Abstract
In The Philosophy of Information, Luciano Floridi presents an ontological theory of Being qua Being, which he calls “Informational Structural Realism”, a theory which applies, he says, to every possible world. He identifies primordial information (“dedomena”) as the foundation of any structure in any possible world. The present essay examines Floridi’s defense of that theory, as well as his refutation of “Digital Ontology” (which some people might confuse with his own). Then, using Floridi’s ontology as a starting point, the present essay adds quantum features to dedomena, yielding an ontological theory for our own universe, Quantum Informational Structural Realism, which provides a metaphysical interpretation of key quantum phenomena, and diminishes the “weirdness” or “spookiness” of quantum mechanics.
Highlights
Physics and the Information RevolutionIt is a commonplace today to hear people say that we are ‘‘living in the Age of Information’’ and that an ‘‘Information Revolution’’ is sweeping across the globe, changing everything from banking to warfare, medicine to education, entertainment to government, and on and on
This essay explores some implications of that view, beginning with a discussion of key ideas from Luciano Floridi, whose ‘‘Philosophy of Information’’ project recently led him to a metaphysical account of the ultimate nature of the universe
I want to summarize some of Floridi’s key points against digital ontology in order to set the stage for discussions below about his Informational Structural Realism, and about my suggested quantum variant of it, which is not subject to any of the objections listed here: Criticism (i), Digital Ontology Requires More Digital Memory than Is Possible: If one assumes that ultimate reality consists of classical bits being processed like those in a traditional computer, our current scientific understanding of the universe would lead us to conclude that the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang could not have occurred because there would not have been enough digital memory
Summary
Physics and the Information RevolutionIt is a commonplace today to hear people say that we are ‘‘living in the Age of Information’’ and that an ‘‘Information Revolution’’ is sweeping across the globe, changing everything from banking to warfare, medicine to education, entertainment to government, and on and on. I want to summarize some of Floridi’s key points against digital ontology in order to set the stage for discussions below about his Informational Structural Realism, and about my suggested quantum variant of it, which is not subject to any of the objections listed here: Criticism (i), Digital Ontology Requires More Digital Memory than Is Possible: If one assumes (like Fredkin, quoted above, for example) that ultimate reality consists of classical bits being processed like those in a traditional computer, our current scientific understanding of the universe would lead us to conclude that the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang could not have occurred because there would not have been enough digital memory.
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