Dear Mark and all,
I agree with your criticisms on Floridi. My own look like this:
In his paperA defense of information structural realism (Synthese 2009,
Vol. 61, No. 2, pp. 219-253)
<http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/blog/2008/03/against-digital-ontology.html>Floridi
argues that digital ontology deals with the view that "the ultimate
nature of reality is digital". This is, indeed, as Floridi stresses, an
uncritical pre-kantian view. But what Floridi calls "digital ontology"
is in fact digital metaphysics. Using the term "ontology" with regard to
his own theory, namely "informational ontology" ("the ultimate nature of
reality is structural"), Floridi is no less metaphysical or pre-kantian
and his argument is self-contradictory.
When I talk about digital ontology I am taking no position with regard
to the digital as "the ultimate nature of reality". I am just saying
that in the present age, the digital seems to be (at least it seems to
me) the prevalent perspective for understanding (!) beings in their
being. This is an epistemological (in Heideggerian terms: an
"ontological") view, not a metaphysical (or "ontological" in Floridi's
terms) one. But, indeed, this ontological perspective can become a
metaphysical one. Floridi denies the legitimacy of such a digital
Pythagoreism, and I agree with him in this point. But he makes the case
for a kind of informational Platonism which is no less metaphysical than
the digital one he criticizes. Floridi's "infosphere" is nothing but a
Platonic phantasy.
more at:
http://www.capurro.de/floridi.html
best
Rafael
Dear Moises and all,
Floridi has an excellent chapter in his "philosophy of information"
called "Against digital ontology". It's worth quoting the two
fundamental questions he asks about digital ontology:
"a. whether the physical universe might be adequately modelled
digitally and computationally, independently of whether it is actually
digital and computational in itself;
b. whether the ultimate nature of the physical universe might be
actually digital and computation in itself, independently of how it
can be effectively or adequately modelled." (Floridi, "Philosophy of
Information", p320)
My point is that this stuff is highly speculative. Of course, it might
be argued that "it from qbit" is fundamentally different from "it from
bit". But is it really? Quantum computers look rather like parallel
processors, don't they? Also the emphasis on relations rather than
atoms (qbits) in the article is interesting, but it looks like there
is still an atomistic logic behind it. It's the stuff of computer
science - even if it's quantum computer science.
I might struggle to see the point - even if I'm happy that physicists
are talking about information. If anybody was to communicate this in a
way that helps me see why this matters, they would probably have to
amplify their descriptions - in effect, add redundancy in their
descriptions. In this particular case, I think that would be very
difficult.
Curiously, in the recent discussion on this list about the additional
layer of information in DNA
(http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-confirm-a-second-layer-of-information-hiding-in-dna),
I think it would be easier to amplify the descriptions.
Best wishes,
Mark
On 5 November 2016 at 11:28, Moisés André Nisenbaum
<moises.nisenb...@ifrj.edu.br <mailto:moises.nisenb...@ifrj.edu.br>>
wrote:
Dear FISers.
I was very excited with the John’s first message informing that a
group of scientists is discussing again the role of Information in
Physics.
The high impact on FIS list of John’s post (13 replies from
different persons in 2 days) shows that it is yet an open
discussion. Thank you all for the very interesting posts :-)
The works (not interdisciplinary nor reductionist) of Tom Stonier
(1991), Holger Lyre (1995) and Carl Friedrich Von Weizsäcker, et.
Al (2006) and many discussions on this list
(http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/
<http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/>) are also about
this theme.
Scientific American article is an introduction. So I went to the
source of the project named “It from Qubit: Simons Collaboration
on Quantum Fields, Gravity, and Information.
Home page:
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/mathematics-and-physical-science/it-from-qubit-simons-collaboration-on-quantum-fields-gravity-and-information/
<https://www.simonsfoundation.org/mathematics-and-physical-science/it-from-qubit-simons-collaboration-on-quantum-fields-gravity-and-information/>
Overview: http://web.stanford.edu/~phayden/simons/overview.pdf
<http://web.stanford.edu/%7Ephayden/simons/overview.pdf>
Project:
http://web.stanford.edu/~phayden/simons/simons-proposal.pdf
<http://web.stanford.edu/%7Ephayden/simons/simons-proposal.pdf>
Mainly, it is an Interdisciplinary Resarch group trying to
approximate Fundamental Physics from Quantum Information, so I
think that it is a good and necessary initiative. Imagine what we
can “extract” from this two fields working together!
They have several projects, but I think that the final goals is
not as important as the revelations of the processes. We should
look at the projects. Maybe we can find that, after all, the title
“it from qbit” was only a “marketing” (bad?) choice :-)
Kind regards,
Moisés
References:
STONIER, T. *Towards a new theory of information*. Journal of
Information Science. *Anais*...1991Disponível em:
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-0026386595&partnerID=tZOtx3y1
<http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-0026386595&partnerID=tZOtx3y1>
“Information science is badly in need of an information theory.
The paper discusses both the need, and the possibility of
developing such a theory based on the assumption that information
is a basic property of the universe.”
LYRE, H. Quantum theory of Ur-objects as a theory of information.
*International Journal of Theoretical Physics*, v. 34, n. 8, p.
1541–1552, ago. 1995.
“The quantum theory of ur-objects proposed by C. F. von Weizsäcker
has to be interpreted as a quantum theory of information.”
WEIZSÄCKER, C. F. VON; GÖRNITZ, T.; LYRE, H. *The structure of
physics*. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006.
“the idea of a quantum theory of binary alternatives (the
so-called ur-theory), a unified quantum theoretical framework in
which spinorial symmetry groups are considered to give rise to the
structure of space and time.”
2016-11-03 16:52 GMT-02:00 John Collier <colli...@ukzn.ac.za
<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>>:
Apparently some physicists think so.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tangled-up-in-spacetime/?WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20161102
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tangled-up-in-spacetime/?WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20161102>
John Collier
Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Associate
Philosophy, University of KwaZulu-Natal
http://web.ncf.ca/collier
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