MA Philosophy
Master Thesis
Internet Culture and the Philosophy of Information:
Self-‐Understanding in the Digital Age
by
Roeland Doherty
July 2017
Supervisor: Dr. Federica Russo 2nd Reader:Dr. Hein van den Berg
Abstract
The Internet is ubiquitous. It has changed how we think about the world, each other and ourselves. We use it to connect with one another, to organise our knowledge and lives. If we are to see it as an integral part of the human experience instead of a complementary one, we must reconsider the nature of information. The philosophy of information, particularly the work of Luciano Floridi, provides a cogent framework wherein to conceptualise the rapid changes brought about by hyperconnectivity. Through the Internet, our sources of information and, therefore, knowledge and truth have changed. Traditional authorities on truth have eroded due to the complex multi-‐way interactivity of the Web. Online advertising has led to the commercialisation of information. We are witnessing a move from traditional, geographically bound communities to networked individualism. Does broadcasting ourselves on the Internet, displaying and capturing memories, lead to a life steeped in Sartrean ‘bad faith’?
This thesis examines what the infosphere is, and what its effects are on self-‐ understanding and identity. It argues that having an online presence means exposing oneself constantly to the Other’s gaze, which can lead to anxiety and limits intimacy. While representing a revolution in human interaction, the Internet’s effects must be understood properly.
Table
of
Contents
Introduction ... 4
Chapter 1 – Information, the Digital and Inforgs ... 6
1.1 Introduction ... 6
1.2 The Philosophy of Information ... 7
1.3 The Digital, the Infosphere and Onlife ... 11
1.4 Understanding the Self ... 14
1.5 Humans, Data, Information & Knowledge ... 17
1.6 Informational Friction, Privacy and the Onlife Manifesto ... 19
Chapter 2 – Networks, Hyperconnectivity and Truth ... 24
2.1 Introduction ... 24
2.2 Individualisation and Diversification ... 25
2.3 Multi-‐way Interactivity and Filtering ... 27
2.4 The Subjectivity of Truth and the Commercialisation of Information29
2.5 The Networking of Knowledge, Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles . 34
2.6 Example: The Music Industry ... 37
2.7 Conclusion ... 40
Chapter 3 – Social Media, Identity and Existentialism ... 42
3.1 Introduction ... 42
3.2 Social Framing in the Onlife ... 44
3.3 Visibility, Conformity and Asynchronicity ... 47
3.4 Sartre’s Existentialism ... 51
3.5 The Digital Component of Identity Formation ... 56
3.6 The Digital Gaze ... 59
3.7 Conclusion ... 62
Conclusion ... 64
Bibliography ... 66
Introduction
The Internet is now ubiquitous and has significantly altered the ways in which we acquire and process knowledge. It has also changed the nature of social relations (via the use of social networks and media) and how we construct our individual identities. This thesis examines the myriad ways digital Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have affected humanity, both individually and collectively.
Chapter 1 examines the philosophy of information and its conceptual toolbox, as it is a very useful one when discussing multidisciplinary topics such as this one. I explain what is meant by the digital, and its place in the informational concept of reality, the infosphere. How to understand human beings’ unique place within this informational framework will be explained, and the importance of semantic information will be elucidated. Semanticisation is necessary for data to become information, which can then, in turn, become knowledge with the help of narratives or levels of abstraction. The human self will be examined from an informational perspective. Offline and online behaviour has integrated into the onlife.
Chapter 2 traces the effects of widespread Internet use to truth, knowledge and society. How it has affected the way we consume information through media will be examined by showing the effects of hyperconnectivity and multi-‐way interactivity, which the Internet has made possible. Truth can be said to be subjective as the Internet has shown how many conflicting narratives there are. The democratic ideal of the Internet will be pulled into question by examining the commercialisation of information. In order to more accurately express the way sociality works in the digital age, the concept of networked individualism will be proposed. This networking leads to the formation of echo chambers and filter bubbles. The changes to the music industry since the ubiquity of the Internet will be examined as an example to illustrate these points.
Chapter 3 examines how social media has made social behaviour, which used to be exclusively private, publically accessible. This has many consequences, and they will be discussed in an anthropological and existential sense. Social media makes culture more visible, and therefore increases conformity to pre-‐existing norms. By uploading
narratives of our selves online, we continuously peg our selves to information that gets outdated and imposes a restriction on the fluidity of self-‐creation. As the Internet changes how we communicate with others, I believe this to have many existential consequences. Specifically, the manifestation of the Other has been altered due to digital sociality, which is why Sartre’s existentialism will be examined and combined with an informational approach in order to inspect the effects on personal identity. Concepts like asynchronicity and the digital gaze lead to an increase in existential shame, negation and Sartrean bad faith.
Different intellectual streams are used in order to illustrate the points of this thesis, including sociology, anthropology and existentialism. Using an informational framework allows for this, as shall be explained in chapter 1. This thesis attempts to give an examination as philosophically holistic as possible, as the topic affects many dimensions of the human experience.
Chapter 1 – Information, the Digital and Inforgs
1.1 Introduction
In this chapter I present a brief overview of some of the work of Luciano Floridi. Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, his vast intellectual project aims to conceptualise the world through an informational perspective. He proposes to view information as the ontological basis of reality. Put simply, one can express anything in informational terms. For Floridi, this methodology is a very powerful tool for making sense of the world, as any philosophical issue can be rephrased in informational terms.1 This is a nuanced position, as it is a fundamentally
epistemological one. He is saying that reality reveals itself to us, the epistemic agent, through information, not that reality is information.
As Floridi is attempting to simultaneously discuss ontology, epistemology, ethics and the language and concepts behind all of these philosophical fields, I must necessarily limit myself to a small fraction of his work in this thesis. Specifically, I am interested in the digital component of life, and how it affects the non-‐digital part of life. I begin by contextualising the current situation within human history, showing how the advent of digital technologies has shaped the world wherein we live. I briefly explain Floridi’s method. I then discuss how we can understand the human self within this framework. Consciousness and the ability to semanticise information are the unique aspects of the human being, and it is vital to understand these in order to discuss the effects of the Internet on knowledge. Finally, I explain Floridi’s thoughts on individuality within the informational framework. The key concepts of informational friction and privacy are given attention as these are important when discussing the online experience.
1.2 The Philosophy of Information
We are living in the information age. Human civilisation is entirely dependent on the creation, dynamics, management and utilisation of information. Recorded history, as a term, signifies the vital importance of information for society to develop. Since the invention of digital computers, radically facilitating informational processes, we can be said to live in hyperhistory. This signifies a communications revolution, an acceleration of technological power over reality of never-‐before-‐seen proportions, and the rapid developments that it brings with it. Floridi calls the computer a “culturally defining technology”, exceeding the influence of the technologies that drove the agricultural and industrial revolutions. 2 The difference between these revolutions is that the computer represents an Information and Communication Technology, or ICT for short. ICTs represent systems that record events, and thus accumulate and transmit information. It is through ICTs that we can learn and teach information from and to other people. This means that, effectively, ICTs are necessary for history to occur.3 Society and civilisation are utterly dependent on ICTs in order to acquire knowledge. Recently, this property has exponentially increased in importance. Since computers have become the dominant ICT (compared to say, books or telephones), the processing of information represents the foremost essential condition for the flourishing and welfare of society. Floridi claims this by showing that at least 70 percent of the GDPs of the G7 countries are dependent on intangible, purely informational goods.4 The most valuable assets of highly developed countries are their knowledge/expertise-‐based economies, information-‐intensive services (such as communications, entertainment, insurance or finance) and information-‐oriented public sectors (such as education, healthcare and administration).
The meteoric speed at which ICTs have innovated and advanced, all the while becoming cheaper to produce and obtain are indicative of the fundamental role they
2 Floridi, 2011 pp 4-5
3 Floridi, 2014 p 1
play within society.5 As computers have become more and more effective at recording
and processing information, we have witnessed an explosion of collected data. Floridi cites a study from Berkeley’s School of Information that approximates the entire amount of data accumulated by humans until computers were commodified to be 12 exabytes (one exabyte represents 1018 bytes, or one million terabytes). By 2006, we had reached 180 exabytes. In 2011, the total was estimated at 1600 exabytes. This figure is expected to grow fourfold every three years or so, meaning we currently have over 25 zettabytes (1 zettabyte = 1000 exabytes) of accumulated data.6 This phenomenon is
usually described as the advent of the zettabyte era. The existence of all this data has led to worries about “information overload” and how to handle “big data”. If there is more data than anyone could possibly view, let alone comprehend, can we say that there is too much data?
Floridi notes that this is an epistemological problem, and its solution can therefore not be a technological one. It is common to seek better and more efficient technologies that will somehow reduce the amount of data to a manageable size. The trend shows that data accumulation will increase, it is no use trying to stop it. The epistemological solution lies in knowing what data is valuable. A fraction of what is being recorded is useful, the problem is we do not know which fraction. Data needs to be semanticised in order to become useful. Computers are information processors, but they cannot attribute meaning to this information.7 This will be covered in more detail later, when discussing the particularities of human beings within the informational framework we are working in. The point of this section is to show how important the communications revolution is for humanity, and how quickly we have made data the focal point of our society. Life without computers is unthinkable, as we have integrated their use into every facet of civilisation, especially in the developed world. This seemingly confirms the fact that information is foundational for our existence.
5 Floridi, 2014 pp 7-8
6 Floridi, 2014 p 13
A very basic overview of the main ideas behind Floridi’s extensive intellectual project will now be given. For the sake of clarity, I will simplify much of his work, and limit the scope to the relevant topics for this thesis. The philosophy of information is defined by Floridi as:
the philosophical field concerned with (a) the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilization, and sciences; and (b) the elaboration and application of information-‐theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems. (Floridi, 2011 p 14)
In short, it tries to examine what information is, and uses it as a way to understand everything about reality. Matter, empty space, concepts, emotions… all these things can be expressed as information in some way or another, making the framework of information an incredibly powerful tool in philosophy.
Floridi notes that his conceptual vocabulary is very useful because it can still be used when understanding or knowledge within a field is lacking. Not everything about a given issue needs to be known or understood in order to express something about it in informational terms. The danger lies in losing sight of the nuance in Floridi’s position. What he is suggesting is that any x can be described in informational terms, not that any x actually is merely information.8 It is a fundamentally epistemological assertion.
There is much we do not understand in the world, yet if we use information as the basis of an ontological framework we can meaningfully discuss any kind of problem. This is because of the versatility of the methodology of the philosophy of information. The methodology uses levels of abstraction as a way to make sense of reality, by defining a part of it in informational terms according to the question we are asking. Floridi defines it as follows:
A level of abstraction (LoA) is a finite but non-‐empty set of observables. No order is assigned to the observables, which are expected to be the building blocks in a theory characterized by their very definition. (Floridi, 2011 p 52)
Any theory about the world works from observations made by the theorist. Since no one person can grasp every intricacy of reality, the observations must limit themselves according to the question the theorist is asking.
A level of abstraction represents a certain way to look at the world. Different academic fields can be understood as working on different levels of abstraction, due to them asking different questions. For example, we can consider Plutarch’s paradox of Theseus’ ship by using LoAs. If every part of Theseus’ ship has been slowly replaced over the years, can we say that it is still the same ship? Floridi proposes that it entirely depends on the LoA used. For a tax collector, the LoA used would be that of legal ownership, making the ship effectively Theseus’, no matter its materials. A historian might be interested in where each plank of wood came from, and the circumstances that led to their replacements. A physicist could examine the ship as a collection of particles. A LoA represents the question one poses when observing the world, and describes how we make sense of it.9
The philosophy of information therefore represents a very broad project that wants to unify conceptualisations of the world that would otherwise clash. If we understand reality to be expressible in information, reality can take many forms. Floridi proposes that reality cannot be fully understood from a holistic perspective, as we can never experience or observe it from outside it; a divine God’s eye perspective is not feasible. Knowledge is mediated through levels of abstraction.10 We interact with
reality epistemically through levels of abstraction. They allow us to make an epistemological claim, but only about a certain structural facet we can observe. What Floridi is proposing is that we, as epistemic agents, ‘create’ reality through interaction, observation and semanticisation. He explains:
9 Floridi, 2014 pp 66-67
Knowledge is not a matter of either (a) discovering and describing, or (b) inventing and constructing, but of (c) designing and modelling reality, its features and behaviours into a meaningful world as we experience it (semanticisation). (…) Intelligibility is the name of the epistemic game, and humanity tries to achieve it at any cost, even when this means distorting reality in the most absurd way, from the conception of a flat earth placed at the centre of the universe to the interpretation of natural forces and events as anthropomorphic divinities or to the assumption of calories, phlogiston, and luminiferous ether. Since we wish to devise an intelligible conceptual environment for ourselves, we do so not by trying to picture or photocopy whatever is in the room (mimetic epistemology), but by interacting with it as a resource for our semantic tasks, interrogating it through experience, tests, and experiments. Reality in itself is not a source but a resource for knowledge. (Floridi, 2011 p 370)
Human beings, because of our ability to semanticise the world, aim to understand it. We do so through levels of abstraction. This is what sets us apart from other beings, as we shall discuss in more detail later.
1.3 The Digital, the Infosphere and Onlife
For the purposes of this thesis, we are interested in the digital component of life, and how it affects us as informational agents. A helpful hypothesis about reality is the it from bit hypothesis. It was formulated by the American physicist John Archibald Wheeler (1911-‐2008). It theorises that every aspect of reality, at its core, “derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely”11 from binary choices, or the answers
to yes-‐or-‐no questions. The physical world has at its core an immaterial source and explanation. Reality arises from this source by either being something specific or not.
Its being is, therefore, an answer to a specific yes-‐or-‐no question. Wheeler concludes that “all things physical are information-‐theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe.”12 Everything can be expressed in informational patters,
including our minds, bodies and identities. The building blocks of the universe are computable digits, when reduced to their most primal state. Therefore, the universe can be understood as a gigantic digital computer. Material objects are complex manifestations of the fundamental digits, and dynamic processes are computational state transitions.13
This hypothesis, oversimplified here, allows us to think of the digital realm as being wholly part of reality, or, rather, that reality can be expressed in a digital manner. All the data we produce and consume using ICTs is just as real and influential as physical matter. Our use of computers is understood as an integral and meaningful part of life, as the digital is given equal significance to the physical as they are, at their core, not very different from one another. To claim that digital ICT use ‘merely takes place virtually’ is to misunderstand its significance. Our increased use of digital devices is just as important to understanding our environment as studying the physical world around us. There is no separation between online and offline, as it is all part of the same reality. Therefore, Floridi proposes the terms ‘infosphere’ and ‘onlife’ in order to describe our modern, connected experience.
The “infosphere denotes the whole informational environment constituted by all informational entities, their properties, interactions and mutual relations.”14 If we interpret all of reality informationally, the infosphere therefore becomes synonymous with reality. In the words of Floridi: “What is real is informational, and what is informational is real.”15 As ICTs are used more and more, they are transforming the infosphere. They do it by definition; information and communication technologies affect information, which constitutes the infosphere. Floridi describes many such transformations, the most obvious of which is the transition from analogue to digital
12 Wheeler, quoted in Floridi, 2014 p 71
13 Floridi, 2011, p 319
14 Floridi, 2014 p 41
processes (think of clocks, money and methods of communication). A reason digitisation is occurring so rapidly is because there is a radical convergence between digital tools (software, algorithms, protocols etc.) and digital resources (the data being manipulated). They are made of the same stuff, and are therefore fully compatible with each other. This is not the case for analogue tools and resources, each of which has a very specific function and method for achieving its goal (a vinyl music player will never be able to do anything but play records). If all entities and agents are informational in nature, all interactions within the infosphere become equally informational.16 Digital
ICTs are making these interactions speedier and less discernible from each other. As we shall see in more detail later in section 3.2, we spend an increasing amount of time interacting with digital technologies. The distinction between online and offline is becoming blurred, as the ICTs we use are increasingly altering the offline space to suit the way they work through digitisation. This onlife experience is characterised by a daily integration of digital technology to enhance life. For example, sociality is enhanced by social media and driving a car is enhanced by a digital navigation system. The onlife represents the newer subsection of the infosphere where the digital and the analogue interact informationally on a continuous basis.17 Floridi calls it “the informatisation of our ordinary environment”.18 This process results in a shift from a historical and materialist perspective of the world to a hyperhistorical and informational one, due to the dephysicalisation of objects and process through digitisation. Objects are typified, meaning that what is important is the type of object, not the specific iteration of the object. This is wholly clear for digital files; two copies of the same music file are wholly indistinguishable from another. Offline objects are increasingly being typified too; think of a model of a car representing the meaningful distinction between different cars, not the actual physical object.19 In chapter 3 I will make the case that our selves are increasingly dephysicalised too, that through digital ICTs we transport mental life outside of the body.
16 Floridi, 2014 p 41
17 Floridi, 2014 pp 43-44
18 Floridi, 2014 p 48, “informatization” altered to “informatisation”
As more and more of our commodities get informationalised, they are increasingly seen as a public good. Let’s take the oft-‐pirated music files as an example, comparing them to physical CDs. Digital information is non-‐rivalrous, as an agent consuming some information does not prevent someone else consuming the exact same information; in this case an mp3 file. If I use a CD however, you cannot use that same CD simultaneously. Information is also usually non-‐excludable; to protect it requires a positive effort to do so as it can be copied and shared with minimal effort. To copy CDs requires physical resources of a much larger marginal cost.20 This property of
information as resembling a public good will also be important in chapter 2. These are the characteristics of the onlife experience within the infosphere, which we inhabit as informational organisms, or ‘inforgs’.
1.4 Understanding the Self
For Floridi, labelling ourselves as inforgs follows the fourth scientific revolution of human self-‐understanding. The first three are the Copernican, the Darwinian and the Freudian revolutions. Each of these signified a profound change in the self-‐attributed status of the human being within the universe. The Copernican revolution shattered the idea that God had placed Earth and its inhabitants at the shining centre of the universe, by showing that our planet, like the others in our solar system, revolved around the Sun. The Darwinian revolution then made us lose our status of supreme and most divine being on Earth, created in God’s image, by showing that all species of life have evolved from common ancestors. The Freudian revolution made us doubt our sublime rational minds, the attribute we thought made us unique. We are not in control of our thoughts, emotions and beliefs, they are the product of un-‐ and subconscious processes we are not immediately aware of.21 Each revolution
accompanies with it a loss of status; we understand something about reality that makes us less unique.
20 Floridi, 2014 pp 51-52
The fourth revolution consists of realising that we, as inforgs, share properties with synthetic organisms that are much better at processes we thought only the human mind could handle. Human beings are the only intelligent thinkers, or so we thought. It has become clear that computers are far better at processing information logically (i.e. computation) than we are. Computers have helped us gain unprecedented scientific insight, and have altered our understanding of our place in the world.22 Floridi
summarises the effects of the fourth revolution by stating that “we are informational organisms (inforgs), mutually connected and embedded in an informational environment (the infosphere), which we share with other informational agents, both natural and artificial, that also process information logically and autonomously.”23 After
the fourth revolution, according to my understanding, the thing that makes us unique in our self-‐understanding is our consciousness. Being self-‐aware brings with the ability to semanticise information, a trait that mere information processors such as computers do not possess. The informational conceptualisation of the conscious self, humanity’s remaining beacon of uniqueness, will now be discussed.
Fully understanding consciousness is an impossible task.24 Instead of looking to
cognitive science, I propose to look at intellectual streams such as existentialism (which will be discussed in chapter 3), as it recognises this fact and attempts to investigate it through philosophical means. Thinkers such as Jean-‐Paul Sartre do not aim to understand the conscious self through an objectifying, scientific lens. The idea that it is impossible to fully grasp the inner workings of the mind is, according to me, a fundament of existentialism. The project instead aims to describe the human experience subjectively, which I believe is all we can do. It circumvents many problems by asserting from the outset that a self-‐aware being cannot understand its own self-‐ awareness, as it is always aware of something outside of it. This will be discussed in detail in section 3.4. Floridi approaches the subject from a similar point of view, as shall be elucidated here.
22 Floridi, 2014 pp 91-93
23 Floridi, 2014 p 94
The self-‐aware mind attempts to fill its environment with meaning in order to set itself apart from the meaningless nothingness. This is a primordial dread of nothingness, as consciousness can be described as the thing which realises it exists. The self semanticises (attributes meaning to) the space it finds itself in.25 It does this by
inheriting and elaborating narratives. These narratives are understood as personal identity, scientific theories, cultural values, common-‐sense experience etc. They are formed by semanticising the informational observations in the infosphere. Floridi identifies four conceptual thrusts that result into this framing of the world.
1. A metasemanticisation of narratives. At some point the self will have to create a narrative to make sense of its own existence as it realises it is part of the reality it wishes to understand.
2. A delimitation of culture. The presence of other selves makes the singular and personal experience of reality an inter-‐subjective, shared one. This is why we learn language as babies; we are given semantics from the influential selves around us.
3. A dephysicalisation of nature and physical reality. We must necessarily virtualise and distance ourselves from physical objects in order to make sense of them. We typify them, as seen in the previous section, in order to interact with them in a meaningful way. If not, every time I encounter a new iteration of a watch, for example, I must learn its properties anew. Floridi summarises as “individual entities are used as disposable instantiations of universals.”26
4. A hypostatisation (embodiment) of the conceptual environment designed and inhabited by the mind. Conceptual narratives such as values or emotions, are shaped into ‘semantic objects’ or ‘information entities’. They acquire an ontological status similar to physical objects as they are so vital for the self to make sense of the world.
The mental world is made sense of informationally, and through dephysicalisation and the embodiment of narratives approximates the virtual. History and culture are seen as
25 Floridi, 2011 p 7
equally, if not more, important than physical space. This process of semanticisation ultimately conceptualises reality into a worldview.27 All of these processes are informational, and occur in the infosphere.
A technology that is able to affect informational processes, such as an ICT (and especially a digital ICT) is therefore able to affect the self. ICTs that affect selves can be labelled ‘technologies of the self’, which will become important in section 3.5. ICTs induce modifications (or, as Floridi calls them, re-‐ontologisations) of the context the self finds itself in. For example, they allow one to communicate with someone on the other side of the planet, transporting mental life to a purely informational space that is semantically important.28 ICTs, by hugely increasing the amount of narratives that we
can be exposed to, have given us unprecedented control over shaping and constructing ourselves. This will be discussed in detail in the later chapters of this thesis.
1.5 Humans, Data, Information & Knowledge
To discuss the differences between computers and humans, we must first understand the differences between data, information and knowledge. Understood simply, data + semantic meaning = information. Data is the raw component of information. For it to become meaningful, the data must comply with the semantics of a given system, code or language (a level of abstraction).29 For information to become knowledge, it must be true (or factual) semantic content.30 Truth is a subset of semantic information. The difference between information and knowledge is that knowledge contains “a web of mutual relations that allow one part of it to account for another.”31 Without this web that makes it meaningful to an agent, the random bits of
information fail to make sense. Knowledge must be built using semantic information that makes sense together to form an explanation or an account.
27 Floridi, 2011 pp 7-9 28 Floridi, 2013 pp 221-223 29 Floridi, 2010 pp 20-21 30 Floridi, 2010 p 36 31 Floridi, 2010 p 51
This is the difference between computers and human beings; humans are able to build knowledge from information, Computers can only deal with information itself. They are far more effective at processing information, but fail to semanticise it. Our technology is impervious to semantics.32 Computers only ever deal with raw,
uninterpreted data, defined as “mere patterns of physical differences and identities.”33 We do not fully understand how data is semanticised, as it is the one unique property of our consciousness. We can only say that we are the beings that can do it, and excel at it. Human beings as semantic agents cannot deal with meaningless data, as we are the beings that give meaning to data.34 How do we do it? Currently, we fail to
understand this process. It is this question that leads existentialists to ponder consciousness in the way they do, as described in section 3.4. It is what sets us apart as inforgs. Floridi summarises beautifully:
What makes humans special is not their bodies, which are not much better, and possibly worse, than the bodies many animals have, but the coalition of capacities which one may call intelligence or the mind. [We are] inforgs, organisms that are semantically omnivorous, capable of semantic processing and intelligent interactions. We generate and use meaning a bit like the larvae of the mulberry silkworm produce and use silk. It is an extraordinary feature, which so far appears unique in the universe. (...) Civilisations, cultures, science, social traditions, languages, narratives, arts, music, poetry, philosophy… in short all the vast semantic input and output of billions of inforgs has slowly layered for millennia like a thin stream of humus on the hard bed of history. Too often it has been washed away by natural and man-‐made disasters, or made sterile by its inaccessibility or unavailability. Without it, human life is the life of a brute, of a mindless body. (…) ICTs have reached a stage when they might guarantee the stable presence, the steady accumulation and growth,
32 Floridi, 2014 p 135
33 Floridi, 2014 p 136
and the increasing usability of our semantic humus. The good news is that building the infosphere as a friendly environment for future generations is becoming easier. The bad news is that, for the foreseeable future, the responsibility for such a gigantic task will remain totally human. (Floridi, 2014 pp 165-‐166)
Computers have led us to reinterpret what we are and identify the uniqueness of our semantic capabilities. This thesis proposes the necessity of a deeper understanding of the cognitive impact of ICTs on our selves, so that we may use them effectively and beneficially. The reason Sartre’s work will be discussed is that he gives great importance to the Other. As digital ICTs have exponentially increased the amount of others that we can be connected to, his work resonates with me in this context.
1.6 Informational Friction, Privacy and the Onlife Manifesto
Using more and more ICTs in society means that we are increasingly informationally affected by them, in ways we are only just beginning to understand. The effects of increased connectivity on knowledge, truth and culture will be described in chapter 2, the effects on sociality and identity will be described in chapter 3. Here, in this final section of chapter 1, I would like to examine the effect of the increasing pervasiveness of information on us as inforgs. More specifically, I would like to focus on the concept of privacy, as it is highly affected by our increased digital ICT usage. Privacy is a hot topic these days, for good reason. As information about us as individuals becomes easier to access (and in many cases is willingly disclosed online to a far greater degree, as discussed in chapter 3), we need to understand exactly why privacy is important, and why it needs to be given greater protection in the digital age.
When discussing privacy here, I will follow Floridi and only talk about informational privacy, defined as “freedom from informational interference or intrusion, achieved thanks to a restriction on facts about [the person] that are unknown or
unknowable.”35 Informational privacy is vastly affected by ICTs, as ICTs affect
informational friction. Informational privacy is a function of informational friction. Informational friction represents the ease or difficulty of the acquisition of information about a given agent. Informational friction is increased if there is a high informational gap between agents, i.e. low accessibility of information about the other. For example, drawing the curtains in a room increases the informational friction of that environment, as it becomes harder to access the information within from the outside. Digital ICTs, through their facilitation of sharing and communicating information, affect informational friction greatly.36 They make information much more accessible, and due
to the nature of information being similar to a public good, a positive effort is required to block information we do not wish to be known.
Why does privacy matter within an informational framework? It is insufficient to say that the consequences of privacy breach are undesirable in themselves, as high informational friction can be misused to hide criminal or otherwise undesirable activity. Society may well have a higher common welfare with as little privacy as possible, conceptually speaking.37 What Floridi proposes is to view inforgs as constituting their
information, and therefore view a breach of privacy as a direct aggression towards personal identity. Privacy then gains a self-‐constituting value. If there is no informational friction within a society, then there is no distinction between the society itself (understood as a multi-‐agent system) and the inhabitants of the society (the individual agents that constitute it). There is therefore no potential for personal identity to develop. This means no social welfare can be achieved, as welfare is the sum of individuals’ welfare within a society. There can be no distinction between individuals if there is no privacy, as we would all be one singular informational entity.38
Protection of personal identity becomes a fundamental right, as it is what constitutes us. Privacy is “a right to personal immunity from unknown, undesired, or
35 Floridi, 2014 p 103
36 Floridi, 2014 pp 103-105
37 Floridi, 2014 p 117
unintentional changes in one’s own identity as an informational entity.”39 Personal
information is not something we own, it is what we are. When understood this way, breach of privacy is more akin to kidnapping than trespassing or theft. When one considers inforgs to be constituted by their information, privacy gains a self-‐constitutive value.40 More on this will be discussed in section 2.3.
This new way of understanding concepts like privacy is important as it has the capacity to improve the way we go about everyday life in this technologically advanced environment. In 2012, Floridi spearheaded an initiative of the European Commission called The Onlife Manifesto. Its goal is to comment on and investigate the challenges brought about by the widespread use of new digital technologies.41 It also aims to
provide political institutions with guidelines by which to form policies with, as current frameworks are rapidly becoming outdated due to the speed of the changes brought about by digital ICTs. The manifesto notes that “the current conceptual toolbox is not fitted to address new ICT-‐related challenges and leads to negative projections about the future: we fear and reject what we fail to make sense of and give meaning to.”42 The Manifesto raises important concerns over the changing landscape of responsibility. Decrease in informational friction has led to confusion over “who has control of what, when, and within which scope.”43 This will be explored further in section 2.3.
Floridi calls for a re-‐examination of the distinction between the private and the public sphere, as the Internet represents an extension of both. It is a public space often operated and owned privately. Viewing the private as a space where one is sheltered from the public gaze, where one can be intimate and autonomous, is outdated, according to the Onlife Initiative. Simultaneously, the public sphere is seen as a realm of duty, control and accountability, which does not account for the positive and important aspects of life that it provides nowadays.44 The public sphere, and by extension, the Internet, is an important place for self-‐expression and performing identity, as we shall
39 Floridi, 2014 p 120
40 Floridi, 2014 pp 118-120
41 The Onlife Initiative, 2015 p 1
42 The Onlife Initiative, 2015 p 7
43 The Onlife Initiative, 2015 p 9
see in chapter 3. As we spend more and more time online, sharing information publicly in a private setting, the distinction between public and private is blurring. The Onlife Initiative would like to see political institutions re-‐evaluating the notion of political freedom in this light. The self is commonly understood in two radically opposing ways. Politically, it is seen as wholly autonomous, rational and disembodied. Scientifically, it is seen as contextual, socially informed and relational to its environment. The Onlife Initiative wants political and judicial systems to incorporate this more nuanced view of the self:
The contextual nature of human freedom accounts both for the social character of human existence, and the openness of human behaviours that remain to some extent stubbornly unpredictable. Shaping policies in the remit of the Onlife experience means resisting the assumption of a rational disembodied self, and instead stabilising a political conception of the self as an inherently relational free self. (The Onlife Initiative, 2015 p 11)
The Onlife Manifesto also calls for attention to be drawn to the commodification of people’s attentional capabilities. As the amount of data grows and grows, the amount of time one can dedicate to viewing any particular part of data shrinks. In the information age, attention is perhaps the most valuable asset. The Onlife Initiative wants to integrate one’s attentional capacity with other fundamental rights such as bodily autonomy, as an instrumental approach (viewing attention as a commodity to be exchanged or channelled into work processes) neglects how precious, finite and rare an asset it is.45 The ability to semanticise information through attention should be given
more importance. The commodification of attention will be discussed more in chapters 2 and 3, when discussing the commercialisation of information.
Digital ICTs have pulled into question many ideas about freedom, privacy and responsibility, due, in part to the decrease in informational friction they bring. We must understand the effects of digital ICTs if we want to flourish as advanced societies. The Onlife Manifesto provides an excellent summary of these changes, and paves the way for updating political priorities and frameworks for the onlife experience.
1.7 Conclusion
We have seen how Floridi’s philosophy of information is a useful and interesting tool with which to view the world. It gives us a framework wherein to view the changes that increased ICT use bring about. By considering information the ontological basis for reality, we can express any aspect of reality, tangible or intangible, as information. Reality reveals itself to us, the epistemic agent, informationally. Even reality itself can be conceptualised as a binary language. The digital constitutes an integral part of the infosphere, which we inhabit as inforgs. Our ability to semanticise data is the unique aspect of the human being after the fourth revolution. Once data is semanticised, it becomes information. If that information makes sense within a narrative, it can become knowledge. ICTs affect informational processes and therefore, us. I have outlined how Floridi approaches the concept of the self, an approach I show to be similar to Sartre’s, who will be discussed in section 3.4. If we, as inforgs, are constituted by our personal information, the concept of privacy becomes vitally important in order to ensure individuality. If there is no informational friction, there can be no distinction between inforgs. Floridi has spearheaded The Onlife Manifesto which calls for an informational understanding of society and the human being, in order to more effectively deal with the social and political ramifications of increased digital ICT use in the zettabyte era.
In the next chapter, I will combine the informational approach with sociological and anthropological studies to discuss the Internet’s wide-‐ranging effects on social networks, our idea of knowledge and culture.
