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Philosophers of information, according to Luciano Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p 32), study how information should be “adequately created, processed, managed, and used.” A small number of epistemologists have employed the concept of information as a cornerstone of their theoretical framework. How this concept can be used to make sense of seemingly intractable epistemological problems, however, has not been widely explored. This paper examines Fred Dretske’s information-based epistemology, in particular his response to radical epistemological (...) skepticism. We discuss the relationship between information, evidence and knowledge in relation to the problem of skepticism and the options available to an information-based epistemology for dealing with it. (shrink) | |
This paper compares the two known logical forms of hierarchy, both of which have been used in models of natural phenomena, including the biological. I contrast their general properties, internal formal relations, modes of growth (emergence) in applications to the natural world, criteria for applying them, the complexities that they embody, their dynamical relations in applied models, and their informational relations and semiotic aspects. | |
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The article contains the replies to the collection of contributions discussing my research on the philosophy of information. | |
The special composition question, which asks under which conditions objects compose a further object, establishes a central debate in modern metaphysics. Recent successes of inductive metaphysics, which studies the implications of the natural sciences for metaphysical problems, suggest that insights into the SCQ can be gained by investigating the physics of composite systems. In this work, I show that the minus first law of thermodynamics, which is concerned with the approach to equilibrium, leads to a new approach to the SCQ, (...) the thermodynamic composition principle : Multiple systems in thermal contact compose a single system. This principle, which is justified based on a systematic classification of possible mereological models for thermodynamic systems, might form the basis of an inductive argument for universalism. A formal analysis of the TCP is provided on the basis of mereotopology, which is a combination of mereology and topology. Here, “thermal contact” can be analyzed using the mereotopological predicate “self-connectedness”. Self-connectedness has to be defined in terms of mereological sums to ensure that scattered objects cannot be self-connected. (shrink) No categories | |
In this paper we discuss the difference between | |
The work of Luciano Floridi lies at the interface of philosophy, information science and technology, and ethics, an intersection whose existence and significance he was one of the first to establish. His closely related concepts of a philosophy of information (PI), informational structural realism, information logic (IL), and information ethics (IE) provide a new ontological perspective from which moral concerns can be addressed, especially but not limited to those arising in connection with the new information and communication technologies. In this (...) paper, I relate Floridi's approach to another novel perspective, namely, that of an extension of logic to complex real processes, including those of information production and transfer. This non-propositional, non-truth-functional logic (logic in reality (LIR)) is grounded in the fundamental dualism (dynamic opposition) inherent in energy and accordingly present at all levels of reality. The LIR description of the dynamics of processes and their evolution is relevant to what Floridi refers to as the possible non-linguistic aspects of information. It suggests answers to some of Floridi's “outstanding problems” in PI related to the ontological status of information and how it is used in cognition. Floridi's IL retains the formal structure of the doxastic and epistemic logics from which he correctly distinguishes it and is the basis for his conceptual PI. However, LIR fulfills Floridi's implied requirement that logic be regarded as a natural phenomenon dealing with other natural phenomena, recovering its original philosophical function. LIR provides a logical foundation for discussion of ethical questions based on kinds of information that complements IL. Both are reconsiderations of logic that, as Marijuan suggests, may be necessary for the advancement of information technology in an ethical direction (cf. also Brenner). IE focuses on entities as constituted by information in an overall strategy that generalizes the concept of moral agents. LIR and its related ontology naturalize critical aspects of Floridi's theses, especially, the moral value of being as such and a non-separable joint responsibility of individuals and groups. I compare IE to other current approaches to ethics and information technology (e.g., phenomenological and social constructivist). Ethical information is defined “ecologically” in process terms as reality in a physical space (cf. Floridi), with an intentional “valence,” positive and negative, in the morally valued interaction between producer and receiver. LIR is neither topic-neutral nor context independent and can support an ethics involving apparently contradictory perspectives (e.g., internalist and externalist). Ethics involves practical reasoning, and unlike standard logics, LIR supports Magnani's approach to abductive reasoning in rational moral decision making. The basis of moral responsibility and the consequent behavior of individuals involved in information and communications technologies is the same logical–metaphysical principle of dynamic opposition instantiated at other levels of reality. The way moral responsibilities are actively accepted (or not) by individuals supervenes on their primitive psychological structure, which in turn reflects an evolutionary development grounded in the fundamental dualism of the physical world. The paper concludes with some suggestions of areas of philosophical research, such as causality, identity, and the ontological turn, where convergence of the Floridi and LIR approaches might be envisaged. Their overall motivation is the same, namely, the development of strategies for reinforcing and increasing ethical sensitivity wherever possible. The ethical information concept outlined in the paper supports the function of IE, assigned to it by Floridi, of potentially determining what is right and what is wrong. (shrink) | |
Despite recent major advances in the neuroscience underlying cognition, the processes of its emergence and evolution are far from being understood. In our view, current interrelated concepts of mind; knowledge; epistemology; perception; cognition and information fail to reflect the real dynamics of mental processes, their ontology and their logic. It has become routine to talk about information in relation to these processes, but there is no consensus about its most relevant qualitative and functional properties. We present a theory of human (...) cognition based on an ontology and epistemology of information and information processes originally proposed by Wu including an ontological doctrine of the different grades of information; and an informational epistemology based on a noegenesis of the doctrine of informational intermediaries that mediate between the cognitive subject and object. This theory is supported by the new, non-propositional logic proposed recently by Brenner. We demonstrate the utility of our approach for the reconceptualization of the virtual properties of reality and cognition. It is strongly anti-representationalist and can provide the basis for the integration of inputs from outside the brain into cognitive structures. For us, the philosophy of information is a metaphilosophy, implying major changes in both the content and methodology of standard philosophical disciplines. We suggest that this philosophy of information and our informational approach may help guide research in a number of current areas of cognitive science. (shrink) | |
It seems certain to me that I will die and stay dead. By “I”, I mean me, Greg Nixon, this person, this self-identity. I am so intertwined with the chiasmus of lives, bodies, ecosystems, symbolic intersubjectivity, and life on this particular planet that I cannot imagine this identity continuing alone without them. However, one may survive one’s life by believing in universal awareness, perfection, and the peace that passes all understanding. Perhaps, we bring this back with us to the Source (...) from which we began, changing it, enriching it. Once we have lived – if we don’t choose the eternal silence of oblivion by life denial, vanity, indifference, or simple weariness – the Source learns and we awaken within it. Awareness, consciousness, is universal – it comes with the territory – so maybe you will be one of the few prepared to become unexpectedly enlightened after the loss of body and self. You may discover your own apotheosis – something you always were, but after a lifetime of primate experience, now much more. Since you are of the Source and since you have changed from life experience and yet retained the dream of ultimate awakening, plus you have brought those chaotic emotions and memories back to the Source with you (though no longer yours), your life & memories will have mattered. Those who awaken beyond the death of self will have changed Reality. (shrink) | |
What happens to the inner light of consciousness with the death of the individual body and brain? Reductive materialism assumes it simply fades to black. Others think of consciousness as indicating a continuation of self, a transformation, an awakening or even alternatives based on the quality of life experience. In this issue, speculation drawn from theoretic research are presented. -/- Table of Contents Epigraph: From “The Immortal”, Jorge Luis Borges iii Editor’s Introduction: I Killed a Squirrel the Other Day, Gregory (...) M. Nixon iv-xi Research Essays The Tilde Fallacy and Reincarnation: Variations on a "Skeptical" Argument Teed Rockwell 862-881 Death, Consciousness, and Phenomenology, Steve Bindeman 882-899 The Idealist View of Consciousness After Death, Bernardo Kastrup 900-909 Consciousness, a Cosmic Phenomenon—A Hypothesis, Eva Déli 910-930 The Theory of a Natural Afterlife: A Newfound, Real Possibility for What Awaits Us at Death, Bryon K. Ehlmann 931-950 Near-Death Cases Desegregating Non-Locality/Disembodiment via Quantum Mediated Consciousness: An Extended Version of the Cell-Soul Pathway, Contzen Pereira & J Shashi Kiran Reddy 951-968 On the Possible Existence of Quantum Consciousness After Brain Death, Massimo Pregnolato & Alfredo Pereira Jr. 969-991 Science and Postmortem Survival, Edward F. Kelly 992-1011 Explorations ISS Theory: Cosmic Consciousness, Self, and Life Beyond Death in a Hyperdimensional Physics, Chris H. Hardy 1012-1035 Does the Consciousness End, Remain Awake, or Transform After Death? Radivoj Stankovich (with Micho Durdevich) 1036-1050 Big Bang Spirituality, Life, and Death, Ken Bausch 1051-1063 Death, Consciousness and the Quantum Paradigm, Ronald Peter Glasberg 1064-1077 Living With Limits: The Continuum of Consciousness, Donald Brackett 1078-1098 Mysticism, Consciousness, Death, Mike Sosteric 1099-1118 What Dies? Eternalism and the Afterlife in William James, Jonathan Bricklin 1119-1140 Theories of Consciousness and Death: Does Consciousness End, Continue, Awaken, or Transform When the Body Dies? Roger Cook 1141-1153 It’s the Other Way Around: Matter is a Form of Consciousness and Death is the End of the Illusion of Life in the World, James P. Kowall & Pradeep B. Deshpande 1154-1208 Statements A Feminine Vision for the World Consciousness, & a New Outrageous Ontology, Lorna Green 1209-1217 The Mask of Eternity: The Quest for Immortality and the Afterlife, Iona Miller 1218-1228 Are We Really “such stuff as dreams are made on”? Chris Nunn 1229-1225 Is the Afterlife a Non-Question? (Let's Hope Not), Deepak Chopra 1226-1230 Life After Death? An Improbable Essay, Stuart Kauffman 1231-1236. (shrink) | |
A prized property of theories of all kinds is that of generality, of applicability or least relevance to a wide range of circumstances and situations. The purpose of this article is to present a pair of distinctions that suggest that three kinds of generality are to be found in mathematics and logics, not only at some particular period but especially in developments that take place over time: ‘omnipresent’ and ‘multipresent’ theories, and ‘ubiquitous’ notions that form dependent parts, or moments, of (...) theories. The category of ‘facets’ is also introduced, primarily to assess the roles of diagrams and notations in these two disciplines. Various consequences are explored, starting with means of developing applied mathematics, and then reconsidering several established ways of elaborating or appraising theories, such as analogising, revolutions, abstraction, unification, reduction and axiomatisation. The influence of theories already in place upon theory-building is emphasised. The roles in both mathematics and logics of set theory, abstract algebras, metamathematics, and model theory are assessed, along with the different relationships between the two disciplines adopted in algebraic logic and in mathematical logic. Finally, the issue of monism versus pluralism in these two disciplines is rehearsed, and some suggestions are made about the special character of mathematical and logical knowledge, and also the differences between them. Since the article is basically an exercise in historiography, historical examples and case studies are described or noted throughout. (shrink) |
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