Basic Concepts from Floridi’s Philosophy of Information

by Tim Gorichanaz Information

More and more my work is dealing with the philosophy of information (PI). A major figure in this area of philosophy is Luciano Floridi. His works are technical (i.e., difficult to read without a lot of training and patience), and we’re  in need of some more accessible entries into his thought. To that end, here I’d like to mention just a few of the major concepts he brings up in his philosophy. If you’re interested in more, check  out Betsy Martens’ “Illustrated Guide to the Infosphere,” as well as Floridi’s own works (perhaps start with The 4th Revolution, which is a bit more accessible than his other books).

Luciano Floridi

As Martin Heidegger famously said, discussing the life of Aristotle, “He was born at a certain time, he worked, and he died.” That is, when discussing philosophy, Heidegger suggests that we should discuss the ideas, not the people. Still, a brief note of orientation is perhaps worthwhile.

Luciano Floridi is Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, as well as Director of the Digital Ethics Lab, at the Oxford Internet Institute, part of the University of Oxford. He has authored over 150 papers in the philosophy of information and technology, and his most recent work focuses on digital ethics. Notably, he also sat on Google’s advisory council in 2014, which discussed and digested the implications of the “right to be forgotten” ruling of the European Court of Justice.

Floridi’s magnum opus is a four-book series laying the groundwork for the philosophy of information, three volumes of which have been published. Floridi posits the philosophy of information (PI) as a first philosophy, i.e., an entire philosophical system spanning ontology, epistemology, ethics, politics and aesthetics. The impetus for this work is the observation that the digital revolution is signaling a type-shift in the way we humans understand ourselves and how we conduct our lives, as individuals and societies—a profound and irreversible change—and the concept of information is central in this shift.

Major Concepts

Now I’ll present a handful of Floridi’s PI concepts that are relevant to many of us in the information field, broadly construed. They may be interesting and useful to consider.

Levels of Abstraction

Level of abstraction (LoA), a concept from computer science, is a central method in PI. An LoA is a gathering of different aspects of a phenomenon (observables) that are considered important for the question at hand. Consider wine, for example. If taste is in question, the LoA might include mineral content, acidity and body. But if purchasing is in question, then the LoA might include price, maker and vintage. The LoA specifies what combinations of observables are possible.

The method of defining an LoA is a way to make explicit and manage one’s ontological commitments. When a question (e.g., a research question) specifies an LoA, then it is answerable; the LoA provides the syntax for acceptable answers. Floridi gives the example of Kant’s antinomies of pure reason, which do not specify an LoA and are thus unanswerable. In the information field, we see Kant’s antinomies manifest as researchers may get caught up in questions of, for example, whether something is “digital” or “analogue.” The concept of LoA gives clarity to what might be called emergent properties: on one LoA, machine learning software appears interactive and autonomous; on another LoA, the software is simply following rules specified in lines of code. Lastly, a shared LoA is necessary for cooperation in any scenario of information exchange. Consider the Mars Climate Orbiter disaster of 1999, which was caused by one firm tacitly operating in imperial units (pound-seconds) whereas the cooperating firm tacitly operated in metric (newton-seconds). As Floridi writes, “failing to specify a level at which we ask a given philosophical question can be the reason for deep confusions and useless answers.”

Infosphere

By analogy with the concept of the biosphere, Floridi posits that we are now living in the infosphere. The infosphere is the totality of information and interacting organisms (what Floridi calls inforgs). Just as the biosphere concerns what is alive, the infosphere concerns what interacts—increasingly, this substrate is digital-technologically–mediated.

Re-Ontologization

Floridi writes of a series of revolutions of self-understanding in the history of humanity: the Copernican, the Darwinian, the Freudian—and now the informational. Information technology is changing what we know, what we can know, what we think we are, and, indeed, what we are. This re-engineering of existence is what Floridi refers to as re-ontologization. As the infosphere becomes re- ontologized, our sense of space changes, as does how we work with each other. For example, we no longer “go online” or do certain things “offline”; rather, as Floridi says, we simply live onlife. Our era is also the era of hyperhistory, wherein (a) our societies depend on information technology to function, and (b) more writing is read by machines than by people. In the moral realm, re-ontologization has borne new concepts in recent years, such as doxxing, trolling and revenge porn. Another novel feature of our infosphere that Floridi flags is the decoupling of accountability and responsibility.

Ontological Friction

One important site of re-ontologization is regarding friction in the flow of information, or ontological friction. Floridi claims that the infosphere is becoming more frictionless; that is, information flows easier, but this ease is not distributed evenly. This has numerous implications. On a personal level, we find claims of ignorance less convincing, and a barrage of information can lead to hasty conclusions and even anxiety. On a systemic level, we see the rise of micrometering, new depths to the digital divide and changing notions of privacy.

Informational Identity

On an informational ontology, it becomes especially clear that a person is not simply their body, but also their information. Simply put, you are your information, which includes the pattern of energy and matter that composes your body, as well as your stories, your documents, your smartphone data, search results for your name, etc.

In an information economy (as all hyperhistorical economies are), this fact presents a danger for selfhood: “the processes of de-physicalization and typification of individuals as unique and irreplaceable entities start eroding our sense of personal identity as well.” Floridi writes that we become apt to conceive ourselves as bundles of types rather than as unique singularities, and that many of our technology-mediated activities can be read as attempts to reappropriate our selves.

Ontic Trust

In a global society riven by cultural differences, what sort of ontology could we all share? Are there any ethical principles could we hope to hold in common? Floridi proposes an “ontology lite” moral framework called the ontic trust, named after the legal concept of trust, in which one party (the trustor) settles some property on a second party (the trustee) for the benefit of a third party (the beneficiary)—so no one fully owns the property. The ontic trust, then, is such a relationship wherein the infosphere (including all agents and patients) is the property, owned by no one but passed down by past generations (donors) and cared for by current agents (trustees), for the benefit of all future and current patients and agents (beneficiaries). On this account, all informational entities deserve (at least minimal) moral respect; all beings have obligations toward each other—and even toward being as such.

Philosophy, information and seafaring

by Tim Gorichanaz Information

What is philosophy? What do philosophers do? Otto Neurath put it this way:

We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.

Philosophers are conceptual shipbuilders. We root out the planks that are no longer serving humanity for one reason or another, and we build new features of our ship in response to the changing winds. This is not so much a matter of uncovering ultimate truths as it is crafting solutions to help us get along. Quite along these lines, Luciano Floridi, in his new book The Logic of Information, describes philosophy as conceptual design, explicitly tying philosophical inquiry with the discipline of design.

My own academic work in information studies falls under the broad umbrella of sociotechnical research—that bridging human and technology. Like philosophy, sociotechnical work is also a field of design: Technology isn’t part of the natural world—it’s made by humans. Even librarianship can be considered through the lens of design. And so if information studies and philosophy are both design fields, then there may be more connection between them than is generally appreciated. Moreover, what we now generally call sociotechnical research once went by the name cybernetics. That term was chosen deliberately from the Greek kubernetes, meaning the pilot of a ship, the one in charge of correcting course in the face of endlessly shifting tides.

As Floridi has remarked, the juncture of information and philosophy, then, is a matter of shoring up the ship we’re steering—replacing rotten planks and upgrading components where possible. Philosophy can show us what assumptions no longer serve us and what new questions need asking. As designed information artifacts become more embedded in human life, it becomes more urgent to consider how and why design choices are made. Looking at information through the lens of philosophy provides conceptual scaffolding for understanding such vital issues.

When the map edits the territory

by Tim Gorichanaz Document, Technology
By Stefan Kühn – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

“A map is not the territory,” goes the famous dictum. In other words, a representation is different from the object it represents. It’s obvious, right? And yet I’m not so sure anymore.

Lately I’ve been wondering about the relationship between a document and object it documents. As Michael Buckland has written, some documents are made as documents, wherein the object precedes the document (e.g., a database record describing a movie); while others are considered as documents, where the document precedes the object (e.g., the Liberty Bell as a sign of Abolition). And the link between the document and its object may be a matter of physical resemblance, socially controlled, or idiosyncratic.

All this suggests a one-way relationship between document and object—most typically, an arrow going from territory to map. But things seem to be getting more complicated. Or maybe things were always more complicated, but new kinds of documents are revealing complications that have long been hidden.

What I see happening in the digital world are three related trends:

  1. We are increasing the size of the map.
  2. We are becoming more interested in the map than the territory.
  3. The map is redrawing the territory.

Let’s consider each in turn.

The first is fairly obvious. We are documenting more, and in more detail, than ever before. If we look at maps narrowly defined, it’s clear that any web-based map packs in more information than any paper map could. You can zoom in or out quite far, you can navigate the whole world, you can see construction and traffic, businesses and buildings of all stripes are labeled, and on and on.

In a recent Wired article, Kevin Kelly discusses our growing map. Mirrorworld, he says, is the next major digital platform (after the web itself). “Someday soon, every place and thing in the real world—every street, lamppost, building, and room—will have its full-size digital twin in the mirrorworld.” When a map becomes sufficiently detailed, after all, it is essentially a mirrorworld. Kelly points to our AR technologies at present—from Pokémon Go to camera-based Google Translate, as a mere figment of what is to come. Google Maps is crude in comparison.

Second, in the age of the growing map, we are becoming more enthralled with the map than ever before. Susan Sontag was an early observer of this. In her essay “The Image-World” (part of her excellent On Photography), Sontag wrote that, whereas Plato taught us to look at reality rather than images, nowadays we seem to embrace images over and above the real. “An image-world is replacing the real one.” In other words, we prefer the map to the territory. For example, if we see images of a person or place before seeing that person or place in the flesh, the real thing often disappoints.

Prescient, Sontag wrote, “Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as a spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers).” Walking down the street of any city today, one is struck by how many people are looking down at their smartphones, rapt by the growing mirrorworld—a spectacle indeed. Meanwhile, as Shoshana Zuboff has made clear in her The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, the mirrorworld thrives on surveillance and the sale of behavioral futures.

But we don’t live in the mirrorworld (a la Wall-E) just yet; we still flit between the image and the real. And so the map changes our understanding of the territory. It shows us our world in a different light. Seeing a map could show a shorter route from A to B, to give a simple example. And another favorite example of mine was given by Nicholas Mirzoeff: Once the image “The Blue Marble,” a photograph of the whole earth from space, was published, people experienced what’s called the overview effect, a different sense of what it means to be an inhabitant of the earth. This leads into the final trend.

Third, and maybe most interestingly, the map is redrawing the territory. Luciano Floridi has coined the term re-ontologization, which refers to how the digital changes the physical. For example, the digital has borne new concepts, such as trolling, doxxing and revenge porn; and it has decoupled concepts that have historically always come together, such as responsibility and accountability. With re-ontologization, what is happening to the relationship between the map and the territory? One example that comes to mind is the way that smartphone maps, which navigate based on real-time traffic, actually change the traffic that they represent. Once-sleepy residential streets are now bumper-to-bumper because they offer a shortcut to the highway.

But we should not make the mistake of defining “map” too narrowly, lest we miss the forest for the trees. Alfred Korzybski, who coined the map–territory dictum, used the word map only as an analogy; what he was talking about was semantic representation writ large, encompassing human language and all symbolic thought.

So when we think about the map rewriting the territory, we should think about all documentary phenomena, and the links between documents and their objects. What is the relationship between a person and their online persona(s), for instance, and how does one form the other? Korzybski wrote that “the ideal map would contain the map of the map, the map of the map of the map… endlessly.” If a mirrorworld is on the horizon, we need to map the map.

I’m reminded of a vignette from Lewis Carroll’s last novel, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, written in 1893:

“That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation,” said Mein Herr, “map-making. But we’ve carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be really useful?”

“About six inches to the mile.”

“Only six inches!” exclaimed Mein Herr. “We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile”

“Have you used it much?” I enquired.

“It has never been spread out, yet,” said Mein Herr: “the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well.”

Indeed, a mile-for-mile map would swallow us up. The only way for it to be “really useful” would be for us to live inside it, wherein the map is less a map than part of the territory itself.

I’m especially struck by the last line. When the map is so big that it swallows us up, will we not find that we’re simply better off without it?