8 ms·

The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design

95 points by raleighm 7y ago

voidhorse 7y ago
Thank’s for sharing! I’ve been meaning to check out Luciano Floridi’s work for a long time. I’m a bit skeptical of the whole program because philosophy is one of the last bastions of resistance to the overall informationalization of life, and one of the few disciplines that’s managed to remain somewhat free of a reduction to the concept of information; I don’t want it to be messed with. That said this sounds like quite the work. The reviewer has some interesting criticisms though.
- abdullahkhalids 7y ago
  Can you expand a bit more? Why is it important to resist informationalization of various disciplines? Could you give a couple of examples. Thanks in advance.
  - ukj 7y ago
    To be a good Philosopher is to understand the limits and dangers of language. By beginning to treat the concept (e.g something in our heads) of Information as physical [1] (e.g outside of our heads) we are committing a Reification fallacy [2]. In a way good Philosophers understand the Dao (but don't say it). The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
    - mistermann 7y ago
      > To be a good Philosopher is to understand the limits and dangers of language. This is something I am keenly interested in - I'm going to dig into reification, but any other recommendations/links specifically related to the limits and dangers of language (&/or the related pitfalls inherent in human communication, and therefore perception) would be appreciated.
      - ukj 7y ago
        Disclaimer: take everything I say with a pinch of salt and form your own ideas. Philosophy is about the journey, not the destination. With regards to danger this 5 minute video [1] by Stephen Fry conveys a powerful idea. I think all of Western Philosophy in the last 120 or so years has concerned itself with the "linguistic turn" [2]. If you follow the breadcrumbs from Wittgenstein, Frege, Russell, Dumett, Chomsky, Quine etc. at a high-level you may begin to observe a common thread, patterns and concepts between Logic and Language which have been crystalized in Programming Language Theory [3]. At the risk of being a little too radical (with some intent of shock value) my view is that Truth is constructed not discovered [4]. This is also an argument Richard Rorty makes in "Contingency, Irony and Solidarity" [5]. Ultimately, language is a tool [6]. The responsible use of any tool (be it language or a gun) is a moral concern and an individual responsibility. For unpacking the question "What is communication?" there's no better starting point than Shannon's "The Mathematical theory of Communication" [7] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrtFuxUzZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrtFuxUzZE [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language_theory [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency,_Irony,_and_Solidarity#Part_I:_Contingency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency,_Irony,_and_Solida... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDiENpmpY78&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDiENpmpY78&t=1s [7] https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Theory-Communication-Claude-Shannon-ebook/dp/B00VVH4UE8 https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Theory-Communication-Cla...
        mistermann 7y ago
        What a great reply, I will watch all of this, thank you. > Truth is constructed not discovered. This is pretty interesting if you think about it, especially from multiple universe or counterfactual perspectives. It's probably mostly true even just here, but not so easy to see.
    - dwaltrip 7y ago
      Why must physical information be outside of our head? It seems to me that the patterns, processes, and representations in our brains are physical information.
      - ukj 7y ago
        Because nobody has a good idea where the brain (hardware) stops and where "the mind" (software) starts [1]. And nobody has any idea what "information" is beyond the Mathematical equation which define it. They are just linguistic/conceptual distinctions - useful models, but that is all they are - models. The map is not the territory [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
        dwaltrip 7y ago
        Hmm, thanks for the response. Obviously, this is a complex topic, but I don't find the points you bring sufficient to imply anything about the mind being non-physical -- let alone what that would even mean, if it could be precisely defined in a scientific way.
        ukj 7y ago
        >the mind being non-physical -- let alone what that would even mean It's all just words - Philosophical language games [1]. Physical and non-physical are just words that we, humans made up. They are concepts - useful distinctions. Nothing more. There is no methodical way - no experiment you can perform that can confirm OR falsify the claim "Existence is physical". It's not a scientific claim - it's a philosophical one. It's not even wrong. It can't be wrong because it's an axiom. People who axiomatically assume that existence is "physical" (whatever that means) are called physicalists [2]. >if it could be precisely defined in a scientific way. Big IF. Does the absence of a scientific definition make it non-physical until a definition is produced? Even if it could be precisely defined then all you have produced is a definition of the mind in the language of Mathematics. A Mathematical model. Are Mathematical models "physical"? In 2019 some people even say that the Turing Machine is a model of the human mind. Are Mathematical models physical? If the mind is indeed a Turing Machine, does that mean the mind is physical? Myself, I am not a physicalist. I am not a non-physicalist either. I am a Model-dependent realist [3]. But more than that - I am a Linguistic Determinist [4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy) [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  I mean, if Wittgenstein and Gödel haven't already hollowed out the possibility that language could have some innate non-information-theoretic meaning... For those who aren't really aware of what's going on, right now the bedrock of science is mathematics, and the hardest science is physics, and both are fully information-theoretic. "it from bit" theories are not just common, but fully compatible with our ways of looking at the world. In order to transcend information theory, one would have to abandon mathematics, and probably abandon logic as well. This more or less closes the door to a lot of the gibbering low-quality metaphysical pandering that is common in philosophical foundations. Another way of putting it is that, just like with empiricism and science, we have realized in mathematics a way to move forward, and that movement forward is creating pseudologic, in the same way that empiricism highlights pseudoscience. Mathematics is logic is metaphysics is mathematics, and deities really cannot be omnipotent. As a final note, who are we to deny that life is informational? We're made of DNA and RNA, of proteins and cellular messages, of neuronal configurations and connectomes, and your entire reply is that it's uncomfortable to imagine.
  - trevyn 7y ago
    Indeed; I think that it is a really big clue that certain thoughts are “uncomfortable to imagine”.
  - ukj 7y ago
    The bedrock of science is not Mathematics - it's Formal Language Theory (FLT)[1] (but to be fair, this may be a semantic distinction). FLT is closer to Computer Science than Mathematics for one simple reason - Time. The concept of Time doesn't exist in the Mathematical universe, while computer scientists obsess with time-complexity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar
  - xamuel 7y ago
    Wittgenstein and Gödel didn't have the advantage of knowing about mirror neurons [1], which have at least some potential to shoot some life back into the idea of at least some sense of innate information-theoretic meaning in language. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
- igravious 7y ago
  Start here: http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/research/ http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/research/ That's where he lays out his research programme on his own website. Start with Information: A Very Short Introduction “I don’t want it to be messed with” – I think that's a sentiment that's shared by most philosophers. However, Pandora's digital box has been opened and no discipline is immune to the infernal (excuse my impish hyperbole!) machinery springing forth :)
ngcc_hk 7y ago
Need to study a bit more but is it true that iphone user must know less than Apple. Not true in many software as programmer of say office may know its level of details but may surprise how users are using their software. In fact many examples like Visual Basic, HyperCard, Ibm token ring, xerox music and ... sorry maker has more power but understand their own technology and how it can be used ... why we need to ask users and why many hw/Sw abandon. But the staging is interesting. Let us hear more.
ezequiel-garzon 7y ago
With Descartes and became central replacing the old Aristotelian metaphysics. With Frege's and Wittgenstein's linguistic turn, logic, in the form of a theory of meaning, became central as Dummett and Davidson suggested. With Williamson, metaphysics was again central. Thoughts on this for those with a philosophy background? Is philosophy so focused...?
- igravious 7y ago
  “Is philosophy so focused...?” Philosophy contains within itself the History of Ideas. Just as we can talk about regular history using grand sweeping narratives broken into epochs we can also talk about currents of thought that sweep through philosophy and rough granular eras. So yes, yes you can: you had the Ancients (Aristotle and the like) and they had certain ideas about the world – then there was the rise of scholasticism (religious/theological supremacy) – then came the Renaissance (and humanism), then the Modern Era (with Descartes) all of which had shifts in focus – then the Enlightenment – the contemporary philosophy with its emphasis on representation, Frege's and Wittgenstein's linguistic turn … None of this does justice to the History of Ideas but you gotta start somewhere – it's not a coincidence that the great epoch in Western Civilisation correspond to similar eras in philosophy. Hope that helps.
  - ezequiel-garzon 7y ago
    It does help, thank you! I guess I have to stop postponing diving into it... at least a little.
    - igravious 7y ago
      Great! Every journey starts with the first step and you've already taken a few :)
ukj 7y ago
Digital Philosophy [1] is not a new idea. As per the Wikipedia article it's a re-interpretation of Monist metaphysics. There's no easier way to say this without triggering people who haven't yet reasoned their way to these positions so I am just going to say it. The concept of a Monad[2] in digital philosophy corresponds to the concept of God in Christian philosophy. See Computational Trinitarianism for more [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(philosophy) [3] https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/computational+trinitarianism https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/computational+trinitarianism
- ppod 7y ago
  That's fine in theory but my aunt isn't praying to Monad or declining to get her kids vaccinated because Monad will protect them.
  - ukj 7y ago
    Your aunt has committed a Reification fallacy [1] because she doesn't understand the recursive/self-referential (e.g computational!) nature of the human mind. You aren't going to change her mind by Philosophising her, trying to explain the fallacy to her; or throwing evidence at her, but you may be able to reach her on a human level if you learn to talk to her in her language. The need to believe in a greater power (than the self) is rooted in a fear of the unknown - she can't cope with uncertainty. Most humans can't - don't holt it against them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
    - anongraddebt 7y ago
      Perhaps some non-naturalists are - deep down - motivated by a fear of the unknown. I myself (from all that I can gather) and many other non-naturalists I know, aren't so motivated. The majority of my close friends over the years have been naturalists, and if I was being uncharitable, I could say all of them are naturalists because of a fear and loathing of having something outside themselves set limits to their moral freedom or life choices. While some naturalists probably do, I don't say all of them or even most of them do because people are people everywhere. And generally speaking, many people follow arguments where they lead, given whatever epistemic tools they have available to them.

95 points by raleighm 7y ago

Thank’s for sharing! I’ve been meaning to check out Luciano Floridi’s work for a long time. I’m a bit skeptical of the whole program because philosophy is one of the last bastions of resistance to the overall informationalization of life, and one of the few disciplines that’s managed to remain somewhat free of a reduction to the concept of information; I don’t want it to be messed with. That said this sounds like quite the work. The reviewer has some interesting criticisms though.

abdullahkhalids 7y ago
Can you expand a bit more? Why is it important to resist informationalization of various disciplines? Could you give a couple of examples. Thanks in advance.
- ukj 7y ago
  To be a good Philosopher is to understand the limits and dangers of language. By beginning to treat the concept (e.g something in our heads) of Information as physical [1] (e.g outside of our heads) we are committing a Reification fallacy [2]. In a way good Philosophers understand the Dao (but don't say it). The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_information [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > To be a good Philosopher is to understand the limits and dangers of language. This is something I am keenly interested in - I'm going to dig into reification, but any other recommendations/links specifically related to the limits and dangers of language (&/or the related pitfalls inherent in human communication, and therefore perception) would be appreciated.
    - ukj 7y ago
      Disclaimer: take everything I say with a pinch of salt and form your own ideas. Philosophy is about the journey, not the destination. With regards to danger this 5 minute video [1] by Stephen Fry conveys a powerful idea. I think all of Western Philosophy in the last 120 or so years has concerned itself with the "linguistic turn" [2]. If you follow the breadcrumbs from Wittgenstein, Frege, Russell, Dumett, Chomsky, Quine etc. at a high-level you may begin to observe a common thread, patterns and concepts between Logic and Language which have been crystalized in Programming Language Theory [3]. At the risk of being a little too radical (with some intent of shock value) my view is that Truth is constructed not discovered [4]. This is also an argument Richard Rorty makes in "Contingency, Irony and Solidarity" [5]. Ultimately, language is a tool [6]. The responsible use of any tool (be it language or a gun) is a moral concern and an individual responsibility. For unpacking the question "What is communication?" there's no better starting point than Shannon's "The Mathematical theory of Communication" [7] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrtFuxUzZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohrtFuxUzZE [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_turn [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_language_theory [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_epistemology [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency,_Irony,_and_Solidarity#Part_I:_Contingency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency,_Irony,_and_Solida... [6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDiENpmpY78&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDiENpmpY78&t=1s [7] https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Theory-Communication-Claude-Shannon-ebook/dp/B00VVH4UE8 https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Theory-Communication-Cla...
      - mistermann 7y ago
        What a great reply, I will watch all of this, thank you. > Truth is constructed not discovered. This is pretty interesting if you think about it, especially from multiple universe or counterfactual perspectives. It's probably mostly true even just here, but not so easy to see.
  - dwaltrip 7y ago
    Why must physical information be outside of our head? It seems to me that the patterns, processes, and representations in our brains are physical information.
    - ukj 7y ago
      Because nobody has a good idea where the brain (hardware) stops and where "the mind" (software) starts [1]. And nobody has any idea what "information" is beyond the Mathematical equation which define it. They are just linguistic/conceptual distinctions - useful models, but that is all they are - models. The map is not the territory [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map%E2%80%93territory_relation
      - dwaltrip 7y ago
        Hmm, thanks for the response. Obviously, this is a complex topic, but I don't find the points you bring sufficient to imply anything about the mind being non-physical -- let alone what that would even mean, if it could be precisely defined in a scientific way.
        ukj 7y ago
        >the mind being non-physical -- let alone what that would even mean It's all just words - Philosophical language games [1]. Physical and non-physical are just words that we, humans made up. They are concepts - useful distinctions. Nothing more. There is no methodical way - no experiment you can perform that can confirm OR falsify the claim "Existence is physical". It's not a scientific claim - it's a philosophical one. It's not even wrong. It can't be wrong because it's an axiom. People who axiomatically assume that existence is "physical" (whatever that means) are called physicalists [2]. >if it could be precisely defined in a scientific way. Big IF. Does the absence of a scientific definition make it non-physical until a definition is produced? Even if it could be precisely defined then all you have produced is a definition of the mind in the language of Mathematics. A Mathematical model. Are Mathematical models "physical"? In 2019 some people even say that the Turing Machine is a model of the human mind. Are Mathematical models physical? If the mind is indeed a Turing Machine, does that mean the mind is physical? Myself, I am not a physicalist. I am not a non-physicalist either. I am a Model-dependent realist [3]. But more than that - I am a Linguistic Determinist [4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy) [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-dependent_realism [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism
lidHanteyk 7y ago
I mean, if Wittgenstein and Gödel haven't already hollowed out the possibility that language could have some innate non-information-theoretic meaning... For those who aren't really aware of what's going on, right now the bedrock of science is mathematics, and the hardest science is physics, and both are fully information-theoretic. "it from bit" theories are not just common, but fully compatible with our ways of looking at the world. In order to transcend information theory, one would have to abandon mathematics, and probably abandon logic as well. This more or less closes the door to a lot of the gibbering low-quality metaphysical pandering that is common in philosophical foundations. Another way of putting it is that, just like with empiricism and science, we have realized in mathematics a way to move forward, and that movement forward is creating pseudologic, in the same way that empiricism highlights pseudoscience. Mathematics is logic is metaphysics is mathematics, and deities really cannot be omnipotent. As a final note, who are we to deny that life is informational? We're made of DNA and RNA, of proteins and cellular messages, of neuronal configurations and connectomes, and your entire reply is that it's uncomfortable to imagine.
- trevyn 7y ago
  Indeed; I think that it is a really big clue that certain thoughts are “uncomfortable to imagine”.
- ukj 7y ago
  The bedrock of science is not Mathematics - it's Formal Language Theory (FLT)[1] (but to be fair, this may be a semantic distinction). FLT is closer to Computer Science than Mathematics for one simple reason - Time. The concept of Time doesn't exist in the Mathematical universe, while computer scientists obsess with time-complexity. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar
- xamuel 7y ago
  Wittgenstein and Gödel didn't have the advantage of knowing about mirror neurons [1], which have at least some potential to shoot some life back into the idea of at least some sense of innate information-theoretic meaning in language. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron
igravious 7y ago
Start here: http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/research/ http://www.philosophyofinformation.net/research/ That's where he lays out his research programme on his own website. Start with Information: A Very Short Introduction “I don’t want it to be messed with” – I think that's a sentiment that's shared by most philosophers. However, Pandora's digital box has been opened and no discipline is immune to the infernal (excuse my impish hyperbole!) machinery springing forth :)

ngcc_hk 7y ago

Need to study a bit more but is it true that iphone user must know less than Apple. Not true in many software as programmer of say office may know its level of details but may surprise how users are using their software. In fact many examples like Visual Basic, HyperCard, Ibm token ring, xerox music and ... sorry maker has more power but understand their own technology and how it can be used ... why we need to ask users and why many hw/Sw abandon. But the staging is interesting. Let us hear more.

ezequiel-garzon 7y ago

With Descartes and became central replacing the old Aristotelian metaphysics. With Frege's and Wittgenstein's linguistic turn, logic, in the form of a theory of meaning, became central as Dummett and Davidson suggested. With Williamson, metaphysics was again central. Thoughts on this for those with a philosophy background? Is philosophy so focused...?

igravious 7y ago
“Is philosophy so focused...?” Philosophy contains within itself the History of Ideas. Just as we can talk about regular history using grand sweeping narratives broken into epochs we can also talk about currents of thought that sweep through philosophy and rough granular eras. So yes, yes you can: you had the Ancients (Aristotle and the like) and they had certain ideas about the world – then there was the rise of scholasticism (religious/theological supremacy) – then came the Renaissance (and humanism), then the Modern Era (with Descartes) all of which had shifts in focus – then the Enlightenment – the contemporary philosophy with its emphasis on representation, Frege's and Wittgenstein's linguistic turn … None of this does justice to the History of Ideas but you gotta start somewhere – it's not a coincidence that the great epoch in Western Civilisation correspond to similar eras in philosophy. Hope that helps.
- ezequiel-garzon 7y ago
  It does help, thank you! I guess I have to stop postponing diving into it... at least a little.
  - igravious 7y ago
    Great! Every journey starts with the first step and you've already taken a few :)

ukj 7y ago

Digital Philosophy [1] is not a new idea. As per the Wikipedia article it's a re-interpretation of Monist metaphysics. There's no easier way to say this without triggering people who haven't yet reasoned their way to these positions so I am just going to say it. The concept of a Monad[2] in digital philosophy corresponds to the concept of God in Christian philosophy. See Computational Trinitarianism for more [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_philosophy [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monad_(philosophy) [3] https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/computational+trinitarianism https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/computational+trinitarianism

ppod 7y ago
That's fine in theory but my aunt isn't praying to Monad or declining to get her kids vaccinated because Monad will protect them.
- ukj 7y ago
  Your aunt has committed a Reification fallacy [1] because she doesn't understand the recursive/self-referential (e.g computational!) nature of the human mind. You aren't going to change her mind by Philosophising her, trying to explain the fallacy to her; or throwing evidence at her, but you may be able to reach her on a human level if you learn to talk to her in her language. The need to believe in a greater power (than the self) is rooted in a fear of the unknown - she can't cope with uncertainty. Most humans can't - don't holt it against them. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
  - anongraddebt 7y ago
    Perhaps some non-naturalists are - deep down - motivated by a fear of the unknown. I myself (from all that I can gather) and many other non-naturalists I know, aren't so motivated. The majority of my close friends over the years have been naturalists, and if I was being uncharitable, I could say all of them are naturalists because of a fear and loathing of having something outside themselves set limits to their moral freedom or life choices. While some naturalists probably do, I don't say all of them or even most of them do because people are people everywhere. And generally speaking, many people follow arguments where they lead, given whatever epistemic tools they have available to them.