—Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic, (1872-1970), Russell–Einstein Manifesto, London, July 9, 1955
“Andrew Potter on progress
“Progress is a stuffy old word, employed primarily by squares and ironists. But perhaps it is time to rehabilitate the very idea of progress: not the blind conviction that things are getting better all the time, but the simple faith that even when humans encounter obstacles, we’ll figure things out, through the exercise of reason, ingenuity and goodwill.
Faith in progress is nothing more, and nothing less, than faith in humankind, and if there is one thing we ought to be nostalgic for, it is for a time when progress was something that self-described “progressives” actually believed in. For too long they’ve been wallowing in an inert philosophy that has done considerable damage to the search for social justice and spiritual comfort.” ” —Andrew Potter, Canadian philosopher, author, and magazine columnist, The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010, p. 271.
“Progress is a stuffy old word, employed primarily by squares and ironists. But perhaps it is time to rehabilitate the very idea of progress: not the blind conviction that things are getting better all the time, but the simple faith that even when humans encounter obstacles, we’ll figure things out, through the exercise of reason, ingenuity and goodwill.
Faith in progress is nothing more, and nothing less, than faith in humankind, and if there is one thing we ought to be nostalgic for, it is for a time when progress was something that self-described “progressives” actually believed in. For too long they’ve been wallowing in an inert philosophy that has done considerable damage to the search for social justice and spiritual comfort.” ” —Andrew Potter, Canadian philosopher, author, and magazine columnist, The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2010, p. 271.
“Samuel Barondes: Lives = Stories
“Our lives are lived as stories
Though their intrapsychic actors
May play from scripts whose scripting comes
From key genetic factors;
Our lives are understandable
In terms of mental rules
Though they respond, like puppets,
To brain protein molecules.” ” —Samuel Barondes, Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco; Author, Better than Prozac, answering the question ‘What is your formula? Your equation, algorithm? in Formulae for the 21st century, Edge, Oct 13, 2007
“Our lives are lived as stories
Though their intrapsychic actors
May play from scripts whose scripting comes
From key genetic factors;
Our lives are understandable
In terms of mental rules
Though they respond, like puppets,
To brain protein molecules.” ” —Samuel Barondes, Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco; Author, Better than Prozac, answering the question ‘What is your formula? Your equation, algorithm? in Formulae for the 21st century, Edge, Oct 13, 2007
“Ian Leslie: Are artists liars?
“Lying is a form of art, albeit of a lower order—as Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain have observed. (…)
We are born storytellers, spinning narrative out of our experience and imagination, straining against the leash that keeps us tethered to reality. This is a wonderful thing; it is what gives us our ability to conceive of alternative futures and different worlds. (…)
Most of the time, as our stories bubble up to consciousness, we exercise our cerebral censors, controlling which stories we tell, and to whom. Yet people lie for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that confabulating can be dangerously fun. (…)
Perhaps this is why we felt it necessary to invent art in the first place: as a safe space into which our lies can be corralled, and channelled into something socially useful. Given the universal compulsion to tell stories, art is the best way to refine and enjoy the particularly outlandish or insightful ones. But that is not the whole story. The key way in which artistic “lies” differ from normal lies, and from the “honest lying” of chronic confabulators, is that they have a meaning and resonance beyond their creator. The liar lies on behalf of himself; the artist tell lies on behalf of everyone. If writers have a compulsion to narrate, they compel themselves to find insights about the human condition. Mario Vargas Llosa has written that novels “express a curious truth that can only be expressed in a furtive and veiled fashion, masquerading as what it is not”. Art is a lie whose secret ingredient is truth.” ” —Ian Leslie, journalist and writer, Are artists liars?, More Intelligent Life, May 2011
“Lying is a form of art, albeit of a lower order—as Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain have observed. (…)
We are born storytellers, spinning narrative out of our experience and imagination, straining against the leash that keeps us tethered to reality. This is a wonderful thing; it is what gives us our ability to conceive of alternative futures and different worlds. (…)
Most of the time, as our stories bubble up to consciousness, we exercise our cerebral censors, controlling which stories we tell, and to whom. Yet people lie for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that confabulating can be dangerously fun. (…)
Perhaps this is why we felt it necessary to invent art in the first place: as a safe space into which our lies can be corralled, and channelled into something socially useful. Given the universal compulsion to tell stories, art is the best way to refine and enjoy the particularly outlandish or insightful ones. But that is not the whole story. The key way in which artistic “lies” differ from normal lies, and from the “honest lying” of chronic confabulators, is that they have a meaning and resonance beyond their creator. The liar lies on behalf of himself; the artist tell lies on behalf of everyone. If writers have a compulsion to narrate, they compel themselves to find insights about the human condition. Mario Vargas Llosa has written that novels “express a curious truth that can only be expressed in a furtive and veiled fashion, masquerading as what it is not”. Art is a lie whose secret ingredient is truth.” ” —Ian Leslie, journalist and writer, Are artists liars?, More Intelligent Life, May 2011
“ “Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.” ”
—James Gleick, American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Pantheon, 2011 (tnx johnsparker)
“ “What we call reality,” [physicist] John Archibald Wheeler wrote coyly, “arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions.” He added: “All things physical are information-theoretic in origin, and this is a participatory universe.” The whole universe is thus seen as a computer—a cosmic information-processing machine.” ”
—James Gleick, American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Pantheon, 2011 (tnx johnsparker)
“Stephen Hawking on science, human purpose and death
Q: What is the value in knowing “Why are we here?”
SH: The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can’t solve the equations, directly in the abstract. We need to use the effective theory of Darwinian natural selection of those societies most likely to survive. We assign them higher value. (…)
Q: So here we are. What should we do?
SH: We should seek the greatest value of our action. (…)
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Q: What are the things you find most beautiful in science?
SH: Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.” —Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, interviewed by Ian Sample in Stephen Hawking: ‘There is no heaven; it’s a fairy story’, Guardian, 15 May 2011.
Q: What is the value in knowing “Why are we here?”
SH: The universe is governed by science. But science tells us that we can’t solve the equations, directly in the abstract. We need to use the effective theory of Darwinian natural selection of those societies most likely to survive. We assign them higher value. (…)
Q: So here we are. What should we do?
SH: We should seek the greatest value of our action. (…)
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”
Q: What are the things you find most beautiful in science?
SH: Science is beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations. Examples include the double helix in biology, and the fundamental equations of physics.” —Stephen Hawking, English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, interviewed by Ian Sample in Stephen Hawking: ‘There is no heaven; it’s a fairy story’, Guardian, 15 May 2011.
“
“Oversimplifying, science has two fundamental ways of changing our understanding: one extrovert, or about the world, and the other introvert, or about ourselves. Three scientific revolutions have had great impact both extrovertly and introvertly. In changing our understanding of the external world they also modified our internal conception of who we are. After Copernicus, the heliocentric cosmology displaced the Earth and hence humanity from the centre of the universe. Darwin showed that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through natural selection, thus displacing humanity from the centre of the biological kingdom. And following Freud, we acknowledge nowadays that the mind is also unconscious and subject to the defence mechanism of repression. So we are not immobile, at the centre of the universe (Copernican revolution), we are not unnaturally separate and diverse from the rest of the animal kingdom (Darwinian revolution), and we are very far from being purely rational minds entirely transparent to ourselves (Freudian revolution).
Freud was the first to interpret these three revolutions as part of a single process of reassessment of human nature, and his perspective was blatantly self-serving. But replace Freud with neuroscience, and we can still find the framework useful to explain the widespread intuition that something very significant and profound has recently happened to our self-understanding. Since the fifties, computer science and ICTs have exercised both an extrovert and an introvert influence, fundamentally changing not only our interactions with the world, but also our essential views about who we are. We no longer interpret ourselves as standalone entities, but rather as interconnected informational organisms or inforgs, sharing with biological, artificial and hybrid agents and engineered artefacts a global environment, ultimately made of information, the infosphere. (…)
The digital revolution is therefore best understood as a fourth revolution, in the process of dislocation and reassessment of our fundamental nature and role in the universe. As far as we know, we are the only semantic engines in the universe. We were born to be inforgs and we have been pursuing our informational agenda relentlessly at least since the Bronze Age, the era that marks the invention of writing in Mesopotamia and other regions of the world (4th millennium BC). (…)
The digital revolution is updating our everyday perspective on ourselves and on the ultimate nature of reality, that is, our metaphysics, from a materialist one, in which physical objects and processes play a key role, to an informational one. Objects and processes are increasingly seen as de-physicalised, in the sense that they tend to be treated as support-independent (consider a music file). They are typified, in the sense that an instance of an object (my copy of a music file) is as good as its type (the music file of which my copy is an instance). And they are assumed to be perfectly clonable by default, in the sense that my copy and your original become interchangeable. Less stress on the physical nature of objects and processes means that the right of use is perceived to be at least as important as the right to own. P2P does not mean Pirate to Pirate but Platonist to Platonist, for it is the immaterial nature of things that underpins the phenomenon. Finally, the criterion for existence – what it means for something to exist – is no longer being actually immutable (the Greeks thought that only that which does not change can be said to exist fully), or being potentially subject to perception (modern philosophy insisted on something being perceivable by the five senses in order to qualify as existing), but being potentially subject to interaction, even if intangible. To be is to be interactable, even if the interaction is only virtual. (…)
During the last decade or so, we have become accustomed to conceptualising our life online as a mixture between an evolutionary adaptation of human agents to a digital environment, and a form of post-modern, neo-colonization of that space by us. Yet the truth is that the digital revolution is as much changing our world as it is creating new realities. The threshold between here (analogue, carbon-based, off-line) and there (digital, silicon-based, online) is fast becoming blurred, but this is as much to the advantage of the latter as it is of the former.
The digital is spilling over into the analogue and merging with it. This increasing informatization of artefacts, identities and of whole (social) environments and life activities suggests that soon it will be difficult to understand what life was like in pre-digital times and, in the near future, the very distinction between online and offline will disappear.
To put it dramatically, the infosphere is progressively absorbing any other space. We live “onlife” and your Nike and iPod have been talking to each other for some time. (…)
Our view of the world (our metaphysics) is still modern or Newtonian: it is made of “dead” cars, buildings, furniture, clothes, fridges, which are non-interactive, irresponsive and incapable of communicating, learning, or recording. But in advanced information societies, what we still experience as the world offline is bound to become a fully interactive and more responsive environment of wireless, pervasive, distributed, a2a (anything to anything) information processes, that works a4a (anywhere for anytime), in real time. As a consequence, we shall be living in an infosphere that will become increasingly synchronized (time), delocalised (space) and correlated (interactions). This will first gently invite us to understand the world as something “a- live” (artificially live). Things are increasingly less inanimate, yet their new “souls” are digital. This digital animation of the world will then, paradoxically, make our outlook closer to that of pre-technological cultures, which interpreted all aspects of nature as inhabited by forces. Only Odysseus could string his mythical bow. Today, only a user wearing a special ring with a unique matching code can unlock the trigger of an iGun™. (…)
The best way of tackling the new ethical challenges posed by the digital revolution is probably from an environmental approach, yet not one that privileges the natural or untouched, but one that treats as authentic and genuine all forms of existence and behaviour, even those based on synthetic and engineered artefacts. This sort of synthetic e-nvironmentalism requires a change in our perspective about the relationship between physis (nature, reality) and techne (practical science and its applications). (…)
The digital revolution can help us in our fight against the destruction, impoverishment, vandalism and waste of both natural and human resources, including historical and cultural ones. We should resist any Greek tendency to treat techne as the Cinderella of science; any absolutist inclination to accept no moral balancing between some unavoidable evil and more goodness; and any modern, reactionary, metaphysical temptation to drive a wedge between naturalism and constructionism, by privileging the former as the only authentic dimension of human life. The challenge is to reconcile our roles as informational organisms and agents within nature, and as stewards of nature.” ” —Luciano Floridi, MPhil. and PhD, MA University of Oxford, currently holds the Research Chair in philosophy of information and the UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics, both at the University of Hertfordshire, Department of Philosophy, The Digital Revolution as a Fourth Revolution (pdf)
See also: ☞ Luciano Floridi on the future development of the information society
☞ TEDxMaastricht talk – Luciano Floridi
Luciano Floridi on The Digital Revolution as a Fourth Revolution
“Oversimplifying, science has two fundamental ways of changing our understanding: one extrovert, or about the world, and the other introvert, or about ourselves. Three scientific revolutions have had great impact both extrovertly and introvertly. In changing our understanding of the external world they also modified our internal conception of who we are. After Copernicus, the heliocentric cosmology displaced the Earth and hence humanity from the centre of the universe. Darwin showed that all species of life have evolved over time from common ancestors through natural selection, thus displacing humanity from the centre of the biological kingdom. And following Freud, we acknowledge nowadays that the mind is also unconscious and subject to the defence mechanism of repression. So we are not immobile, at the centre of the universe (Copernican revolution), we are not unnaturally separate and diverse from the rest of the animal kingdom (Darwinian revolution), and we are very far from being purely rational minds entirely transparent to ourselves (Freudian revolution).
Freud was the first to interpret these three revolutions as part of a single process of reassessment of human nature, and his perspective was blatantly self-serving. But replace Freud with neuroscience, and we can still find the framework useful to explain the widespread intuition that something very significant and profound has recently happened to our self-understanding. Since the fifties, computer science and ICTs have exercised both an extrovert and an introvert influence, fundamentally changing not only our interactions with the world, but also our essential views about who we are. We no longer interpret ourselves as standalone entities, but rather as interconnected informational organisms or inforgs, sharing with biological, artificial and hybrid agents and engineered artefacts a global environment, ultimately made of information, the infosphere. (…)
The digital revolution is therefore best understood as a fourth revolution, in the process of dislocation and reassessment of our fundamental nature and role in the universe. As far as we know, we are the only semantic engines in the universe. We were born to be inforgs and we have been pursuing our informational agenda relentlessly at least since the Bronze Age, the era that marks the invention of writing in Mesopotamia and other regions of the world (4th millennium BC). (…)
The digital revolution is updating our everyday perspective on ourselves and on the ultimate nature of reality, that is, our metaphysics, from a materialist one, in which physical objects and processes play a key role, to an informational one. Objects and processes are increasingly seen as de-physicalised, in the sense that they tend to be treated as support-independent (consider a music file). They are typified, in the sense that an instance of an object (my copy of a music file) is as good as its type (the music file of which my copy is an instance). And they are assumed to be perfectly clonable by default, in the sense that my copy and your original become interchangeable. Less stress on the physical nature of objects and processes means that the right of use is perceived to be at least as important as the right to own. P2P does not mean Pirate to Pirate but Platonist to Platonist, for it is the immaterial nature of things that underpins the phenomenon. Finally, the criterion for existence – what it means for something to exist – is no longer being actually immutable (the Greeks thought that only that which does not change can be said to exist fully), or being potentially subject to perception (modern philosophy insisted on something being perceivable by the five senses in order to qualify as existing), but being potentially subject to interaction, even if intangible. To be is to be interactable, even if the interaction is only virtual. (…)
During the last decade or so, we have become accustomed to conceptualising our life online as a mixture between an evolutionary adaptation of human agents to a digital environment, and a form of post-modern, neo-colonization of that space by us. Yet the truth is that the digital revolution is as much changing our world as it is creating new realities. The threshold between here (analogue, carbon-based, off-line) and there (digital, silicon-based, online) is fast becoming blurred, but this is as much to the advantage of the latter as it is of the former.
The digital is spilling over into the analogue and merging with it. This increasing informatization of artefacts, identities and of whole (social) environments and life activities suggests that soon it will be difficult to understand what life was like in pre-digital times and, in the near future, the very distinction between online and offline will disappear.
To put it dramatically, the infosphere is progressively absorbing any other space. We live “onlife” and your Nike and iPod have been talking to each other for some time. (…)
Our view of the world (our metaphysics) is still modern or Newtonian: it is made of “dead” cars, buildings, furniture, clothes, fridges, which are non-interactive, irresponsive and incapable of communicating, learning, or recording. But in advanced information societies, what we still experience as the world offline is bound to become a fully interactive and more responsive environment of wireless, pervasive, distributed, a2a (anything to anything) information processes, that works a4a (anywhere for anytime), in real time. As a consequence, we shall be living in an infosphere that will become increasingly synchronized (time), delocalised (space) and correlated (interactions). This will first gently invite us to understand the world as something “a- live” (artificially live). Things are increasingly less inanimate, yet their new “souls” are digital. This digital animation of the world will then, paradoxically, make our outlook closer to that of pre-technological cultures, which interpreted all aspects of nature as inhabited by forces. Only Odysseus could string his mythical bow. Today, only a user wearing a special ring with a unique matching code can unlock the trigger of an iGun™. (…)
The best way of tackling the new ethical challenges posed by the digital revolution is probably from an environmental approach, yet not one that privileges the natural or untouched, but one that treats as authentic and genuine all forms of existence and behaviour, even those based on synthetic and engineered artefacts. This sort of synthetic e-nvironmentalism requires a change in our perspective about the relationship between physis (nature, reality) and techne (practical science and its applications). (…)
The digital revolution can help us in our fight against the destruction, impoverishment, vandalism and waste of both natural and human resources, including historical and cultural ones. We should resist any Greek tendency to treat techne as the Cinderella of science; any absolutist inclination to accept no moral balancing between some unavoidable evil and more goodness; and any modern, reactionary, metaphysical temptation to drive a wedge between naturalism and constructionism, by privileging the former as the only authentic dimension of human life. The challenge is to reconcile our roles as informational organisms and agents within nature, and as stewards of nature.” ” —Luciano Floridi, MPhil. and PhD, MA University of Oxford, currently holds the Research Chair in philosophy of information and the UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics, both at the University of Hertfordshire, Department of Philosophy, The Digital Revolution as a Fourth Revolution (pdf)
See also: ☞ Luciano Floridi on the future development of the information society
☞ TEDxMaastricht talk – Luciano Floridi
“ “In the long run, history is the story of information becoming aware of itself.” ”
—James Gleick, American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Pantheon, 2011
“ “The bit is a fundamental particle of a different sort: not just tiny but abstract—a binary digit, a flip-flop, a yes-or-no. It is insubstantial, yet as scientists finally come to understand information, they wonder whether it may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself. They suggest that the bit is the irreducible kernel and that information forms the very core of existence.” ”
—James Gleick, American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood, Pantheon, 2011 (tnx johnsparker)
