Royal School of
Library and Information Science
Vassilis Galanos
Supervised by Jens-Erik Mai
Beyond Information Revolution:
Postlude to a Past Future
Word count of numbered pages: 27.937
Number of characters with spaces: 178.502
Copenhagen
2014
Royal School of
Library and Information Science
Vassilis Galanos
Supervised by Jens-Erik Mai
Beyond Information Revolution:
Postlude to a Past Future
Copenhagen
2014
i
Abstract:
Information Revolution is a term frequently mentioned yet roughly defined. It’s
apparent as a ghostly scapegoat that haunts or justifies anything that has to do with
ICT’s and new technical media. Starting by the hypothesis that the term is misconceived,
this paper is a thorough analysis of Information Revolution’s deferent occurring degrees
– daily usage of ICT’s, economic, political, environmental, and ontological aspects – and
concludes with a proposed unified general definition of the term. The reason, coinciding
with the aim is multifold: Understanding Information Revolution means being able to
define it. Defining it means it’s almost or already over. The feeling that it’s not over
means misconception. Information Revolution is treated here as a descendant of a
technical and ontological revolutions chain that by changing the techniques and the
ontologies have also changed the very notion of “revolution.” The observation is divided
into three main chapters: (1) The term is first examined through its indicating symbols
in everyday life, and particularly how it has already affected the notion of “revolution.”
The new political “augmented revolutions” are highly defined by ICT’s. (2) The second
part is a comparative navigation between what was before Information Revolution, how
it was expected, and how it was actually realized. Here is shown how the term was – and
still is to an extent – misconceived, and how this generates an amount of crucial political
and environmental struggles. To treat Information Revolution as a successor and not as
an opposition to industrial capitalism causes the regeneration of industrial problems –
political class differentiation and pollution – through the filter of information.
Information flood and partial information directedness causes an identity loss which
can be cured through the development/awareness of a new ontology that treats
information as information – not as capital. (3) The third part shows this inforgian
ontology of entities living “in” Information Revolution, and possibly beyond it. This
description, supported by and supporting the previous chapters, leads to the final
concluding definition. The discussion is open, like the discussion of every past or almost
gone revolution. Yet, a new “revolution” seems to be expected.
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Acknowledgments
This paper would never see the light of day without Jens-Erik Mai’s continuous support,
revolutionary supervision and informative suggestions. A two-years study at the RSLIS
Masters Programme comes to an end through this thesis, and I hereby give my thanks
and respect to all people in the school, students and administration, that turned
studying time into a wonderful and cozy experience, providing inspiration, fruitful
criticism, and fun.
Four years ago, I dedicated my Bachelor Thesis to Vilém Flusser, whose works are
constant lighthouse to all of my theoretical investigations within Information Science
and Philosophy. The dedication remains the same for the Master Degree.
I love my wife, Efi Naz. Without her I wouldn’t be.
List of Abbreviations:
GDI: General Definition of Information
GDIR: General Definition of Information Revolution
ICT’s: Information and Communication Technologies
IR: Information Revolution
PI: Philosophy of Information
Cover picture: Information endlessly knotted with information. Design made to express the
simple feeling that in Information Revolution, information represents only more information –
no capital or any other sort of author, authorship, and/or authority.
iii
Table of Contents
0 Introduction 1
0.1 Research Question – Relevance 3
0.2 Theoretical Background – The Model of the Three Modes of Being 6
0.3 Chapter Overview 16
Chapter 1: Definitions 19
1.1 On Definitions: Are They Important? Are They Possible? They are a Struggle 19
1.2 Defining Information: The Struggle Against Entropy 21
1.3 Defining Revolution: The Struggle Against Common Sense 23
Chapter 2: Thirdness – Occupying Media, Hoping for Messages 30
2.1 “The medium is the message” 32
2.2 Outrage and Hope: The bull is taken by horn 33
2.3 Euromaidan and Indymedia keep the Message 35
2.4 Spontaneous Networks against massive surveillance 37
2.5 An Ontology of Terrorism 38
2.6 Concluding messages 39
Chapter 3: Secondness – IR as a Reaction and Reactions to IR 42
3.1 Promises in Terms of Economy 43
3.2 Promises in Terms of Creation and Immortalization 46
3.3 Effect(s): Vectorialism, Big Data, Loss of Identity 48
3.3.1 Vectoralism 48
3.3.2 Pollution and Big Data 50
3.3.3 Identity Loss and Death 56
3.4 Concluding Struggles 60
Chapter 4: Towards Firstness: Hyperhistory in Context 62
4.1 The Fourth Revolution: New Ontology, new Ethics 63
4.2 Hyper/posthistory 66
4.3 Infosphere – The Environment 68
4.4 Inforgs – The Inhabitants 70
4.5 Concluding Contexts 71
Chapter 5: Discussion, Conclusions, Future 73
5.1 A Summary and a Discussion 73
5.2 The General Definition of Information Revolution 75
5.3 Future Work 77
Reference List 78
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Chapter 0: Introduction
“The telematic society would be the first to recognize the production of information as society’s actual
function and so to systematically foster this production: the first self-conscious and therefore free society. […]
“Mass culture, proliferating kitsch, the descent into boredom, into entropy, are the results of this faulty
organization. As, as result, the real function of society (of the mind) is thwarted. Rather than producing
improbable, adventurous things, contemporary society is close to exhausting the information that is fed into
it. It is a stupid society.” (Flusser, 1985, p. 92)
“Some observers forecast that ‘the computer revolution’ will eventually be guided by new wonders in
artificial intelligence. Its present course is influenced by something much more familiar: the absent mind”
(Winner, 1987)
[20-02-2014, I am writing the introduction to a paper about Information Revolution on
my terminal PC in Copenhagen, Denmark, as I have just been informed through
YouTube videos on the 35 slain and over 1000 injured people in Kyiv, Ukraine.]
[26-04-2014, Re-writing this introduction, I count eight English Wikipedia articles
related to the 2014 events in Ukraine, now named “Euromaidan,” “Timeline of the
Orange Revolution,” “2014 Ukrainian Revolution,” “Euromaidan,” “Timeline of the
Euromaidan,” “2014 Hrushevskoho Street riots,” “2014 Crimean Crisis,” “2014 Russian
military intervention in Ukraine.” All of a sudden I feel out of subject.]
No doubt: A vast, agreeably respectful amount of population recognizes the term
“Information Revolution.” Either horizontally, that is historically, a revolution in relation
to something past, either vertically, that is spatially, a revolution preferred from another
possible choice. The first choice justifies the actual usage of the word “revolution”
(which is more thoroughly examined in the definitions chapter). The first word,
“information” – also examined in the same chapter, signifies the preference. Information
Revolution, instead of any other possible kind – Computer, Post-Industrial, Network […].
The last decades provided with a respectful amount of proposed named revolutions to
describe the great shift in something. This paper examines why the term “Information
Revolution” remained as the most popular, why is (was) it that crucial (so it is a
revolution), what is (was) it about, and if it still is.
Revolutions are usually recognized a posteriori. Whether social, political, scientific, or
technical. When something that in the future will be called a “revolution” is actually
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taking place, its relation to something revolutionary can only be a mere hypothesis. Yet,
if a revolution already happened, and its effects are still affecting the population, one
can speak of an “ongoing revolution,” that its crucial blow was given, it replaced an
establish state of thinking, and it is now cultivating the new ground – perhaps for a new
revolution to come.
Information Revolution (henceforth IR) has been the main topic of interest for relatively
very few scholars (in contrast to other sorts of revolutions), even if it has been the topic
of the day for several past decades. Yet, in times of tablets, smartphones, livestreaming,
skyping, […] one speaks of IR as something new, without a clear understanding of the
term as when saying “Industrial Revolution” or “Chemical Revolution.” Revolutions have
categories and depending on them are subjected to certain scholars, with “guest
appearances” of interdisciplinary manner, for instance “Freudian Revolution” is
subjected mostly to psychologists, but could also be subjected to historians or
sociologists that study its effects among other fields. Which field is proper when
studying IR? As shown in this paper people who have studied IR are mostly economics
researchers and present it mainly in contrast to the capitalist economic state
established by the Industrial Revolution. But Industrial Revolution came with a shift of
terminology – from the agrarian societies of the landlords to the industrial societies of
capitalists. In this sense, the revolution of the bourgeoisie, the French Revolution, were
all political effects of the Industrialization. What shift, what change of standards, terms,
values in contrast to the Industrial did Informationalization bring? Is the celebrated
shift to the tertiary sector really the change that IR brought, or has it brought something
completely new that we now begin to understand its actual impact? Can one
hypothesize that IR is almost complete, its effects are obvious and well-determined and
established, so that new goals are set and new revolutions are expected? This paper
tries to answer these through the equally broad and narrow scope of Information
Science – if Industrial Revolution was well-analyzed from industrialist scholars of
economics, IR should not only be let to them, but also to information scholars.
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0.1 Research Question – Relevance
“Ξυνόν γαρ αρχή και πέρας επί κύκλου περιφερείας. (Every point on a cycle is simultaneously the
beginning and the end).” Heraclitus
In order to render the aforementioned hypothesis fruitful, one need to think of the
practical implications the answer to the question “what is IR?” might provide with. This
is a theoretical paper that shows shifts of focus and no “numbers.” “Practical” is shown
under “theoretical” light – I provide mostly with semantic information, and no raw data.
The main idea is: Information Revolution mainly happened and merely is still going on.
It is currently replaced certainly by something that has to do with a “data flood” and
reshaped environmental issues. Data becomes more important (even frightful) than
information and a clarification of terms is needed in order to overcome IR and be ready
for a revolution against problems of another kind. I don’t want to claim that a “data
revolution” is going on. I claim that data flood is a symptom of a bad understanding of
concepts and terminology for IR and for everyday practices.
I argue that IR is generally understood incorrectly and I propose a blend of several
theoretical attributes that were born during its historical process. I propose that IR has
almost completed its course – like a planetary revolution, and that we now shouldn’t
consider it of something new or upcoming, but mostly of a passing phenomenon that is
giving birth to a new crucial shift: Data are now the center of focus. The “Big Data”
scandal, all the “data” sciences that arise through “information” sciences, show that the
population somehow is accustomed to the 70’s-00’s “information flood” and that data is
now the case. But in order to grasp the importance of such a shift, one needs first to
grasp what was before. IR is still here, as the Industrial Revolution was still here when
IR started. It just loses some of its “revolutionary-ness.” Now that it’s fading away, this
paper aims at a better understanding of it, a postulate to it by a thorough theoretical
interpretation of aspects that involved it (and it involved). The Industrial Revolution
promised a better world and resulted capitalism, pollution and atomic bombs. IR
promised Utopia and resulted Information Empires, Information Flood and world
economic crises. In order to get rid of the Agricultural Revolution demands, one needed
to stop emphasizing on terms like “farmers” and “landlords,” even if they were still
there. In order to get rid of the Industrial Revolution demands, one needs to stop
focusing on “workers” and “capitalists.” And if one needs to get rid (or at least conscious
3
of) IR, new roles are to be abolished. Straightforwardly put: “To have done with
Information Revolution,” paraphrasing Antonin Artaud’s provocative title “To have
done with the judgment of god” (1975).
What was/is IR? What is understood by it? Is it understood fairly well as the Industrial
Revolution? Is it understood using terms of the Industrial society? Shouldn’t it be
understood in terms of the Information Society? Now that we live in informationally
saturated times, what was that “revolutionary” about “information” “back in the days”
and how does this inform us about current revolutionary acts? Are revolutions of today
informational acts, as revolutions of the past century industrial acts?
I propose a General Definition of IR (GDIR), after a thorough examination of the term
and its close surroundings that will prepare the ground for what comes next. The idea
for a “General Definition” is directly influenced by Luciano Floridi’s General Definition of
Information (2011, p. 83-84, more details at the definitions chapter). The general
discourse this paper aims being categorized at is the field of Philosophy of Information
(PI). Floridi has set the ground for including IR as a topic of interest in the field (for
instance 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) by naming it the “Fourth Revolution.” Here, I set
Floridi’s IR as a point of departure for a theoretical navigation and supplement it with
certain attributes that haven’t been emphasized enough in the literature.
I oppose – straightforwardly – any IR discourse, description or definition (examples
appear in Chapter 3) that relates it with purely industrial terms in any other way than of
the latter’s transcendence. The question(s) of “information as a commodity” apply only
for Industrial Revolution terminology. A terminology based on the new set of
information-based, revaluated values, included in the proposed (GDIR), can function as
a theoretical ground for easier identification of current problems that an industrial
economic terminology is incapable of pinpointing.
Who is interested in something like that? After coping with any subject for a long time, a
researcher might feel a field interesting “for everyone and no one.” Who is interested on
Information and who on Revolution? Who is interested in IR? Answer no one, and my
thesis that IR is almost gone is instantly justified, but some people will laugh. Answer
everyone, and my thesis that IR is not complete will find a match, yet some other will
still laugh. These laughing people are the ones this paper is directed to: more
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specifically, information theorists, media theorists, phenomenologists, technology
historians, curious people that might find themselves in question when something is
wrong with information being that revolutionary because of some data that have lost
their meaning. Some fictitious problems hypothetically found in everyday life, that a
better understanding of the proposed IR terminology (in contrast to the Industrial) can
help in multiple ways:
“My little niece in Greece is afraid now that her father told her I live in Denmark and
won’t see me for a long time.”
“The assignments at school require knowledge from other fields that have no idea
where to look for.”
“My new smaller apartment hasn’t enough space to hold my LP, book and movie
collection.”
“It’s unfair that some people in the world live in a primitive condition. […] I just
downloaded all the ‘Flintstones’ seasons!”
“I have no money to go out, so I’ll stay home, thus being considered anti-social.”
“My kitchen sink is broken and the plumber won’t pick up the phone.”
“The current government asks for taxes I can’t afford.”
“I feel alone.” […]
In sum, this paper was written as a proposed Master Thesis. Thus, I need to clarify in a
tripartite dialectic:
Thesis (Hypo-thesis): IR is almost gone. New problems already arise from its fade-out.
Techniques that were born out of it do not help in solving the problems.
Anti-thesis: IR is not gone, since we don’t hold clear consciousness of its attributes. The
problems will be solved as soon as clarity in regards to the latter is gained.
Syn-thesis: A better understanding and definition of IR will help recognizing the
problems it gave a solution to and the ones it gave birth to.
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0.2 Theoretical Background – The Model of the Three Modes of Being
”Man suche nur nichts hinter den Phänomenen; sie selbst sind die Lehre.’ (Let us not search for anything
behind phenomena. They are themselves the teachings)” (Goethe, in Flusser, 1979, p. 122)
“That is why freedom cannot be explained, and when it is explained, it ceases to be freedom. However, I can
concretely observe the fact that I am writing freely. This is the fact that is the aim of every true revolution.”
(Flusser, 1979, 62)
“An unpredictable (random) component is desirable for the sake of variety or surprise, but some orderliness
is necessary if a pattern is to be pleasing.” (Pierce, 1980, p. 265)
Experience comes first. I treat IR as something recognizable that people know of its
existence and it can be experienced. I treat it as a phenomenon. Yet, it is ill-defined and
to gain recognition of the particles that constitute IR will help getting the actual benefits
it provides and taking the correct precautions against impending dangers. How can that
be possible? Observation. I state that several notions expressed in a multiplicity of ways
especially from the second half of the 20th century up to today and have been theorized
by a vast number of thinkers are important pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that is named IR.
Nobody has clearly observed the linkage between these events and theories in a wide
scope. The nature of IR, due to the emerging technology of hypertext, is interconnective.
Things aren’t placed in airtight boxes. Political events are connected to the technologies
that helped organizing them.
IR is a wide phenomenon. It has been described through several scientific disciplines in
many different ways. From Computer Science, to Information Science, Media Theory,
Sociology, Philosophy of […Technology, Communication, Information…], Economics. My
aim here is to extract a generalization for IR that pays respect to all these fields, so I
needed a theory that accepts the multiplicity of points of view as means that lead to
concrete generalizations. What is meant by IR can be understood by its direct or
indirect effects. If the effects are observed, certain theories can sustain the construction
of a conceptualization of the term. And then, a final generalization can lead to the
recognition of IR when these aspects are found. To achieve this kind of constant
observation that accepts all possible parameters/factors that built up what I then
describe as IR, a certain approach to phenomenology is applied.
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Phenomenology is a wide branch of philosophy, practiced by several influential thinkers
in many different ways. Any reader interested in the subject might be astonished by the
fact that several authors had to explain their version of phenomenology and the way
they apply it to their observations. Like any philosophical term (and like any term), it’s
subjected to personal interpretations, additions and variations of application. For my
purposes, and due to its concreteness of analysis, I use Charles Sanders Peirce’s version
of it, but I need to clarify the difference of his phenomenology to the general
understanding of the term, since Peirce’s proposed variation came at a time where
phenomenology did not yet come on its own as a discipline. As Smith introduces the
term encyclopedically:
“Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from
the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its
intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or
about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its
content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate
enabling conditions.” (Smith, 2013)
Etymologically, phenomenology means the study of phenomena, thus it has been
practiced for several centuries, under different guises, only to be established as a
discipline (with several tendencies) in the 20th century with Husserl. After Husserl,
phenomenology reached a point where it wasn’t only considered to be one of the main
philosophical fields, but even the first one in terms of importance. Smith (2013)
summarizes:

Ontology is the study of beings or their being — what is.

Epistemology is the study of knowledge — how we know.

Logic is the study of valid reasoning — how to reason.

Ethics is the study of right and wrong — how we should act.

Phenomenology is the study of our experience — how we experience.
After explaining why phenomenology as a method can be considered “first philosophy,”
as it is necessarily linked to all other fields, he concludes: “Classical phenomenology,
then, ties into certain areas of epistemology, logic, and ontology, and leads into parts of
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ethical, social, and political theory.” Simply put, experience comes first. To observe it
from the first person, emphasizing on intuition and intentionality is phenomenology. As
Smith follows the evolution of the doctrine after Husserl’s emphasis on the directedness
of experience towards specific objects:
“The basic intentional structure of consciousness, we find in reflection or analysis,
involves further forms of experience. Thus, phenomenology develops a complex
account of temporal awareness (within the stream of consciousness), spatial
awareness (notably in perception), attention (distinguishing focal and marginal or
“horizonal” awareness), awareness of one's own experience (self-consciousness, in
one sense), self-awareness (awareness-of-oneself), the self in different roles (as
thinking, acting, etc.), embodied action (including kinesthetic awareness of one's
movement), purpose or intention in action (more or less explicit), awareness of
other persons (in empathy, intersubjectivity, collectivity), linguistic activity
(involving meaning, communication, understanding others), social interaction
(including collective action), and everyday activity in our surrounding life-world (in
a particular culture).” (2013)
Peirce explained his phenomenology at a time before Husserl, when the term was a new
topic on the discussion board. The basics are the same. The difference, noted in Justus
Buchler’s introduction to Peirce’s selected philosophical writings, is that his empirical
phenomenology is an essential tool for his scientific philosophy. Any experience, for
Peirce, is discriminated simply into three classes (more on these below), thus supplying
an “organized matrix” to test any given hypothesis. Peirce’s phenomenology differs for
its clear-cut outlines, that serve as a solid background in contrast to other conceptions
of the term (Buchler, in Peirce, 1955, p. xiii). Several phenomenologists consider the
discipline inextricably related to intuition and only direct experience with an object.
Peirce’s phenomenology is not this case, even if it has been misunderstood (For
instance, Ransdell, 1978, p. 550). Generally, phenomenology is often paired to ontology,
as the limits between the ontological “what it is to experience” and the
phenomenological “what we experience” are vague (Smith, 2013). Because of that,
classical phenomenologists claim that knowledge of objects rests only to the subject’s
experience. Objects become objects of thought. Peirce’s phenomenological logic differs
in the sense that if an object of study “functions logically, it does so as that which is
8
connoted by the predicate term of a proposition, rather, than as that which is denoted by
the subject term. In short, they do not function as the objects of thought” (Ransdell,
1978, p. 552-553). To set this in context, before explaining Peirce’s phenomenology
thoroughly: IR is not something that gains its meaning completely out of the human
population’s (or my) intention. It is something that we experience through several
mediations and these mediations are to be studied in the same respect to the subjects’
intentions and the experiences per se. These are to be stressed with the description of
this sort of methodology. I hereby need to clarify I am not applying Peircean philosophy
in its total here. I’m using his phenomenology as it is explained in a single essay that
expressed his then current philosophical position. I consider the following model handy
because of its structure for keeping track of my observations of such a broad
phenomenon. The essay used is not necessarily related immediately to Peirce’s rest of
philosophy, but it should be taken as a single unit. Peirce himself expressed his
philosophical conception in a multiplicity of ways, often being inconsistent in his
terminology. After all, he considered philosophy, his own included, an evolutionary
process (1955, p. 357-358).
In his essay “Principles of Phenomenology” (1955, p. 74-97) Charles Sanders Peirce
explains his variation of the term, that I consider the best available for conducting this
study. One could object that it is not a precise “method,” since Peirce only described it as
a form of study, giving examples like color “red,” but never applied it on certain topics.
Yet, by giving these general examples, another could receive that as an encouragement
for using it as a method, or at least as a guiding tool for being focused while navigating
on a given subject. It is not a specific step-to-step recipe, but rather a theoretical
approach. I am not saying here that he provides steps that followed are revealing a preexisting conclusion. It’s more of a guidance in the flood of data and information, that
reminds the observer (1) what is the aim of the study, (2) that the conclusion is a
conjunction of multiple points of view, so one needs to think of other possible
perspectives constantly.
For Peirce’s terminology, phenomenology is a synonym to phaneroscopy (phaneron is a
Greek word for obvious which is very close to phenomenon, i.e. apparent):
9
"Phaneroscopy [or Phenomenology] is the description of the phaneron, and by the
phaneron I mean the collective total of all that is in any way present to the mind,
quite regardless of whether it corresponds to any real thing or not." (p. 74)
Elsewhere:
“Phenomenology ascertains and studies the kinds of elements universally present in
the phenomenon; meaning by the phenomenon, whatever is present at any time to
the mind in any way.” (p. 61)
It is a study of direct observation of being as “it simply scrutinizes the direct
appearances, and endeavors to combine minute accuracy with the broadest possible
generalization” (p. 75). For him any object of study has three different levels of
observation, interconnected and bonded, yet discrete and recognizable. In sum, to
understand something (IR in this case), one needs to grasp its quality, its relations, and
its representation(s). “My view is that there are three modes of being. I hold that we can
directly observe them in elements of whatever is at any time before the mind in any
way. They are the being of positive qualitative possibility, the being of the actual fact,
and the being of law that will govern facts in the future” (p. 75). So, if one is talking of IR,
in the end of this paper, should be able to talk about IR’s quality and its possibility of
occurrence (if applicable), the facts that have constituted IR, and the specific indications
for these facts that, when found, should stand as a reference to the quality of IR.
These three Peircean modes of being (namely firstness, secondness, thirdness) are to be
observed to set his phenomenological approach in practice and extract conclusions for
IR as an observable. I will explain them number-wise, but the reader should keep in
mind that all refer to all and that Peirce’s essay starts by explaining them from the
second.
Firstness is somehow the theoretical goal of secondness and thirdness because firstness
is such-ness (p. 81). It is the possibility of a sui generis quality found somewhere (p. 76).
As said in the beginning of this chapter, I treat IR as a phenomenon, and I follow Peirce
saying that
“[i]t is sufficient that wherever there is a phenomenon there is a quality; so that it
might also seem that there is nothing else in phenomena. The qualities merge into
10
one another. They have no perfect identities, but only likenesses, or partial
identities. […] Still, each one is what it is in itself without help from the others. They
are single but partial determinations” (p. 77).
Firstness starts with a phaneron, an intuition that tells that something obvious holds a
quality. One recognizes color “red,” but what constitutes it? If there is a general
understanding of “red,” a red-ness, then it can possibly be applied in different
occurrences or its absence can be equally recognized. If there is a certain quality in IR,
that if there is a place in this world that for this or another reason wasn’t influenced by
the technological and political events that constituted it, IR can be recognized when
similar events happen there. I aim at a definition of IR, that is I aim understanding an
Information-Revolution-ness, as this could be an abstract term (quality) that could
(possibility) appear in different contexts. Blogging now from a terminal in Denmark is
not the same IR with type-setting in a Gutenbergian era. Yet, as shown in this paper,
both ages share some characteristics that can be abstracted to a general idea of IR. In
that sense one can talk of IR-ness before IR, and hypothetically of IR-ness after IR. An
IR-ness as a redness, as an Industrial-Revolution-ness, as a revolutionary-ness or as an
informative-ness.
Secondness is a mode of being “of one thing which consists in how a second object is” (p.
76). The actuality of something is based on a “there” and a “then” in relation to a “here”
or a “now.” It is about facts and things taken as facts and in addition, actual facts that are
in contrast with our world of fancy. Peirce describes secondness as a brute force,
understood as a constraint, because when one faces the facts about something, very
often gets an unpleasant feeling when the facts do not match the fancies (p. 77, 79, 8991). People talk of IR. Where do they pinpoint at? Computers? Information? Political
Revolutions? The 70’s? The 2010’s? Something beyond geographical and chronological
restrictions? All these terms are obstacles that stop people from understanding IR in its
generality. They belong in the third mode of being, where mediations work as indicating
connections. “The second category … is the element of struggle. […]By struggle […] I
mean mutual action between two things regardless of any sort of third or medium, and
in particular regardless of any law of action” (p. 89). IR is ill-defined (a struggle between
observers and the observed) because if one is at the process of defining it, one gets
11
halted by the massive amount of media and mediations (below I give examples of
conceptual problems that manifest IR’s inner “brutal” conflicts).
Thirdness is the link between firstness and secondness. It is the medium bond or the
means to an end. It proves that there is a continuity linking the observed facts to a
general idea (p. 80). IR is observed as an object of study. Being an object is a secondness.
By studying it, one falls upon media, like computers, internet, political revolutions. The
media are the thirdness, the means to an end. The media are the means, the end is the
object. The overall idea I get from studying these is the quality, the firstness. The
different media work as concrete, discrete manifestations of IR’s quality. Getting for
instance the idea of a network repeatedly appearing in every aspect of studying IR
means that “network” constitutes a quality of IR, thus, if I see a network I see a sign for
IR. “[T]he idea of manifestation is the idea of a sign” (p. 93). This thirdness can also be
understood as a “law” that indicates a proposition of the kind: “If these and these
elements exist in such and such contexts, then a such-ness is recognized.” The general
character of the firstness, lead from the secondness is guided through thirdness.
All in all in theory: An object of study can be perceived: (1) solely on its own, a monadic
mode of firstness, (2) in relation to another with no third element, a dyadic relation, and
(3) as it is by bringing a second object in relation to a third. All three direct to each other
and the best understanding of an object is attained when one is conscious of the vectors
connecting (1), (2), and (3).
Summing up and simplifying the method for this paper: IR is a phenomenon, an object
being studied by subjects (the researchers). To gain a consciousness of the phenomenon
per se, as an object of study (firstness), is helping a direct observation. So far, so good,
the term “IR” is the topic of a paper, it is an end. The direct observation leads to some
signs, some means to an end, that are repeatedly found, more specifically, political
revolutions and technological advances. These (thirdness) are studied only in order to
be used as tools for better understanding of something general. I don’t study Artificial
Intelligence, neither the Occupy Wall Street movement. I study the fact that these two
are particle of a quality (firstness) that is called IR. Then, IR is observed as the
possibility of a quality that is included in and includes the observer. As said in the
research question, IR mainly happened and merely is still going on. I can observe it, but
12
I am also included in it. More specifically in order to communicate the reasons I use this
approach here:
Firstness of IR: When we speak of IR, we probably mean something: IR has certain
qualities that constitute it as a quality. But since it is ill-defined, most probably these
qualities are unclear and they become the goal of this paper. In other words, the
research question is the question for IR’s firstness.
Secondness of IR: So, to attain the firstness, one needs to examine IR’s extrinsic and
intrinsic relations, what we observe as given facts, whether we like them or not. Thus, in
order to define it, a fruitful approach would be to examine IR in terms of:

what it is related to (eg political and scientific revolutions based on the
development of ICT’s), and

how things within it are themselves related (eg. people are connected through
internet platforms, wars are held in front of laptop screens) or

what it was/is a reaction to (eg. the Industrial Revolution, capitalism), and

what reactions it has already generated (eg. Big Data, Information Capitalism,
Ethics)
Thirdness of IR: All these relations of secondness are somehow represented by some
indicating symbols, such as technological gadgets, applications, linguistic turns, slogans,
philosophical tendencies, everyday mentalities. The recognition of these symbols or
signs are able to lead to a recognition of relations, and vice versa (please, mind my
words), the repeated occurrence of some relations in accordance to some signs can
establish them as such. In coherence to the previous relation goals:

What were are the “symbols” of the current reactionary political and scientific
revolutions? Fight against capitalism (monetary or informational)? Call for
advance in interconnectivity (corporeal or conceptual)?

On the same token, what are the “signs” of reaction to the reaction? General
confusion? Manifestoes against Big Data? Call for new Ethics discussion?
Demonstrations against digital surveillance? […]?

How are these relations represented? Screens, gadgets, new terminologies,
networks, low-cost flights, global immigration, emoticons […]?
13
Firstness:
Quality
Object of Study
Suchness
Secondness:
Relations to and
relations within
Struggle
Reactions
Thirdness:
Symbols
Signs
Indications
The scheme above shows how the modes are interrelated. The firstness, an observable
“phaneron”/object of study (IR) is related to secondness, something it can be compared
or contrasted to (Industrial Revolution) and also the intrinsic developed relations and
struggles (for instance political). By hand, secondness is related to thirdness, the means
of expression (for instance, ICT’s) that justify the specific suchness in contrast to
another and also symbolize the inner relations. Then thirdness redirects to firstness,
since whenever these means are apparent, the desired suchness is so. The overall
awareness of these three overlapping modes of observation illustrates a fairly good
image of the given object of study.
My personal use of this tripartite division of categories is used because I believe that
there is confusion between them, especially between firstness and thirdness. People
using the term IR confuse the ways it has been expressed to what it is in total. In other
words, they take the symptom or the effect as the cause or the generality. The answer
“Internet is IR” to my question “What is IR” is a conceptual error, a misinterpretation of
IR in general with IR’s effects. In agreement to Peirce: “That quality is dependent upon
sense is the great error of the conceptualists. […] A quality is a mere potentiality; and
the error of these schools lies in holding that the potential, or possible, is nothing but
what the actual makes it to be” (p. 85). IR goes together with all its current components.
If “internet” were IR solely, then why some places on Earth are not online? Internet
14
works as an indication to IR, just like problems in information literacy, just like any
other effect of IR as a cause.
The fact that several scientific branches or conceptual frameworks are developed hold
people from relating something to something else, like problems in Virtual Reality (VR)
with problems of Economy. But they are all children of the same phenomenon, one does
not exclude the other, and certainly one doesn’t include the other. To compare them
might seem ambiguous, but ambiguity can be eliminated by including in the context of
something broader. That, I believe, is IR. In both fields, Economy and VR there might be
references to an ongoing IR. Different approaches, but no definition. So, IR is related to
both Economy and VR, since the term is found there. Is it opposed to something within
these fields? How is it represented in these fields? To keep these examples, an
economist would talk of information as a commodity, or the turn to the tertiary section,
while a VR specialist might talk of technological advancements towards a new ontology.
Answers found to these questions during observation, all lead to the understanding of
the final abducted general definition of IR. Finding interdisciplinary aspects of literature
that give links to these isolated approaches is the way I apply this tripartite
categorization onto IR. Again, I am not using the whole of Peirce’s philosophical
framework, but I use the three modes of being as a navigational tool in order to
investigate IR.
Before the chapter overview, a final clarification on the relation of the method and the
structure of the paper: As shown, firstness, secondness and thirdness are
interconnected and all are links to each other. The paper structure follows a
presentation of each mode separately, but the reader is warned that elements of all
three are found in every one of the following chapters. Speaking of IR as an object of
interest in contrast or relation to another similar object is secondness. To study it, that
is, to study the facts and relations around and within it is secondness. Talking media,
happenings and events associated with IR is thirdness. The indicating recognizable signs
that take the form of a symbol is thirdness. And talking a general meaning of IR is
firstness. Concluding sentences in the end of chapters and subchapters are elements of
firstness, leading to this paper’s concluding chapter, IR’s proposed definition, IR’s final
firstness. Keeping this approach together with the following chapter overview would be
a fruitful navigation tool in a flood of information about information and its revolution.
15
0.3 Chapter Overview
After the previous introductory notes and the description of the theoretical framework
applied, this chapter overview aims at mapping the following chapters to the reader’s
advantage. IR is the topic and it is observed through the above analyzed Peircean
phenomenological model of firstness, secondness, and thirdness. These modes of being
are used as structural guideline to help dividing the collected observations into three
tight wrapped chapters, given as a countdown from thirdness towards firstness – which
is the actual goal of the paper. As said, elements of any mode can be noticed in the
description of any other, thus, the division is sharp to a certain level of approximation.
May the reader be free to conduct any further relations of the material exposed.
In order to keep the different chapter topics as tight as possible, I don’t provide with a
single chapter of literature review with definitions of IR. Instead, I have divided them in
sets of topics that are in coherence of emphasis with the rest of the chapters. Thus,
available definitions of IR are found in all chapters, leading together with the rest of the
discussion to the unified definition of the conclusions.
Chapter 1 focuses on definitions of the two main terms, “information” and “revolution.”
The modes of secondness and firstness are also in play here. Definitions per se are
considered as qualities, so firstness. As a prelude to the study’s main corpus, applying
secondness to the given definitions of “information” and “revolution” gives an initial
philosophical basis for the relation of the two terms if examined conceptually and not
only empirically as in the following chapters.
Chapter 2 is thirdness, the role of mediations that constitute indicative signs in
everyday habits that probably tell us something. I examine the case of contemporary
revolutionary movements in relation to the media that helped organizing them. Political
and social revolutions are now handled by ICT’s gadgets and applications. In this case,
empirical evidence shows the info-transformation of revolution and the revolutionary
aspect of information in everyday life. Showing the crucial significance and the habitual
necessity of media used for current revolts, a first glance of what makes IR is attained.
Chapter 3 is secondness, the relations and reactions to other objects of comparison.
Here I examine IR in two basic terms: (1) what was it a reaction to (Industrial
Revolution, Capitalism, secondary section, environmental pollution) , and (2) what
16
negative phenomena are noticed in its presumable wake (Datafication, Vectorialism,
economic crises, addiction to the virtual). In this sense, IR fulfills revolution’s definition
as the reappearance of certain recognizable elements in an alienated form. This
secondary step shows what IR is related to.
Chapter 4 is a first attempt towards firstness, the quality of IR. I examine the
reontologization of the entities (inforgs) in play, the new set of Ethics that have been
generated in the information-based context. It’s possible to gain a panoramic view of a
genealogy of this ontology through few examples of existential approaches to the
human ontology during the 20th century, that proves the continuity of IR as a fruit of the
previous generations and not only as a reaction. This delving into the inforgian
existential essence is the final step before concluding in what IR is.
Chapter 5 concludes with a definitional presentation of firstness. IR is presented as a
phenomenon in its suchness, in relation to secondness and thirdness. A section on
possible future work – inseparable from the conclusions – proposes the acceptance of
habitual decay of IR to be replaced by another sort of revolution that only its traces one
can currently notice.
A reference list provides with all the material used to conduct this paper.
Complementary to this overview is the following diagram of the paper. Under each
mode of being I present the main themes discussed. These themes are non-hierarchical,
they appear in this sequence just due to the paper’s sequence. Themes from thirdness
are apparent signs that indicate IR. As nodes they direct to aspects of struggle discussed
in secondness. After discussion, these elements of secondness direct to the perception
of firstness, IR’s quality. By turn, the ontology described in firstness directs to its
expression, again elements of thirdness. An abstraction of this circulation of themes
found in IR’s investigation appears in the conclusions.
17
The Question:
What is IR?
Theoretical Framework:
Peircean Phenomenology –
The Three Modes of Being
Chapter 1: Definitions:
Information vs. Entropy
Revolution vs. Common Sense
Information as Revolution
Terror vs. Boredom
Chapter 2: Thirdness:



Everyday Media
Augmented
Revolutions
Terrorism
Chapter 3: Secondness:




Industrial Age
Vectoralism
Pollution/Big Data
Identity Loss
Chapter 5: Conclusions:
The General Definition
of Information
Revolution
18
Chapter 4: Towards Firstness




Hyper/posthistory
Inforgs
Infosphere
e-nvironmentalism
Chapter 1: Definitions
1.1 On Definitions: Are They Important? Are They Possible? They are a Struggle.
“If, in the endeavor to find some idea which does not involve the element of struggle, we imagine a universe
that consists of a single quality that never changes, still there must be some steadiness in this imagination, or
else we could not think about and ask whether there was an object having any positive suchness […]
By struggle I must explain that I mean mutual action between two things regardless of any sort of third
medium, and in particular regardless of any law of action.” (Peirce, 1955, p. 89)
On one hand: the answer to this subchapter’s title could simply be: “no.” As Julio
Cortazar mentions, “in order to define and understand something one would have to be
outside of what is being defined and understood” (1966, p. 159). That’s particularly the
main reason that kept revolutions out of recognition during the time they were taking
place. I can’t consider myself as a human as long as I don’t see other entities of my
species and if don’t see myself in a mirror. In addition to that the many different entities
of perception (for instance, humans) develop different criteria for naming things and, as
argued by Mai (2011, p. 116-117), to name, to define is a “tricky business” as “it can only
be done within a given context.” Whenever one thinks of a fixed definition of something,
another will come up with a completely different point of view in a chaotic universe of
disorderous heterogeneous order. I can’t create a fixed theory that relates to all the
possible practices of its topic. Disapproving the importance of definitions is a creative
step from theory to practice that emphasizes each subject’s uniqueness.
On the other hand: the answer could simply be: “yes.” As I am in the indicative position
of looking for a definition it seems that I try and act as an observer rather than as a
participant. As argued by Owusu-Ansah (2005, p. 366), “[c]larity of definitions provides
more stable atmosphere for practical initiatives, while controversies over definitions
distract from action.” To overcome disagreements and to emphasize on common
grounds through creative comparative analysis of concepts is to create a practical
consensus of unification. Approving the importance of definition is a creative step from
practice to general theory, to common grounds where every subject can be expressed
on equal terms.
Thus, the answer is twofold. I acknowledge the simultaneous existence of several
definitions for the same thing, the will to define and the will to not define, the quantic
19
impact of the observer influencing the observed and the observed having effects on the
observer. I am moving, thus, through Peircean phenomenology towards defining
something that acknowledges the contents of this subchapter. Having the term
“Information Revolution” under this scope, I see a first kind of struggle, a first kind of
secondness, the struggle between terms, namely “information” and “revolution.” Yet, as
shown in the “Theoretical Background” section, secondness isn’t only struggle, but also
relation, mediation. To understand through definitions the meanings of “Information”
and “Revolution” towards the desired firstness of IR, is to define the two terms as
qualities that engage with relation – and therefore struggle – per se.
Hull (1997 p. 1) extracts an IR definition by merging the Webster’s Dictionary
definitions of “information as ‘the communication or reception of knowledge or
intelligence’” and “revolution as ‘a sudden, radical or complete change’ and as ‘activity
or movement designed to effect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation.’
Thus, an information revolution is a fundamental and complete change in the way
knowledge or intelligence is communicated and received.” Based on this scheme that
extracts a meaning for IR by merging the composite parts’ definitions, before starting
the main analysis, I make a step of meaning conjunction. The point of difference
becomes the point of relation.
The next three subchapters define: (1) information as a relation to data and as a
struggle against entropy, (2) revolution as a relation to the current state of being and as
a struggle against common sense, (3) a profound relation between the terms based on
the approaches I follow that sets the ground for the paper’s atmosphere.
20
1.2 Defining Information: The Struggle Against Entropy
“Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this
can survive at the present day.” (Wiener, 1948, p. 132)
“Everything is everything, what is meant to be, will be/ After winter, must come spring/ change
it comes eventually” (Hill, 1999)
“The body is the body. Alone it stands. And in no need of organs. Organism it never is.
Organisms are the enemies of the body” (Artaud in Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 184)
“I do not appear to be edible. Nor threatening. Just curious. The squirrel moves on to the next
segment. Is information animal, mineral or vegetable? Hunted or grazed or mined? What
segments yield it? What world does its extraction make? A human asks; a squirrel tasks.”
(Wark, 2002, 10th February 2001)
“Although to inform originally meant to ‘dig forms into something,’ it has taken on a whole
series of additional meanings in the present (and, in this way, it has become a term that
people use to torment one another). Still, all these meanings have a common denominator:
‘the more improbable, the more informative,’” writes Flusser (1987, p. 12-13). Indeed,
information has been on the definitional and theoretical discussion board for more than half a
century1. Different theories and definitions serve the different research needs and respective
contexts. In this paper I use Luciano Floridi’s GDI for reasons that are explained after the
very presentation of it:
“GDIσ (an infon) is an instance of semantic information if and only if:
GDI.1 σ consists of n data (d), for n ≥ 1;
GDI.2 the data are well formed (wfd);
GDI.3 the wfd are meaningful (mwfd = δ)” (Floridi, 2011, p. 83-84)
I use the GDI mainly because it generalizes the past 30 years tendency to the formula
information = data + meaning (ibid.). This semantic approach is of key importance in
order to follow Peirce’s applied theory for this paper. Meaning for Peirce is the key to
any triadic relation of thirdness. To understand something immediately (a
On an extended discussion for understanding information towards a definition, see Shannon and
Weaver, 1949, Li and Vitanyi, 1997, Chaitin, 2003, Bar-Hillel and Carnap, 1964, Dretske, 1981, Barwise
and Perry, 1983, Devlin, 1991, Sayre, 1976, Armstrong, 1968, Dennet, 1986, Harms, 1998, Chalmers,
1996, Buckland, 1991, Audi, 1999 in (Floridi, 2011, p. 31) and more specifically towards the semantic
approach, Davis and Olson, 1985, Silver and Silver, 1989, Checkland and Scholes, 1990, Lucey, 1991,
Warner, 1996, Franklin, 1995, Mingers, 1997, in (Floridi, 2011, p. 81-82).
1
21
quality/firstness), or a relation (a reaction/secondness) is impossible without the usage
of a third mediation, that means something (Peirce, 1955, p. 91). A medium (in the sense
of mediation, but often of a technical apparatus) is needed between given data and a
subject. This medium, the acquaintance of meaning, is information. The ways things are
connected (and juxtaposed) are often the meaning(s) between the things. A semantic
approach to information helps extracting specific fruitful differences and escaping
tautologies of zero meaning. Data is the raw material that in-forms the subjects. The informed subjects are also data, but the key is to escape the tautology of saying “data is
data.” Meaning is found one level above data, in information. The meaning of IR, the
information about IR, is extracted out of the data collected about IR. The relevance and
the relation of the data, their well-formedness, is constructed or recognized by the
subject. The well-formed meaningful data are the thirdness, thus information is a
thirdness. Information on a quality (firstness) based on facts/data (secondness) is
gained though meaning (thirdness).
As Floridi elsewhere notices, referring to information’s opposition to entropy and the
probabilistic approach to semantic information, “the more probable or possible p is, the
less informative it is,“ where p may be a proposition, a sentence of a given language, an
event, a situation, or a possible world (2010, p. 53-54). In other words: the more
probable something is the more entropic: Entropy is a term borrowed by
thermodynamics that expresses the tendency of all temperatures in closed systems to
reach the same level. Tautologies are linguistic expressions of entropy. If one says “she
is a girl,” this is a tautology, but given the context (well-formed data), it could mean
(inform one with) several things. If one says “a girl is a girl,” this might seem to contain
zero information, yet in different contexts meanings get multiplied. Even if information
is seems like the opposite of entropy, it also stands as a mirror-image of it, that leads to
another form of negative entropy, negentropy. An example: If I say that Homer’s Iliad
(given data) is a good book (meaning) for any library (a “well-formed” arrangement of
data) and then I create a library consisting only of 2000 copies of this book, information
becomes negentropy – that is, an originally improbable situation becoming more and
more probable due to repetition. There is a thick line distinguishing improbability and
probability on the ways data are manipulated. This line is meaning acquisition, i.e.
information. Information is the key to recognize the given context in tautologies and the
22
relation between seemingly distinct concepts. Simply put, information by adding
meaning is adding the element of “new” to previous forms, thus it in-forms.
The next subchapter outlines a definition of “revolution” that is supplementary to the
semantic and probabilistic approaches used for information.
1.3 Defining Revolution: The Struggle Against Common Sense
“But the real revolution occurs far below the surface of the social life. […] The real revolution is
the change in the social attitudes and values basic to the traditional institutional order. The
political, religious, industrial, or economic changes are but overt manifestations of the deeper
change which has previously taken place.” (Yoder, 1926, p. 441)
“This miracle (because every ontological leap, every revolution is a miracle) is called ‘spring.’
And it does not matter that it repeats itself every year. In the ‘kyklos tes geneseos’ [Romanized
Greek: genesis cycle] it doesn’t matter that it is a cycle. What matters is that it is about
generation, the emergence of something new. The generative form, the revolutionary process,
superimposes itself over the cyclical form, the repetitive form, and this is the miracle. The
eternal return as the will to power, the buds of every March as a revolution, Nietzsche and
Marx as twin brothers” (Flusser, 1979, p. 115)
“Revolution,” like “information” has several different “meanings” and as an object of
study is subjected to different contexts, understandings, definitions and theories. Most
of the theoreticians examined in this paper treat IR as a revolution of several levels, like
social, scientific, technical, or ontological. In order to define revolution in accordance to
this scope, I follow I. Bernard Cohen’s long treatise on “Revolution in Science” (1985).
Equal in depth of research to what Floridi does with “information” for his “Philosophy of
Information” (2011), is Cohen’s work on “revolution” for his “Revolution in Science.” I
use his approach of revolutions related to each other as a tool for recognizing a
pluralistic multi-layered IR. As he says, “I have found that occurences of the word
“revolution” in the context of science have always reflected current theories concerning
political and social revolution, as well as the awareness of actual revolutions that have
taken place. Thus, the thinking about each revolution in science that I discuss is set
against the background of social and political revolution” (1985, p. xi-xii). This approach
generates an informative meaning for this paper’s elaboration: Social revolutions of
today are set against the backdrop of the scientific revolutions. If the given revolution is
23
IR, then the political revolutions of today are somehow related to information – and this
is investigated here.
Another important element of Cohen’s approach to “revolution” is that the concept
differs from age to age and this is also caused by the revolutions themselves – a fact that
is noticed by reading the literature of revolution from the late-seventeenth century to
the 1980s (Cohen, 1985, p. xii-xiv, 5-7). This paper, by defending the thesis that IR is
almost surpassed, also claims that the notion of revolution is also getting modified.
Cohen does not provide with a specific definition of the term, considering that
discussions of what constitutes a revolution and how to define it are part of philosophy,
however related to history. As a historian he supports Medawars’ thesis (1983, in
Cohen, 1985, p. 5) that several discourses are possible with a loose precision on the
terms, unless one talks of formal contexts, like mathematics and logic. He recognizes
though that “revolution in science” implies a strong relation to “hard sciences” where
definitions are important and proceeds in a sharp outline of the term’s elements. I
summarize them here and one could perceive them as a definition, in respect to the
semantic approach to information and IR that as a scientific advancement has strong
relations to formal logic (Floridi, 2011, p. 5-7, 52). The succession of these elements also
show the differentiation of the term’s meaning through the ages.

Etymologically and astronomically, “[r]evolution means to return again, to go
through a cyclical succession, as in the seasons of the year […] In the sciences,
revolution thus implies a constancy within all change, an endless repetition, an end
that is a beginning all over again. (p. 5)

Scientifically, “it implies a break in continuity, the establishment of a new order that
has severed its links with the past […] It is the historian’s task to find out how and
when an innocent scientific term that implies permanence and recurrence became
transformed into an expression for radical change in political and socioeconomic
affairs” (p. 6)
Cohen notices that the early revolutionary scientists, like Copernicus and Newton that
had knowledge of their revolutionariness, thought of scientific revolutions as revivals of
lost ancient knowledge, thus revolution meant the recurrence. The element of “terror”
was added to revolution during the French Revolution and to Cohen, this was the time
24
when revolution became something that is a frightening breaking with the past common
sense (p. 6-7). This break-up with the continuity is expressed by Kuhn’s treat of
scientific revolution as a “paradigm shift” following certain crises (p. xviii). Cohen
discards Kuhn’s instability of terms and rather refers to Hannah Arendt’s addition and
discussion of the element of “newness” for revolutions understood as “an entirely new
story, a story never known or told before” that “is about to unfold” (p. 8). He further on
discusses the different orders of magnitude a revolution might take, “ranging from
maxirevolutions to minirevolutions” where the former have a major effect in all
sciences (and thus social activity) and the latter are lesser crucial events that affect a
narrow field of science. A final remark on the elements that constitute an either political
or scientific revolution is the phenomenon of conversion. Describing it as an addition to
the unexpectedness of newness, conversion appears as the adoption of new
revolutionary ideas in a sometimes almost religious state that sheds light to previous
conceptions. The conversion takes place either by a habitual acceptance of the radical
innovations, by conscious acceptance similar to a religious conversion, or simply
because the followers of past conceptions die and don’t get new followers (p. 10, 467).
Old beliefs get under novel consideration through a rethinking of fundamentals. “Such
change in belief may be a traumatic event,” as Cohen notices, later referring to Kuhn’s
descriptions of an irreversible “gestalt switch” and a “conversion experience” (p. 468)
Concluding his book, Cohen returns to etymology:
“In a historical study of revolutions, one cannot discuss conversion without having
in mind that in classical times ‘conversio’ meant a revolution in the old cyclical
sense, and even in religion ‘conversion’ retains some of the ancient sense of
spiritual rebirth. But the modern use of this term, especially in science, implies
radical change and the acceptance of a wholly different point of view. And so with
the transformations of the concept we come full circle.” (p. 472)
So far so good, great revolutions are radical epicycles on a current state’s succession
that by introducing some sort of new conception affect the way of thinking as a whole.
All in all: For this paper the term “revolution” is recognized and emphasized in the cases
of being a scientific/technical, social/political quality of a cyclical movement that breaks
its succession to the return in a first state. This overlapping break is the element of
25
“newness,” often recognized as terror which is followed by habitual or conscious
conversion. Revolutions in the political and scientific fields are reflected in each other
and share the aforementioned characteristics. This paper examines and defines IR as a
revolution in accordance to Cohen’s work. The following subchapter is a final remark
between the definitions of “information” and “revolution.”
1.4 Information as Revolution, Revolution as Information: A Final Definitional
Remark
I use the above definitional paths for “information” and “revolution” because they share
some common attributes. In short, semantic, anti-entropic information brings
something “new” upon pre-existing forms of inherited knowledge. Epicyclical,
convertive revolution brings something “new” upon pre-existing forms of inherited
political and social states. I already expressed the relation of semantic information with
probability theory. Practically, the probabilistic approach affected the way information
is perceived. A similar approach can be held for revolutions.
Cohen recognizes his time’s (1985) radical scientific achievements of probabilistic
methods in the “computer revolution.” The computer, like probability and statistics,
“has affected the thinking of scientists and the formulation of theories in a
fundamental way, as in the case of the new computer models for world
metereology. […] [T]he introduction of probability produced a new kind of theory –
and in fact, a new kind of science – in which the traditional basis of a one-one causeand-effect is replaced by the statistical foundation. It is the same for the computer,
which has also altered the form of scientific theories, in that logically linked
propositions and formal mathematical statements have been replaced by complex
computer models.” (1985, p. 9-10)
This paragraph generates a concluding series of thoughts. Cohen claims that revolutions
in science cannot be predicted in terms of form and time, even if every scientist is aware
of the inevitability of an occurring revolution (p. 20-21). But later on he continues: “As I
was writing this chapter, a glance at a single shelf in my study showed almost a dozen
books on computers that have ‘revolution’ in the title. Who would deny that there has
been a computer revolution?” (p. 21-22). My addition to Cohen’s argumentation is that
26
since “revolution” as a concept is transformed by the content of scientific and political
advances they constitute them, then the current “revolution” conceptualization has
imported elements from probabilistic thinking and computational logic. That’s the
probabilistic “newness” of the “computer revolution” that transformed the very concept
of revolution.
As I described when defining “information,” it helps setting the meaningful context for
(1) distinguishing similar data that could be perceived as tautologies, and (2) relating
data that seem impossible to relate. That’s the probabilistic “newness” of semantic
information.
“Information” and “Revolution” are terms seemingly distinct, yet they appear together
in the term “IR,” but if, as shown above, information opposes entropy, then it’s a
“revolution” against entropy. The semantic approach to information helps recognizing
(1) the context of a tautology “information is revolution,” (2) the relation between
distinct elements surrounding “information” and “revolution.” The meaningfulness of
the context supplies the phenomenological approach applied with the proposition “as,”
that will justify linguistic/conceptual games as “information as revolution” and
“revolution as information,” based on the facts about “information” and “revolution” in
the times of the emerging – and probably (as shown in this paper) passing – IR.
Now after these concepts have been clarified for this paper’s aim, before starting the
investigation of the facts and media that constitute IR, let me present a further step on
sustaining my hypothesis for predicting the end of IR through probability. I use a model
and an argumentation borrowed by Vilém Flusser, that supports the inclusion of terror
within the element of newness, that was shown in the later concept transformations of
‘revolution”:
“Everything that is new is terrible, not because of what it is, but because it is new.
The degree of terror may be taken as a measure of novelty: the more terrible, the
newer.
In fact, this statement is nothing but a translation of the second law of
thermodynamics into English. It states that novelty is an improbable inversion of
27
the general tendency toward ever greater probability, and that it is “terrifying”
precisely because it is an inversion.” (Flusser, 2002, p. 51)
Flusser here begins a philosophical investigation on “Habit” by merging all elements
found in the previous sections for “information” and “revolution”: thermodynamics,
probabilistic thinking, terror. He translates the inverse relation “the more probable, the
more informative” into “the more terrible, the newer,” that I translate for the aim of this
chapter into “the more terrifying, the more revolutionary” and thus “the more
revolutionary, the more informative.” This paper treats “information” and “revolution”
as qualities of layered magnitudes that are measured by the terror and the acceptance
they generate. Simply:
Revolution’s maximum: Terror. Revolution’s minimum: Common Sense.
Information’s maximum: Newness. Information’s minimum: Entropy.
Let the notion of negentropy be refreshed in this context. As a constant repeat of
“newness” of information leads to entropy from the other side, a constant repeat of
“terror” might lead to a common sense of terror from the other side. For Flusser, this
procedure of repetition is called habit. For Cohen is called conversion. Terrorism
practiced everyday becomes less and
less terrifying. It’s rather part of the
common sense and something new is
probably expected. Scientists aiming
at becoming “revolutionary” accept
new ideas out of habit. Every
scientist becomes “informed” in that
sense, and a negentropic scientific
common sense becomes apparent,
with a new revolution being
expected. Flusser describes it in
Figure 1 (Flusser, 2002, p. 56)
terms of aesthetics with the model I borrow, as a conclusion to his essay on “Habit”
(2002, p. 56).
28
Flusser’s probabilistic and informational approach to aesthetics states that habit helps
the acceptance of something ugly, new and terrifying, transforming it into beautiful,
then pretty and finally kitsch for the current aesthetic criteria. Out of the vast amount of
“kitschness,” newness emerges, somehow miraculously, as information, meaning,
human brains and nebulae in the universe’s general tendency to entropy – until they are
decayed, dead, yesterday’s news. Likewise, terrifying revolutions occur out of high
degrees of “kitsch” common sense, only to be further accepted as “beautiful” new
political ideas or scientific innovations, becoming “pretty” much common sense and
reach the point where new data see the light and become informationally meaningful
letting new revolutions to occur. A last note: “The transformation of terror into beauty
demands effort. The transformation of beauty into kitsch happens spontaneously”
(Flusser, 1983, p. 73). This possibly constitutes a reason for IR not being yet
transcended. We might still be on the level of a terror (terrorist attacks, public or
private surveillance, hacking) that becomes recognized as beauty (Globalization,
Environmentalism, Google, Open Source). If this is so, and if the model functions, the
degeneration into kitsch is expected to come – spontaneously.
This chapter explained a mode of “secondness” between “information” and “revolution”
using as a “thirdness” the respective “secondnesses” of the terms, namely “entropy” and
“common sense.” Information was presented as a revolution and revolution as
information. For no reason this was a definition of IR, but it was a justification for
preferring Floridi’s and Cohen’s approached to the terms, while it shows the way I treat
them in the context of this investigation.
29
Chapter 2: Thirdness – Occupying Media, Hoping for Messages
“In general parlance it [revolution] carries connotations and significances which involve the
deepest fears as well as the highest hopes” (Yoder, 1926, p. 433).
“Revolutions against boredom, not all of which succeeded. The best of them took precautions
against installing boredom all over again. […] Information wants to be free (it could at least be
subsidized). Information as what escapes the dialectic of the objectified subject and subjectified
object” (Wark, 2002, 20th April 2001)
“Mediators are fundamental. Creation's all about mediators. Without them nothing happens.
They can be people-for a philosopher, artists or scientists; for a scientist, philosophers or
artists-but things too, even plants or animals, as in Castaneda. Whether they're real or
imaginary, animate or inanimate, you have to form your mediators. It's a series. If you're not in
some series, even a completely imaginary one, you're lost. I need my mediators to express
myself, and they'd never express themselves without me: you're always working in a group,
even when you seem to be on your own.” (Deleuze, 1995, p. 123)
In this chapter I explore the usage of new technical media as indications of IR. I apply
the previously mentioned paradigm of technical revolutions reflected on the social ones.
If current revolutions happen with means of contemporary technologies, this verifies
the revolutions as such for both cases, political and scientific. Contemporary political
revolutions happen with the means of new technical media. I exemplify that by
examining certain cases of social struggle based on new ICT’s media. If the only way to
build a social revolution today is by the usage of these media, then “revolution” per se
has changed – and this is an aspect of IR; To the extent of this paper’s theoretical
framework, the new media indicate IR’s thirdness. I sustain my argumentation by using
McLuhan’s theory on media that came about in the sixties and has been reflected in
several aspects of IR. Before that I list here a number of definitions for IR that
emphasize on the importance of the new technologies and the occurring media.
Dictionary.com defines IR as “the explosion of availability of information due to the use
of computers, the Internet, and other electronic devices” (Dictionary.com 2013). Oxford
Dictionaries proposes that IR is “the proliferation of the availability of information and
the accompanying changes in its storage and dissemination owing to the use of
computers” (Oxford University Press 2013). For Dunn (2009 p. 15), IR is “an ongoing
30
dynamic development that is driven by the integration of Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT) into a multimedia system of communication with
global reach, adding increased speed, greater capacity, and enhanced flexibility to the
gathering and processing of data, and thus simplifying its transformation into
knowledge or wisdom. This materializing environment can best be characterized by the
significance assigned to information, knowledge and ideas as resources in international
relations.”
Irving Fang’s 1997 book “A History of Mass Communication: Six Information
Revolutions” is a rather exhaustive approach to a very different perspective of IR’s (in
plural form) indicating six Information Revolutions that apply to his description of what
constitutes an IR (Fang, 1997, pp. xv-xvii). This movement towards a definition of IR is
focusing on the impact of developing new technologies that fulfill “[t]he wish to
remember” through “the communication and storage of knowledge outside the brain”
(p. xv). IR is presented clearly here as the mirroring reflection between technologies
and societies, since “information revolutions create changes, intended or not, that stick.
The new media of information become part of the changing society” (p. xvi). The six
information revolutions indicated in his research are: Writing (including terms as: clay,
skin and bones and papyrus, alphabets, libraries), Printing (including universities, book
culture, censorship, publishing, postal services, literacy), Mass Media (including labor,
stereotyping, lithography, offset, business, QWERTY, advertising, brands, radio,
television, photography, signals, telephone, cinema), Entertainment (including
magazines, phonograph, high fidelity, owning), the Toolshed Home (including heavy
media, home mail delivery, cellular phones, commercialism, infotainment, pay-TV,
videotape), and the Highway (including heavy traffic, interactivity, computer, desktop
publishing, multimedia, CD-ROM, fiber optics, telecenter, Internet, knowledge groups,
mailbox in the computer, fax, online services, electronic newspaper) (pp. v-xiii).
Beavers’ more recent approach also treats IR’s in plural, mentioning “four revolutions in
the history of information” (2012). Acknowledging the numerical coincidence with
Floridi’s notion of the “Fourth Revolution” (analyzed as an ontological revolution in
chapter 4), Beavers indicates four revolutions in terms of great magnitude of
transformation in the ways that information is produced, retrieved and communicated
31
technologically-wise. Namely, these are the a. Epigraphic, b. Printing, c. Multimedia, and
d. Digital Revolutions (2012, pp. 87-97).
This short literature review highlights the importance of looking at the media in order
to understand how this revolution occurs, justifying the usage of McLuhan’s media
theory, below.
2.1 “The medium is the message”
Marshall McLuhan’s slogan marked a generation. To understand the means of
communication, the mediations used is more important than the messages sent. Every
new medium in use creates a brand new understanding of the environment and after
that every new action is made according to the effect this medium has generated. When
telephone was invented, McLuhan proposes in the sixties, it wasn’t that important what
people were communicating when talking on the phone, but the very development of
the medium is the message to a brand new set of possibilities – the world would never
be the same again (more on “the medium is the message” in McLuhan, 1994, p. 7-21). I
translate: “the mediation is the quality” or “thirdness leads to firstness,” or simply, the
media used during IR pinpoint to the message of what is IR. If I observe what media are
used in the everyday life I am able to indicate a message towards the quality of living.
Laptops, PC’s, tablets, smartphones, are all gadgets inseparable from the human of
today. Why inseparable? Because humans can’t function easily without them.
Thus, the environment gets differentiated, based on the new norms. McLuhan’s other
axiom, “we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” meets a match. We first
impose an element of our body to our media that become extensions of ourselves. Cars
were extensions of our feet, telephone was an extension of the mouth and the ear,
electric circuitry an extension of the central nervous system (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967).
The Internet medium in relation to the brain network faculty could suffice as an
example, but today the term “media studies” is not sufficient. “Software studies” or
“platform studies” come as contained variations of ways to study how novel mediations
affect our environments (Bolter, Engberg, & MacIntyre, 2013, p. 36-45). In the case of IR
the following listing of technologies add to the clarification of what is meant from now
on by the term “new media of IR”: Computer-Aided Design, Paperless Manufacturing,
Groupware, Online Services, Document Management, Customer Service Technology,
32
Point-Of-Sale Terminals, Servers, Networks, Databases, Printers, Voice Recognition,
Storage Protection, Fax Machines, Scanners, Pen Notebooks, Flash Technology,
Advanced Fiber Optics, Wireless Technology, Video-conferencing, Graphics Technology,
Data Compression, Object Orientation, Virtual Reality, Geographic Systems (listing taken
out of table describing IR by Cramer in Porter and Read, 1998, p. 201-202). With so
many technologies – and their respective media variations – involved, it’s easy to get
lost in the translation of “the medium is the message” especially in times of revolution.
McLuhan was conscious enough to state among others that every medium contains
another medium (1994, p. 8), just like the internet being the container of media as
telephone, or television; or the tablet being a container of the internet and the camera.
This allows the conceptualization of a network of media types that does not require a
one-by-one theoretical investigation of all media in order to get their respective
messages. The important thing is to remember that media reflect/are reflected on the
environments and that they can be observed in order to get a clearer overview of what
makes an age “revolutionary.” I thus inspect how new media create a general new
version of revolution, which I consider IR’s form of expression. In McLuhan’s terms,
media “amplify” or “accelerate” processes (ibid.). In the first sense, today “augmented
reality” is termed, a bridge between virtual and real worlds, “a reality that is enhanced
and augmented” (Wu et al, 2013, p. 41). In the second sense, people lose control of the
media, and the narcissistic reflection of human body faculties onto the media falls into
narcosis – it becomes anesthetized. Humans become gadget lovers (McLuhan, 1994, p.
41-46). Examples of this case are given in the next chapter as reactions to IR. For this
first examination, of how media operate and affect people in everyday life an ambitious
case is examined, the ultimate test of how revolutions are operated in the age of IR.
2.2 Outrage and Hope: The bull is taken by horns
If the bull is to be taken by the horns, in order to understand IR, I ask: What political
revolutions are taking place in the times of IR? In accordance to the concept of
revolution offered in the definitions section, scientific and technical revolutions are
going hand in hand with political and social ones. Hence, if one sees a great
technological advancement, political turmoil is to be noticed and vice versa. If there’s
fire there must be smoke, and if there’s smoke there must be fire. Practically, the
33
political revolutions of today are effects of the media produced by the scientific
revolutions. Their demands reflect needs born out of technological concepts, such as
“network,” “digital surveillance,” or “open source.” A thorough examination of the
relation between new technologies and social revolutions has been conducted by
Manuel Castells in his recent book “Networks of Outrage and Hope” (2012). To
introduce Castells simply, it’s sufficient to mention that he introduced the term
“network society” as he prioritizes the significance of networks before information. I
will summarize some of this treatise’s reflections to show how contemporary social
revolutions came to existence through the usage of new media.
“[I]t just happened. Suddenly dictatorships could be overthrown,” says Castells (2012, p.
1). His book narrates the stories of social movements in the twenty-first century in
Tunisia, Iceland, Denmark, Greece, Egypt, describing the Arab uprisings and the Occupy
Wall Street movement. He constantly emphasizes on the nature of revolution in his
Network Society, based on new media. Revolutions are “digitally born.” They get
diffused and are maintained, circulated and expanded through the usage of Web 2.0
tools, YouTube videos, vlogs, political blogs, avatar images, Tweets and livestreaming
media. Postmodern virtual weaponry and means of defense include mobile phones,
SMS’s, hashtags, TOR and HotSpot Shield. Google trends statistics, or Facebook “likes”
verify instantly the existence of movements.
Media censorship, the shutdown of the Internet or limited Internet manipulation led to
the creation of what Castells calls “postmedia” within the social conflict. He detects a
continuous extensionality between traditional social networks of the occupied urban
space and the Internet cyberspace that generates a hybrid third space of places, that he
calls “the space of autonomy” and a timeless time of simultaneity. A very interesting key
point of this pervasive network movement is that “[n]etworking as the movement’s way
of life protects the movement both against its adversaries and against its own internal
dangers of bureaucratization and manipulation.” In addition to the political analysis, he
also refers to neurological studies of emotions, claiming that revolutions result from a
passage from fear, to anxiety and outrage ending up to hope (cf. Yoder’s quote in the
beginning of this chapter), showing a reflective oscillation between the individuals’
neural networks and the social networks of autonomy.
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Thus, he calls this movement a multimodal, non-linear, rhizomatic revolution of a new
kind whose most revolutionary act is the invention of itself. Its autonomy is sustained
through direct democratic practices with no mediation by formal political organizations.
Living in this horizontal and “real virtuality” the viral nature of the movement helps
avoiding bureaucratization and manipulation. Tacitly paraphrasing McLuhan, reverses
his message, claiming that it’s the networked movement’s message that actually
constructs the medium. One of the chapters is called “The Process is the Message,”
meaning that these spontaneous unplanned and unprogrammed revolutionary acts of
outrage do not have means, but a very goal at themselves and at the development of
direct democracy in practice (2012, p. 5-6, 8, 11, 14, 27-29 54-59, 61 63 120, 122, 127,
134, 144-145, 168-169, 185, 219, 222-233).
2.3 Euromaidan and Indymedia keep the Message
I begin my paper’s introduction mentioning the evolution of the recent rise-ups in
Ukraine. What Castells proposes as a model for contemporary social revolutions is
applied perfectly in such recent acts. Dyczok, covering the events in Ukraine in an article
titled “Information Wars” indicates the very same characteristics: Locally and globally
the revolts are transmitted – yet independent media (Castells’ postmedia) give
completely different information than the state television or the Russian channels.
Censorship prevails from the part of the state and the news get whitewashed. Internetbased alternative television and radio stations provide with independent Information
(Dyczok, 2014, p. 1-2). Kulyk compares the usage of social networks and similar
internet media in Ukraine between the Euromaidan revolution of 2014 and the Orange
Revolution in 2004: “While only 15% of Ukrainians had access to the Internet back in
2004 […] according to a survey conducted in January 2014, 84% of citizens found out
about the [recent] protests on the Internet” (Kulyk, 2014, p. 1-2). Social networks such
as Facebook generated a whole extra dimension to the revolution. Several people who
never participated in the “real-life” protests were actors in the events through frequent
posting, sharing, or “liking” “harsh critiques of various protest activities, disseminated
sensational “facts” and gloomy predictions.” This phenomenon could also contribute the
“general anxiety” and even to the establishment of “Facebook celebrities,” people who
gained reputation exactly because their action were not limited online, but also offline
(Kulyk, 2014, p. 2-3). The two cited articles are written from local scholars who
35
participated in the events online and offline. The articles are available before the
journal’s print. The speed by which “news” pass to scholarship becoming historical
events is, I believe, another form of what Castells’ calls “the revolutionary act of
revolution’s invention of itself.”
Another case-study worth mentioning that proves the parallel online/offline
revolutionary development is the Network of Independent Media Centers, mostly
known as Indymedia network or IMC. With its beginnings in 1999, it’s introduced as “a
network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and
passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who
continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and
unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity” (About Indymedia, 2014). Local
autonomy, decentralization and equality are the leading organizing principles of
Indymedia. “[W]hile all local IMCs are only one ‘click’ away from each other, they
preserve their administrative independence and cultural autonomy” (Millioni, 2009, p.
425). The Greek node of the network is frequently used for instant newsfeed from Greek
autonomists for several years now especially during demonstrations or in cases of
witnessed political clashes of various types. Studied by Millioni (2009), Indymedia
Athens generated conclusions for what she calls “information self-determination”:
“Information self-determination refers to the enhanced abilities that IMC users
acquire, individually or collectively, in all steps of information processing – access,
collection, recording, editing, production and dissemination of politically relevant
information. The publics that are being formed use the online space of IMCAthens,
in relation to the dominant mass media system: (a) exemplarily, by creating new
models of open and sustainable media organizations with different structural,
normative and functional characteristics; (b) competitively, by creating their own
media outlets for the production and dissemination of information, and by defining
the terms of their own representation; and (c) supplementarily, by actively
monitoring media content, checking on media processes and criticizing their logic.”
(Millioni, 2009, p. 426)
From my personal experience with the website’s usage, I have often came across online
calls for help from people witnessing violent attacks, that had as instant replies mass
36
gatherings of people in support of attacked victims. Such cases include attacks dealing
with clashes based on homophobia, police brutality, neo-nazism, or vandalism. The data
protection policy of the website that deletes past posts doesn’t allow me to provide with
exemplar citations, unfortunately. Vatikiotis (2011) mentions Indymedia Athens as the
primary source for information dissemination for the December 2008 massive
mobilizations against police brutality in Athens, prior to micro-blogging from occupied
university networks, tweets, Facebook posts and SMS’s (Vatikiotis, 2011, p. 177).
Indymedia Athens stands as one more example of online information processes that
transform the notion of revolution.
2.4 Spontaneous Networks against massive surveillance
February 11, 2014 was announced as “the Day We Fight Back Against Mass
Surveillance” and protests were held globally after the scandal of NSA’s global
surveillance disclosure. Simply, the NSA after secretely breaking into the main Yahoo
and Google data centers communications links, had the ability to collect “the content
and metadata of emails, web activity, chats, social networks, and everything else from
fiber-optic cables.” 24 countries announced protests and thousands of emails against
surveillance were sent (Davis et al, 2014). Again, the reaction to digital surveillance was
both online and offline.
Inspired by the scandal, and right one day after the events Baccelli, Hahm, and Wählisch
(2014) publish an article proposing the “Spontaneous Network” as a paradigm of
decentralized networks that being studied carefully could maximize counter-systematic
massive surveillance. They suggest “stateless approaches” to networking in order to
increase “target dispersal,” that is an autonomous state of non-surveillance for users.
Their proposed model encourages the combination of “peer-to-peer (P2P) networks or
WebRTC as the application layer, and multi-hop pontaneous wireless networks at the
network layer, such as mobile ad hoc networks, wireless sensor networks, vehicular
networks, or wireless mesh networks” (p. 3). By suggesting the maximization of such
technological software processes towards autonomous networking the go one step
beyond mantras as ”think hard before you use the cloud”, or ”let’s bypass the service
provider” which are rather abstract in terms of actually overcoming the infrastructure.
Yet, the goal is hard-to-reach and they ring the bell: “There are a number of issues that
37
need to be resolved or alleviated towards native and massive integration of
spontaneous wireless networks in the currently deployed IP architecture and
infrastructure-based networks” (Baccelli et al, 2014, p. 4).
The NSA scandal brought the case of the massive surveillance to surface. The reactions
to it are one more example of the way revolutions are practiced today, that is digital
(calls for protests through the Web) and non-digital (real-life demonstrations). The
proposed development of autonomous networks as a further reaction shows that
revolutionary acts in IR could also take place in completely digital format. Autonomous
stateless networks as a reaction to digital state surveillance.
2.5 An Ontology of Terrorism
Yet, if one examines the reasons that give the state(s) the green light to monitor links
and data, one finds sentences such as: “the ability to track potential terrorists.” If the
examples given until now seem only counter-systemic, an example of the state’s side
should be juxtaposed. Mannes and Golbeck (2005) examine how the technologies of the
Semantic Web, that is, the web of relations, can be useful for tracking the possibility of a
terrorist act. What they propose is the development of a software that builds an
ontology2 of terrorism, that is, a commonly accepted model of what “makes” users being
suspected for terrorism depending on their data flow. The 9/11 attacks are the authors’
main example when they stress that an intelligent Semantic Web system would help
prevent the attacks if the information was correctly disseminated between initial NSA
researchers and secondary analysts “Using the Semantic Web’s capabilities to monitor
terrorist activity and model terrorist networks requires an ontology crafted to express
complicated and sometimes contradictory information in an accessible and intuitive
way. Terrorists and terrorist organizations engage in a wide range of activities that
reflect the variety of human endeavor” (p 8). In this sense one sees the precautions for
terrorist acts as a justification for the development of data and information surveillance.
“At the core of terrorist activity is a network of personal connections that allows the
terrorist organization to function. Consequently, looking at who knows whom and
how they know each other is central to understanding the extent of a terrorist cell.
Ontology here is used in terms of the semantic web, that is a commonly accepted vocabulary of
conceptually specialized terms.
2
38
The Semantic Web can note the various connections between cell members such as
cell residencies, communal affiliations, places of employment, and birthplace. By
allowing the researcher to focus on these connections and organize information
according to them, the researcher will be better able to unravel the web of
connections underpinning a terrorist cell.” (p. 6)
What is exhibited here is quite the opposite from the previous proposal for the
development of autonomous networks of counter-surveillance. The feedback loop of
surveillance and counter-surveillance can be endless, as autonomous networks and
users that develop them, might – just because of that – be suspected as potential
terrorists. Semantic Web ontologies are used to track terrorists, but who sets the
criteria for what makes an a priori terrorist? If an interdisciplinary wordplay is allowed,
“what is the philosophical ontology of terrorism in relation to the Semantic Web
ontology of terrorism?” The answer to this question escapes the focal points of this
paper, but the question’s formulation helps concluding this chapter.
2.6 Concluding messages
As said in the definitions section, “the more terrifying, the more revolutionary,” as in
“the more improbable, the more informative.” Revolutionaries are very often called
“terrorists,” while terrorists are very often considered – or posthumously recognized as
– revolutionaries. When terrorism is applied as a characterization of potential danger,
probability then says that revolution (of any kind) is probably on the corner.
The development of media such as networks, the Semantic Web, social media, YouTube
are signs of technological revolutions. Consequently, social and political revolutions of
today happen simultaneously in two dimensions, the analog and the digital. Several
examples and cases were examined in this chapter, both in terms of local and global
protests and also in terms of platforms and technologies. McLuhan’s notion of “the
medium is the message” was used to stress that the media of today reflect the
transformation of our environments and modes of consciousness.
In coherence to the term “augmented reality” I agree to Jurgenson’s suggestion for
naming these sorts of revolutionary acts and environments, constructing particles of an
“augmented revolution.” Revolutions as described by Castells happen on the previously
mentioned bridge between real-life and virtual worlds. They are amplified, since they
39
happen simultaneously in the worlds of both biosphere and information. As Jurgenson
summarizes: “Linking the power of the digital-creating and disseminating networked
information–with the power of the physical-occupying geographic space with flesh-andblood bodies-is an important part of why we have this current flammable atmosphere of
augmented revolution” (Jurgenson, 2012, p. 83).
Networking is the keyconcept between these
aspects of augmented
revolution. Networks
online, networks offline,
social networks, terrorist
networks. “Terror” is the
indication of a maximum
degree of revolution
according to this paper’s
definitions, and “terror” is
used as an excuse for
massive surveillance, that
potential terrorists
oppose. The fact that
“terrorists” of today deal
Figure 2 (Shankbone, 2011): Protesters from the Occupy Wall Street movement,
in full reaction with ICT’s devices. A closer look at the image shows that the
YouTube video played and its related ones come from political protests. The
revolution is augmented as it happens both through cyberspace and flesh-andblood-space. Protesters use the new media and meet their reflections there.
Revolutionary usage of Information is an indicative sign and symbol of
Information Revolution.
more with information
and data than bombs, means that IR as a technical revolution is highly indicated through
the means of contemporary social or “augmented” revolutions.
Back to the model applied in this paper, thirdness signifies the means and the
mediations that indicate a quality. IR’s thirdness is indicated by networks, computing,
augmented realities, and acts of surveillance and counter-surveillance. The fact that
“terror” is an inseparable element of the current state of political things adds to IR a lot
of both informativeness and revolutionary-ness. It is also shown that while most social
revolutions that followed the Industrial Revolution were made out of industrial means,
new revolutions are mostly informational acts. It’s true that in this chapter several
aspects of struggle have also been noted, and as said in the chapter of “Theoretical
40
Framework,” struggle is an element of secondness. Yet, the specific struggle here is used
to highlight the thirdness, the media that the struggle used to express. The next chapter
focuses on secondness per se, considering that the reader now has a certain extent of
knowledge of the new media’s impact on everyday life, social revolutions and the very
construction of IR as a concept.
41
Chapter 3: Secondness – IR as a Reaction and Reactions to IR
“Now that information is a form of property, all things seem to have the properties of information” (Wark,
2002, 14th June 2001)
“In the Eighties, as we transfer our whole being to the data bank, privacy will become a ghost or echo of its
former self and what remains of community will disappear” (McLuhan, 1980 in Varey, 1999, p. 150)
This chapter shows a number of issues that IR has been a reaction to, more specifically
problematic issues arising from the Industrial Revolution, such as capitalist nature
economic inequalities and environmental pollution. IR as a reaction came with some
general promises outlined in this chapter’s first part. My central suggestion is that these
promises were mostly based on the human population’s industrial ontology – thus the
new technologies’ actual “newness” was hardly accumulated to the users’ ontology, and
the promises were never fulfilled. ICT’s came as a solution that would provide
democratization of knowledge and liberation from handiwork that would be left to the
intelligent machines. But this never happened, due to the misunderstanding of the
actual shift from values based on material capital to a set of values based on immaterial
information. The following table illustrates the sequence that explains how the IR
promises caused the development of certain technologies, mentalities, and education
trends, that subsequently generated a number of new issues exemplified here.
Needs and Effects of IR
Promises and Desires
Developmental Process
Negative Effects
Global economic
Specialization of education
Global economic crises
prosperity
towards the tertiary direction
and vectoralism
Liberation from
Development of the tertiary
Geographical inequity in
handiwork
section in the West
terms of labor
Data preservation
Large data storage capabilities
Big Data/Information
Flood
Human immortalization
Individualization/specification Loss of identity while
of users
searching for an identity
online
Table 1
42
I sustain that IR’s new ontology is lost in the literature, since most of it deals with the
subject based on a terminology of industrial revolution. Having the ontology based on
information terms lost, new problems arise that are similar to the ones of the Industrial
Revolution. I show that a new form of capitalism (vectoralism) based on information
ownership is founded, and environmental issues are now moved to the realm of
information and data (Big Data Scandal). Everyday acts of users losing their identity in
front of terminals also verify the general confusion. I treat all these phenomena as
elements of struggle (terminological, political, environmental, existential) that justify
them for being contained under the chapter on secondness and that will lead to
firstness.
3.1 Promises in Terms of Economy
“Information technology is revolutionizing global communications, making it easier and
cheaper to share information than ever before” (Lord, 2007, p. 9). This sentence is an
example out of countless of what IR is to most of the population related to IR. The 1998
volume “Information Revolution: Current and Future Consequences” (Porter and Read,
1998) collects in its chapters’ titles all the promises of the then IR on the process. Some
examples explain what I mean: “Measuring Information Age Business,” “Less Labor,
Longer Lives: Time to Share,” “Technology, Jobs and Society: The New Challenge of
Change.” The BusinessDictionary describes IR as the “development of technologies
(such as computers, digital communication, microchips) in the second half of the 20th
century that has led to dramatic reduction in the cost of obtaining, processing, storing,
and transmitting information in all forms (text, graphics, audio, video)” (WebFinance
2013).
In all these cases IR stands as a chance and a challenge, a miraculous opportunity that
will refresh the business, and will make the communication of information “cheaper.”
That is, information is used as means of reviving the industrial ontology leftovers and
not of generating a new information ontology. The struggle is between the industrial
and the information age, between industrious and informational thinking, Industrial
Revolution benefits and IR benefits. The binarities express a struggle in time, a passage
from one state to another. Thus, it’s quite probable that the previous state influences the
perception and the development of the new criteria. It’s not easy to make people think
43
that information is something different than capital and that with information one can’t
“make better business” but abandon the very notion of monetary business for a value
based on information. What was about to come was described in terms of what was
already, since future was quite unseen at the time3. Tables of comparison for businesses
looked like this (Tjaden in Porter and Read, 1998, p. 10):
Industrial Age
Information Age
1. Mass production
Mass customization
2. Labor serves tools
Tools serve labor
3. Labor performs repetitive tasks
Labor applies knowledge
4. Command and control structure
Common control structure
5. Capital Intensive
Knowledge intensive
6. Capitalists own production means
Labor owns production means
7. Capital is primary driver
Knowledge is primary driver
Table 2
What I interpret is the following: The Industrial Revolution surpassed the agricultural
age and shifted value from land-owning to “the Capital.” Monetary capital slowly was
accumulated and while in the beginnings of capitalism it reflected ownership of earthly
resources such as land or gold, in its latter manifestations capital was of “empty”
content. Thus, money reflected nothing else than money. And its ontology was found in
this sense. By the same token, the passage from the industrial to the information age
holds a similar confusion. Information in the above table replaces capital like its
container, as one would say that money replaces land, but if you have money it means
you have land. This table expresses the promise that “if you have knowledge (say,
applied immaterial information) you have money” – now that money is empty. Another
paradox arises: it’s not only that money is empty of content – our pockets are also
empty of money.
“The world’s 20 leading economic nations, the G20, met in London on 2 April2009
amidst a global economic crisis. Their announced intention was to address the
‘greatest challenge to the world economy in modern times’ through common
Further examples on the basics of economics of information, thoroughly analyzed as the upcoming
creator of value in the second half of the twentieth century can be traced in: Alchian and Demsetz, 1972,
Fama and Laffer, 1971, Hirshleifer, 1971, Stigler, 1961, 1962.
3
44
actions to ‘restore confidence, growth, and jobs’, ‘repair the financial system’, and
‘build an inclusive, green and sustainable, recovery’.” (Bennet and Segerberg, 2011,
p. 777)
Global economic crises succeed one another while unemployment and pollution are
crucial issues4. that replace the promised notion of a laborless society were all the
“hard” work is left to the machine. Factories and industrial businesses are very much in
use despite the “revolutionized global communications.” The shift might be towards
immaterial information, but this doesn’t eliminate “hard” work, in the same manner that
software does not eliminate hardware. As Flusser put is metaphorically:“(1) It is
information and not possessions (software not hardware) that empowers, and (2)
communications, not economics, now forms the substructure of the village (society).”
(Flusser, 2003, p. 43) IR was not about eliminating capitalists in the sake of labors. IR
holds the message of a necessary unemployment in terms of capital and a full
employment in terms of information. Instead of people spending their times in full
employment positions, they are rather handling information in front of computer
screens spending their time in unemployment that is translated as leisure. Of course IR
generated a shift to the tertiary section. But the tertiary section itself does not exclude
handiwork. Winner was right when saying that during the computer revolution, people
were used to “revolutions” of any kind, thus the term did was not taken very seriously –
and was taken as a revolutionary product instead of a revolution:
“Of course, the same society now said to be undergoing a computer revolution has
long since gotten used to "revolutions" in laundry detergents, underarm
deodorants, floor waxes, and other consumer products. […]
As robots and computer software absorb an increasing share of factory and office
tasks, the "information society" will offer plenty of opportunities for janitors,
hospital orderlies, and fast-food waiters.
The computer romantics are also correct in noting that computerization alters
relationships of social power and control, although they misrepresent the direction
this development is likely to take. (Winner, 1987, p. 274-281)
For instance, Bennett and Segerberg (2011) that among others show the digital media’s role on the 2009
protests for G20 in the UK.
4
45
Working as a janitor or as a fast-food waiter does not mean that IR eliminated the
industrial handiwork. And the fact that during unemployment people demand all kinds
of jobs, industrial or not, proves that IR had nothing to do actually with the industrial
age in terms of replacement. In addition to that, waste and pollution are still burning
issues that were never solved by IR – the factories that produce them are not replaced
by miraculous automata, they are just moved to non-western places in the world. IR in
relation to the Industrial Revolution is a relation of secondness where the two terms are
opposed (one is a reaction to the other) and related (confusion of terms) at the same
time.
3.2 Promises in Terms of Creation and Immortalization
Instead of economics, information processes seemed mostly good for information itself
(improbable situations). Another promise is the one of finally being able to create all the
works that haven’t been created by using the automata. To compute means “put
together,” to synthesize. Automated computers promised the possibility of rapid
computing, where programmers would simply change the variables for constructing all
works desired and imaginable. In the sense that Flusser puts it:
“A comparable leap is currently under way in the field of information production.
Before the information revolution, there was a slow development of, for example,
pictures, from cave painting in Lascaux to film, or in music, from the drum to the
electronic synthesizer. Each individual phase of this development is credited to a
great artist who was often nameless but who may have been a god in the first
phases and, in the most recent ones, was a gifted creator type such as Cézanne or
Mozart. After the Information Revolution, this development will not only accelerate
but will acquire a fundamentally different character. Not only will there be images
and music we never dreamed of, drawing on a wealth of information never dreamed
of, but the information theory that is now brought to bear will lift the production
process out of the competence of the individual creator into the competence of
interpersonal dialogue.” (Flusser, 1985, p. 102)
IR’s “original” promise would rather be the ability of rearrangement of information
possibilities, not in the sense of a business organizational scenario planning for avoiding
dangers – economic crises verified this as impossible – but the creation of impossible
46
(or better, improbable) realities, based on information. Building a virtual reality means
building a potential reality, iconic, ideal. Computers are able to break any concept into
its minor particles and thus allowing rebuilding things from scratch – bit by bit. Texts
could easily be rearranged, mistakes could be corrected, any musical/audial possibility
could be simulated and performed, any visual composition would be possible. Another
promise of the “forthcoming” IR was the possibility for creating virtual utopias. If the
“real” world does not satisfy people anymore a virtual one might be better.
Apart from the promise of “creating everything possible,” another promise proposed the
eternalization of everything possible. New age philosophy incorporated fairly quickly
the concept of being immortalized through the computer in an almost metaphysical
sense. A discourse based on the human’s long desired immortalization through religious
practices was shifted to the computers. New Age movement’s symbol, Timothy Leary
perceives the development of computers as an evolutionary step that will make humans
migrate to Info-Space just like underwater organism migrated to Terraria during the
Triassic period. Exactly as in this case, some human will remain “underwater” (nondigital), some will be incapable of living in the ocean origins (completely digital) and
some very few will become amphibian (Leary, 1994, p. 3-5). Have this notions been
conceptualized, and then a person’s legacy (such as writings, pictures, historical
evidence, even consciousness), can be “uploaded” and the soul can finally be considered
eternalized. Technoshamanism and Cybershamanism are terms coined up to express
this further mystical notion that souls can actually be contained in cyberspace after
being “uploaded”5.
These two examples are reflected on each other. While the desire for creation through
the infinite computer possibilities grows stronger and stronger, the need for storage
also grows – together with the need for remembrance of all created heritage.
Metaphysical immortalization is the maximum expression of the desire to remember
everything forever.
See for instance Hutson, 1999 for a thorough inspection of the term, Groothius, 1997 for digital deities,
Martinikova, 2008 for religious life in cyberspace.
5
47
3.3 Effect(s): Vectorialism, Big Data, Loss of Identity
So far I exemplified the promises of IR as they appear in the first column of Table 1. The
second and third columns are quite inseparable in terms of cause and effect, since they
appear simultaneously in different degrees and occasions. It’s also true, that while these
issues can be clustered in the form of this table, they are also quite interconnected and
it’s hard to tell if an aspect of this problem is not an aspect of another. Yet, to illustrate
the topics clearly for the reader, and based on the literature, I have subdivided this
chapter into three basic thematic axes. These are: the rise of Vectoralism as the
informationalized version of Industrial capitalism, the rise of Big Data as a negative
reaction to the desire for unlimited data storage, and identity loss as the negative
reaction to the extreme availability of information without the development of
awareness, consciousness and education on what it means to live in an information
environment.
3.3.1 Vectoralism
This term is coined-up by McKenzie Wark, introduced in his “Hacker’s Manifesto”
(2004). To understand it, one needs to look at few other terms of his political discourse
that is based on the capitalist political classes scheme that is now modified through
information sciences. To Wark, “hacker” is a broader concept that escapes the mere
usage of computers, even if the term comes from the world of computing. Wark’s
“hacker” is the person that acts with information, in accordance to the semantic
definition of it: hacker takes raw data and synthesizes new meaningful information. For
Wark’s terms this is an “abstraction.” Every kind of conceptualized notion is an
abstraction, and every abstraction is realized with information. A historical act, history
itself is an abstraction and the people who modify it crucially against current states of
the system are hackers. Information means the formation of data through their flow in
certain vectors among the infinite potentialities. To Wark, the new rising higher political
class is the “vectoralists,” the ones who control the flow of vectors of information. They
do not let information flow freely, and thus prohibit hackers from expressing the
potential forms of this flowing information.. Information and data reflect thus the new
capital in a political space based on that term. Hackers become a political class in need
of class consciousness:
48
“It is always the hack that creates a new abstraction. With the emergence of a
hacker class, the rate at which new abstractions are produced accelerates. The
recognition of intellectual property as a form of property -- itself an abstraction, a
legal hack -- creates a class of intellectual property creators. But this class still
labours for the benefit of other classes, to whose interests its own interests are
subordinated” (2004)
To Wark, the “hacker class” is to the informationally higher classes what proletarians
were to capitalists in the industrial age, or what the farmers were to pastoralists in the
agricultural age. The benefits of the political class of farmers that cultivated the ground
were subordinated for the ones of landowners. The benefits of the political class of
labors that worked for the capital were subordinated for the ones of capitalists. By the
same token now, the opposition shifts to a class war between hackers and “vectoralists”:
“As peasants become farmers through the appropriation of their land, they still
retain some autonomy over the disposition of their working time. Workers, even
though they do not own capital, and must work according to its clock and its
relentless methods, did at least control their free time and information circulated
within working class culture as a social property belonging to all. But when
information in turn becomes a form of private property, workers are dispossessed
of it, and must buy their own culture back from its owners, the vectoralist class. The
farmer becomes a worker, and the worker, a slave. Society in its totality becomes
subject to the extraction of a surplus from the producing classes that is controlled
by the ruling classes, who use it merely to reproduce and expand this spiral of
exploitation.” (2004)
In coherence with Wark, my suggestion here is that IR’s as a political revolution has
generated the new form of class opposition and political struggle based on information,
due to the very preservation of the industrial class opposition scheme. This new form of
informational political conflict, reflecting the technical revolution based on information,
generates new forms of pre-existing problems that are also shifted to the realm of
information. In the next subchapter I show how this Marxian relation of power based on
information between these new classes is reflected on a new form of environmental
pollution. Then I move to how this need of class consciousness has resulted information
49
flood as a counter-class consciousness action from the side of vectoralists causing
identity loss in the search for extreme personification through information availability.
3.3.2 Pollution and Big Data
“Environmental pollution” means pollution within an environment. We are used to talk
about this term considering the biosphere as the standard environment. Capitalism of
the Industrial Age was somehow responsible for this environmental pollution. As Lee
puts it, “[c]apitalism bases its concept of wealth on unnecessary production,” and
“creates excess pollution and depletes nonrenewable resources as a result of this
wasteful, exploitative, unnecessary production” (1980, p. 3). His Marxian analysis holds
that for Marx mankind and nature are not inseparable notions. Industrial age and
capitalism were historical necessities for “the mastery of nature, but it regards nature as
an ‘other’ to be exploited” (Ibid). By turn, I hold that if the political classes scheme is still
Marxian (as shown in Wark’s model of vectoralists/hackers), then the vectoralist class
overproduces information to sustain its wealth as the new capital resulting a new form
of pollution for the information environment. This has been already envisaged by
Flusser in the mid-1980’s. Flusser concived “culture” as cultivated “nature,” natural
resources that humans impose form (inform) them creating culture. Environmental
pollution halts the counter-ecological cycle to the point of waste. The – then upcoming –
information-environmental pollution holds the cycle’s process onto the point of culture.
Thus, culture looks like waste, or kitsch – in other words information leads to
negentropy.
“Engaged against the degenerative cycle nature–culture–waste–nature, against the
decay of information, human beings devise more and more durable supports, for
example, plastic bottles instead of glass ones. But perversely, this halts the
degenerative cycle not at the point of remembering but at the point of waste, of
forgetting. […] The cycle nature–culture–waste–nature will be halted at culture, not
waste. As a result of the new opportunity to store information without material
support, interest in material supports as information carriers will diminish
radically.[…] It will, on the other hand, present another, equally threatening
problem. For if the circular pattern nature–culture–waste–nature begins to stall at
50
culture rather than at waste, we will require a vast store for culture to provide
storage for the flood of incoming information. Otherwise we will suffocate from a
surfeit of information rather than of waste. It is already possible to see, in rough
outline, what such a cultural reconstruction would look like. First, increasingly
efficient artificial memories will be integrated into the culture. Second, the concept
of “forgetting” will have to acquire a new and fully adjustable meaning. Forgetting
must achieve equal status with learning and be recognized as equally critical to
information strategy. Third, it will become possible to delete redundant information
(that which is already stored elsewhere) from specific memories. Redundant and
informative situations will have to be systematically distinguished.” (Flusser, 1985,
p. 109-110)
The above prophetic passage coincides with today’s phenomenon of “Big Data.” All of a
sudden, people come across large amounts of data, very often automatically generated,
that call for either an understanding of them as a tool, or on the other hand a massive
production of useless bits. Overproduction of data in the vectoralist/information age as
overproduction of material goods in the capitalist/industrial age. Definitions of Big Data
are still around the table, agreeably though, it represents “data sets that are
characterised by high volume, velocity, variety, exhaustivity, resolution and indexicality,
relationality and flexibility” (Kitchin, 2013, p. 262). Jacobs proposes a positivist “metadefinition” of Big Data, that are “data whose size forces us to look beyond the tried-andtrue methods that are prevalent at that time” (Jacobs, 2009, p. 44). For Jacobs Big Data
means the incapability of handling too much data that pushes science forward by
making scholars look at what the Big Data can do. Like finding an ecological resource in
waste out of pollution, Big Data is the huge amount of info-trash produced everyday by
“Twitter, Google, Verizon, 23andMe, Facebook, Wikipedia, and every space where large
groups of people leave digital traces and deposit data” (Boyd and Crawford, 2012, p.
662). Ecological consciousness is developed for handling the waste in the environment
for biosphere, but an equal amount of wasteful data calls for the development of a
similarly needed ecology for the information environment.
Big Data positivists claim that we should keep the data due to the benefits of large-scale
observation that was very limited in the past because of the lack of data. Now that we
have the data we need the methods to handle them. For instance, Batty et. al.: “At a
51
fundamental level is the need for new methods of handling and analysing data sets that
consist of millions or billions of observations that are being generated on a dynamic
basis in a variety of forms” (2012 in Kitchin, 2013, p. 264). Several questions appear and
a great number is related to questions of political control, ownership, surveillance – that
is the information possession class war in Vectoralism. As Boyd and Crawford ask
critically:
“Will large-scale analysis of DNA help cure diseases? Or will it usher in a new wave
of medical inequality? Will data analytics help make people’s access to information
more efficient and effective? Or will it be used to track protesters in the streets of
major cities? Will it transform how we study human communication and culture, or
narrow the palette of research options and alter what ‘research’ means? Some or all
of the above?” (Boyd and Crawford, 2012, p. 662)
A tacit question behind these is “who has and controls the data?” Or, if one claims that
“data” and “information” are free, then again, “who controls the vectors of data flow?”
The GDI holds that information is data with meaning, i.e. interpreted raw data. In other
words, “who interprets the data and for whom?” The direction leading to this question
has already been given:
“As a large mass of raw information, Big Data is not self-explanatory. And yet the
specific methodologies for interpreting the data are open to all sorts of
philosophical debate. Can the data represent an ‘objective truth’ or is any
interpretation necessarily biased by some subjective filter or the way that data is
‘cleaned?’” (Bollier, 2010, p. 13)
“Big data is a resource and a tool. It is meant to inform, rather than explain; it points
toward understanding, but it can still lead to misunderstanding, depending on how
well it is wielded. And however dazzling the power of big data appears, its seductive
glimmer must never blind us to its inherent imperfections. Rather, we must adopt
this technology with an appreciation not just of its power but also of its limitations.”
(Cukier & Mayer-Schoenberger, 2013, p. 28-40)
To learn how to handle these large amounts of data brings back the need to learn how
to handle the large amounts of waste, a question of ecology. Humpton et. al. are directed
52
to ecologists for two reasons: to teach them how to treat ecologically their data
management, and to use ecology as a paradigm for managing data in general:

“Ecologists collectively produce large volumes of data through diverse
individual projects but lack a culture of data curation and sharing, so that
ecological data are missing from the landscape of data-intensive science

To fully take advantage of scientific opportunities available in the information
age, ecologists must treat data as an enduring product of research and not just
as a precursor to publications

Forward-thinking ecologists will organize and archive data for posterity,
publicly share their data, and participate in collaborations that address largescale questions” (Hampton et. al. 2013, p. 156)
To create new out of old, the ecological treatment of data has another aspect as well – of
great ease for digital resources, which is the deletion. As Flusser above stated, the vast
amount of produced information/data calls for an education that teaches not only how
to learn but also how to forget. Network economist and Big Data researcher Viktor
Mayer-Schönberger focuses on the importance of the ability to know how, when and
what to erase. After a long period of humanity trying to keep everything, now that this is
possible, humanity should also appreciate forgetfulness. As his book titled “Delete: The
Virtue of Forgetting in the Electronic Age” concludes, information should have
expiration dates, where after a point of it being unused should be deleted:
“I suggested one such additional response: to reintroduce the concept of forgetting
in the digital age through expiration dates for information. The aim is to shift the
default back from retaining information forever to deleting it after a certain amount
of time. I described the various structural, legal, and technical components of
expiration dates and how they would work together. I offered a spectrum of
possible implementations based on how thoroughly policymakers and the public
desire to revive forgetting. Expiration dates are relatively modest on a number of
implementation dimensions, making them comparatively easy to adopt. And yet
they may be enough to stop and reverse the shift towards remembering and restore
our capacity to forget, which is so central to what it means to be human. While I
believe in the validity of enabling forgetting through expiration dates, I
53
acknowledge that they too come with inherent weaknesses, and fail to address all
problems of remembering. Pragmatically speaking, however, they may turn out to
be what we need—the missing complement to our existing set of responses.
Most importantly, though, I want us to commence a wide-ranging, open, and intense
discussion about forgetting, and how we can ensure that we’ll remember its
importance in our digital future.” (Mayer-Schönberger, 2011, p. 198)
The consciousness of an equal value between creating and deleting information goes
hand-in-hand with the class consciousness of hackers against vectoralists. To learn how
and when to delete should be a first goal for the strugglers in the information
environment for a twofold reason: as they act ecologically (by completely deleting their
traces) they are less controlled by the vectoralist class. As they are less controlled by the
vectoralist class (by gaining the means of production to generate improbable
information) they act more ecologically. To return to Wark’s complementary notes:
“It is not just information that must be free, but the knowledge of how to use it.
Information in itself is a mere thing. It requires an active, subjective capacity to
become productive. But where education is dominated by the ruling classes, it
produces the capacity to use information for the purposes of producing and
consuming within the limits of the commodity. This produces a mounting desire for
information that meets the apparent lack of meaning and purpose in life, but the
vectoralist class fills this need with information that addresses these desires in their
privatised form.” (Wark, 2004)
In this sense, the vectoralist system is responsible for the informationally lower
(poorer) classes’ artificial desire for more information and data. Like the capitalist
politics that generated artificial needs for material goods and paradoxically support
sustainability for resources and eco/green consciousness, vectoralist politics breeds the
desire for more and better data and contradicting itself also calls for the development of
a critical consciousness about data storing. Intel’s “Data Society Manifesto” works as an
example, as the Information Society is degrading:
“1. Win over the experts: To win the support of experts who might feel threatened
by big data, run big data projects alongside them. Compare the machine predictions
54
with their own and show them how big data, combined with their expertise,
produces the best results.
2. Encourage data sharing: To enable small businesses and research organizations
to benefit from big data, we need to move to a culture where anonymized data is
openly shared.
3. Educate tomorrow’s data scientists: Few people today have the technical and
statistical knowledge required. We must start educating tomorrow’s data scientists
today.
4. Make the tools easier to use: We need tools for business managers, not data
scientists. Ultimately, big data will enable automated decisions that are integrated
into business processes.
5. Build in security from the start: Security cannot be an afterthought. It must be
built in to every data project, from the very beginning.
6. Stop storing everything: To prepare for tomorrow’s data volumes, be selective
now. Start with the business case, and work out what data you need. Don’t try to
keep everything forever.
7. Write privacy policies that build trust: Without a clear understanding of how you
can use their data, customers will become increasingly unwilling to provide it.
8. Remember that data represents real people: Don’t cause offence by using or
seeking information that you couldn’t politely discuss in person.
9. Regulate use and abuse of data: The legal framework must switch from regulating
data collection to regulating its use. It should prevent the deliberate reidentification of people in anonymized data.” (Kruszewski, 2013)
As I argued earlier in this chapter, the misconception of IR holds on the treatment of
information-related subjects with industrial/economic terms. This is very true of the
passage above. “Information Society” has been replaced by the term “Data Society,” i.e. a
society without meaning, if data lacks meaning, and the consisting data are in the hands
of “businesses,” “organizations,” and “managers” that hold possession of them. “Privacy
55
policies,” “building of trust,” “anonymous data” and “regulation” are in the sense of
Wark’s critical information class separation true only from the side of the “customers.”
That means that vectoralists have the data and the information about the customers of
the lower classes, but guarantee that nobody else will have it. Amazon.com or Google
will guarantee for one’s anonymized data that in return will benefit the user. But if data
is the new capital, and there is only one side having all the data this makes only that side
actually “rich” and benefitted. This leads to several paradoxical thoughts. If data is the
new capital, then why delete it? Did anyone “delete” monetary bills? That’s why I still
hold that industrial terms even as “capital” are not in accordance with IR. The
terminological confusion, the vectoralist/hacker opposition, the data pollution all are
factors that lead to an identity loss in front of the new media.
3.3.3 Identity Loss and Death
Revolutionary times hold a threshold between the discovery of new technological
means and the recognition of “what they can actually do.” People get very excited with
the new means and exaggerate by using them too much, and the reaction is usually
violent. Humans lose themselves in front of the new media and then search for
themselves in the new environment created. McLuhan called these narcissistic people
“gadget lovers,” and argued that “Narcissus” is derived from “narcosis,” anaesthetized
entities mostly used instead of using their media (McLuhan, 1994, p. 41-46). For
McLuhan the same holds (even in the 1960’s) for the information flood: “The electric
surround of information that has tended to make man a superman at the same time
reduces him into a pretty pitiable nobody by merging him with everybody” (1974 in
Varey, 1999, p. 150). “Nobodies” are violent because they are in search of their identity:
“Violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The
less identity, the more violence” (1976, in Varey, 1999, p. 150). As I argue above, “Data
Society” means a meaningless society, as long as emphasis on data per se misses the
semantization. People in the times of IR who look for meaning and identity today should
raise, in Wark’s terminology a hacker class consciousness. A political class consisting of
hackers that make information out of raw data: “It is from the leading edge of the
working class that the hackers may yet learn to conceive of themselves as a class. If
hackers have taught workers how to hack, it is workers who must teach hackers how to
be a class, a class for itself as well as in itself.” (Wark, 2004). Workers have been
56
organized as political classes but never achieved the Marxian goal of possessing the
means of production. Yet, the situation lead to IR, a new state of being, that taught lower
classes how to hack – but not to be a class. Thus, hackers have to learn from the
workers. The violent situation in revolutions that goes together with identity loss is a
norm in revolutionary theory since its very early approaches, thus it is an expected
aspect that history teaches:
“In such a situation there is discontent, unrest becomes general, individuals become
disorganized. The unrest is inchoate, unorganized, without head or objective; the
group members do not see the forces that are at work. As time goes on they
attribute their discomfort to that portion of the social order in which the
maladjustment is most obvious. Thus, the resulting disorder may be political,
religious, or economic as the discomfort is most easily attributed to one of these
phases of the social organization by the crowds which center their attack upon one
of these aspects.
It is this violent attack which the writers on the subject have called "revolution,"
and it is because this overt act is directed toward some particular part of the social
structure that they have assumed that revolutions are political or religious or
economic.” (Yoder, 1926, p. 441)
Organizing as a conscious class will help recognizing the divisions of secondness
appearing throughout this chapter, such as economic, religious or political, as common
aspects in IR. They are not different subjects to be treated unequally. They all belong
and are connected to IR, they all generate IR and they all are connected within IR. All
these different theoretical speculations have common denominators that the vectoralist
system prefers to keep unemphasized through the emphasis of the extreme
specialization and customization. As Wark notes:
“The vectorialist class is waging an intensive struggle to dispossess hackers of their
intellectual property. Patents and copyrights all end up in the hands, not of their
creators, but of the vectoralist class which owns the means of realising the value of
these abstractions. The vectoralist class struggles to make of its ownership of these
abstractions a monopoly. Hackers find themselves dispossessed both individually,
and as a class.”
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Vectoralists enslave users controlling information, as capitalists enslaved workers
controlling the means of production. IR today offers the possibility of building an
identity in a multiplicity of platforms, contents, media, or ways of expression,
democratically – in the sense of equal right of access. But the amount of possibilities
that are offered mostly through the system and not through the user, cause a freezeeffect in front of the media. Narcissists become narcotized. Phenomena of complete
identity loss have been noticed since the early days of publicly available Internet, they
still appear, and they are equally discussed in the literature. For instance:
“Computer users, therefore, are both attracted towards the promises of cyberspace,
in the utopian freedom from the flesh, its denial of the body, the opportunity to
achieve a cyborgian seamlessness and to ‘connect’ with others, but are also
threatened by its potential to engulf the self and expose one’s vulnerability to the
penetration of enemy others.” (Lupton, 1995, p. 111)
Based on the definitions given I hold the very simple thesis, that identity loss in IR is a
negentropic phenomenon that leads to death. Negentropy appears when too much
information is available with no time or ability for process. An entropy that does not
appear by the degradation of information into uninterpreted data, but an entropy that
appears because of a flood of already interpreted data. Users tend to consume
information uncritically and chose among models of identity. Instead of building their
own information out of available data, they have to pick from available information. The
more negentropy, the less identity. The more bombardment of old information, the less
time for actual creation of new information. And due to habit, users get accustomed to
this situation, and the result is highly entropic, counter-revolutionary. Any sort of
enslavement has death as a side-effect. High entropy (or negentropy) equals the death
of an information system. I hold that the following examples of users dying while in
contact with IR media are indications of the system’s growing negentropy, appearing as
side-effects of the vectoralists’ acts against the informationally lower classes that are
not yet hacker class consciousness or of a growing information ontology:

“In 1981, Dailey popped a quarter into the robot-killing machine to score an
alleged 16,660 points, his personal best. Moments later, he collapsed and was
pronounced dead of a heart attack at the tender young age of 19. […] Burkowski
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died under similar circumstances less than a year later when, after frequenting
his local game room "Friar Tuck's" in Calumet City, Illinois for months, he finally
pushed himself too far. Shortly after entering his initials on the Berzerk score
board for not one but two record high scores, he also fell victim to cardiac arrest.
[…]And they died right after entering their names into a Top Score list.” (Autumn
Spragg, 2014)

“The man, who was named only as Zhang and whose age was given as 26, was
said to have spent almost all the seven-day holiday in front of the computer
screen, leaving it only for toilet breaks and to snatch a few hours sleep on the bed
next to it.’” (Spencer, 2007)

“13-year-old asthma sufferer Anna-Lee Kehoe collapsed after suffering a heart
attack at her family home in Bridport, Dorset, while she was playing on her Xbox
gaming console!” (Aulakh, 2011)

“According to police, Chen Jung-yu (陳榮宥), who worked at Northern Taoyuan
Cable TV as an engineer, had paid for 23 hours at a New Taipei City Internet cafe
at 10pm on Tuesday to play World of Warcraft, but died 10 hours later. […]About
10 other players were in the cafe, but said they only knew something had
happened after the police started cordoning off the area for forensic sweeps, but
to the police officers’ surprise, most either stayed in front of their computers and
kept on gaming or took little interest (Shu-ting & Po-hsuan, 2012)

“An 18-year-old collapsed and died at an internet cafe after playing an online
computer game for 40 hours straight. […] [A] man in New Taipei was found dead,
slumped in a chair facing a computer with his arms still reaching out for the
keyboard after playing for 23 hours. […] [A] 20-year-old man from Sheffield died
from a blood clot after spending up to 12 hours at a time playing on his Xbox.”
(Reynolds, 2012)

“Ong Yee Haw, 23, was found slumped over the keyboard in front of his
computer monitor in a room by his uncle at about 4pm. He was said to have been
at the cybercafe from 10pm on Sunday until 1pm the next day before returning
home to his own computer. […]On Dec 27 last year, a 35-year-old broker was
found dead inside his home, supposedly after playing video games. A video game
console was found in front of Liu Peng Han’s body. When his body was
discovered by his uncle, Liu was lying on the sofa in the living room. There had
59
also been several media reports of deaths due to computer addiction in China,
South Korea, Vietnam and the United States. It was reported that in 2005, a man
in South Korea went into cardiac arrest and died after playing StarCraft almost
continuously for 50 hours. Two years later, a 30-year-old man in Guangzhou died
after playing video games continuously for three days. “ (Yeoh, 2013, emphasis
mine)
Having the class war between class conscious hackers and vectoralists in mind, I
suggest these cases being considered as this war’s innocent victims. By representing the
maximum degree of identity loss, of meaninglessness entropy, they stand as the general
proof for an IR in practice, where innocents unconscious of the ongoing war are the first
victims. Class war is held simultaneously in the streets (as seen in chapter 2) and in
front of ICT devices. The revolution is augmented and the innocent victims appear
anywhere. This aspect of IR secondness, a class war between vectoralists and hackers
shares equally dangerous effects with the Industrial Age class war between capitalists
and workers: pollution and waste, collateral damage and labors’ death.
3.4 Concluding Struggles
For this paper’s continuity, the revolutionaries appearing in cases of chapter 2 are now
on called “hackers” and their class enemies of the state are called “vectoralists.” Instead
of claiming that “information is the new capital” I rather propose that clearance is
needed according to the GDI. Data is the new capital, and the vectors are the new means
of production.
It seems that “cybernetics” only now begins to fulfil its etymological origin (the ability to
steer, to control and govern) towards information explosion. It’s only now that users
seem to educate themselves autonomously for the control, steering, generation and
deletion of information. As shown in the definitions, entropy is number one enemy of
information. Too much information generated, and the negative value of entropy,
negentropy, appears. The promises and created needs and desires for unlimited storage,
maximum creativity, and lifestyle specialization have caused a new political system
based on the partial control of information vectors. Everyone is informed and everyone
informs, everyone keeps/stores everything and every “thing” keeps everyone from
finding an identity. Looking for informational identity in an environment of “big data” is
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like looking for a needle in a haystack. That’s a secondness in two ways: IR’s
misconceptualization is responsible for (1) the struggle between class conscious
proletarian-like hackers and capitalist-like vectorialists, and (2) a struggle between the
maximum and minimum degrees of identity. Users of information are in search of
identity ending up used by information, serving it as it is available through the
information vectors. The turn to data and information has taken metaphysical
directions, and calls for a re-ontologization. The complete fulfilment of IR is to be
accomplished when becoming conscious of an ontology that supersedes industrial
schemes. Neither “data” or “information” will form the new “capital.” Information beings
that constantly change cannot grasp something as “stable” as capital. Information is
information, nor a commodity or capital. I propose that the class war will finish when
the industrial values behind it are completely devaluated in the light of the new
information ontology. By turn, new ontologies are built in times of identity loss, when
existential questions are asked, such as “who am I?”
Figure 3 (Tom, 2010): Tom’s composition is entitled ”Augmented Reality” and is followed by the caption
“One fine day augmented reality will help to reduce the 'suckage' of boring lectures.” In relation to the
previous chapter, I propose that “augmented revolutions” “against boredom” should recycle “big data” for
the meaning-giving process within identity loss. A new ontology is established that way, discussed in the
next chapter.
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Chapter 4: Towards Firstness: Hyperhistory in Context
“The person of the future, playing at the keyboard, will be ecstatic about the creation of durable information
that is nevertheless constantly available for a new synthesis. We can see this ecstasy in its embryonic form in
children who sit at terminals. The person of the future will be absorbed in the creative process to the point of
self-forgetfulness. He will rise up to play with others by means of the apparatuses. It is therefore wrong to see
this forgetting of self in play as a loss of self. On the contrary, the future being will find himself, substantiate
himself, through play.” (Flusser, 1985, p. 104)
So far, I have described secondary and tertiary aspects of IR. I presented IR as a struggle
and IR’s inner struggles (Chapter 3). I focused on means by which these struggles are
expressed and their significant forms of expression (Chapter 2). The technological
symbols used during political revolutions in IR have represented the actual political
struggles within IR – the thirdness pinpointed to secondness. Subsequently, these inner
struggles, new forms of political oppositions, new forms of pollution, and identity loss
were all proved to be calls for an information-based conceptual awareness. Wark puts it
as political class awareness. Revolutionary times in both scientific and political circles
face struggles that result a new current state of being. In this chapter I propose that in
order to surpass this “hacker/vectoralist” political struggle, a new awareness should be
developed, an awareness of information as the environment. Defining an ontology for
entities that are based upon information is a step towards defining the quality of the
actual and factual revolution behind that act – a step towards firstness. Luciano Floridi,
whose GDI was borrowed in this paper to define information, is this chapter’s main
literature source, because of his in-depth engagement on the development of this new
ontology. Understanding Floridi’s insights on the informational organisms’ ontology in
relation to the previous chapters investigations opens the way for my proposed
definition of IR.
Floridi’s philosophical worldview consists of important keywords and neologisms that
structure his “Philosophy of Information.” Four of these notions that appear repeatedly
through his oeuvre are of crucial importance for this paper’s scope, since understanding
them is the key to understand IR’s resulted ontology. Simply, for Floridi IR is named “the
Fourth Revolution” and it represents the re-ontologization caused by the massive
development of ICT’s, succeeding the Copernican, Darwinian, and Freudian revolutions.
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The revolution resulted a historical state called “hyperhistory,” a new perception about
time that surpasses historical linearity. The re-ontologization lead to the recognition of
new values based on information, kept by informational entities, living in an
informational environment: Inforgs existing in the infosphere, instead of animates living
in the biosphere. To the reader’s ease, I divided these basic notions (hyperhistory,
Fourth Revolution, inforgs and infosphere) into four subchapters. Of course, everyone is
related to the others as they get realized simultaneously, and that’s why references to
each term are found in each subchapter. I have done my best though to keep each as
clear as possible. Through these chapters, I also outline the scope of Floridi’s
Information Ethics, that’s based on all his observations. Philosopher of communication
Vilém Flusser has extracted similar conclusions on the human beings’ position in
relation to IR that I consider complementary and quite prophetic to Floridi’s proposals
from a different perspective and that’s why I include him here as secondary literature to
better understand Floridi’s analysis.
4.1 The Fourth Revolution: New Ontology, new Ethics
Floridi holds the belief that ICT’s have caused a scientific revolution, IR, which is the
fourth “big” revolution in science that has completely shifted our ontological and
epistemological positions in the universe. IR, as the fourth revolution, changed what we
believe about us and about our world. In several of Floridi’s texts one can meet the
following passage in variations with very minor differentiations:
“Science has two fundamental ways of changing our understanding. One may be
called extrovert, or about the world, and the other introvert, or about ourselves.
Three scientific revolutions have had great impact in both ways. They changed not
only our understanding of the external world, but also our conception of who we
are. After Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), the heliocentric cosmology displaced
the Earth and hence humanity from the centre of the universe. Charles Darwin
(1809-1882) showed that all species of life have evolved over time from common
ancestors through natural selection, thus displacing humanity from the centre of the
biological kingdom. And following Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), we acknowledge
nowadays that the mind is also unconscious and subject to the defence mechanism
of repression. So we are not immobile, at the centre of the universe (Copernican
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revolution), we are not unnaturally separate and diverse from the rest of the animal
kingdom (Darwinian revolution), and we are very far from being Cartesian minds
entirely transparent to ourselves (Freudian revolution)” (Floridi, 2009, p. 156).
The three previous revolutions practically say: humans are not in the center/in control
of (1) the universe, (2) the animal kingdom, (3) of their minds. The highest values were
one by one neglected: divinity, mastery, logic, came all under heavy criticism and new
ontologies were found. Still, life remained as the highest of all values. But ICT’s that keep
information as the precedent value make us think of the thinking machines and
question what is “ethically right” when the game is not played by “logical animates”
anymore, but from entities based both on probabilities. Humans and computers tend to
think more and more in a similar way, in a sense of mutual reflection as described by
McLuhan in chapter 2. “Now, ICTs are not augmenting or empowering in the sense just
explained. They are reontologizing devices because they engineer environments that
the user is then enabled to enter through (possibly friendly) gateways. It is a form of
initiation” (Floridi, 2007, p. 62). And more specifically, elsewere:
“There is no term for this radical form of re-engineering, so we may use reontologizing as a neologism to refer to a very radical form of re-engineering, one
that not only designs, constructs, or structures a system (e.g. a company, a machine,
or some artefact) anew, but that fundamentally transforms its intrinsic nature, that
is, its ontology. In this sense, ICTs are not merely re-engineering but actually reontologizing our world. […] Human-Computer interaction is a symmetric relation”
(Floridi, 2010, p. 11)
A similar conclusion on the effects of IR is extracted by Flusser that describes technical
revolutions as shifts in the relation of humans and their tools. The Agricultural
Revolution had human beings in the center and their tools surrounding them, serving
them. The Industrial Revolution had machines in the center and human beings
surrounding them – serving them.
“When the tools in the usual sense became machines their relationship to human
beings was reversed. Prior to the Industrial Revolution the human being was
surrounded by tools, afterwards the machine was surrounded by human beings.
Previously the tool was the variable and the human being the constant,
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subsequently the human being became the variable and the machine the constant.
Previously the tool functioned as a function of the human being, subsequently the
human being as a function of the machine.” (Flusser, 1983a, 23-24)
IR leads to an equality of the user-server complex. The borders become unclear.
Elsewhere:
“It becomes more and more apparent that the relationship between human being
and robot is reversible and that they can only function together: the human being in
effect is the function of the robot, and by the same token the robot the robot as a
function of the human being. The robot only does what the human being wants, but
the human being can only want what the robot can do. A new method of
manufacturing – i.e. of functioning – is coming into being: The human being is a
functionary of robots that function as a function of him. This new human being, the
functionary, is linked to robots by thousands of partly invisible threads: Wherever
he goes, stands or lies, he carries the robots around with him (or is carried around
by them), and whatever he does or suffers can be interpreted as a function of the
robot” (Flusser, 1999, p. 47-48)
Putting Floridi and Flusser’s conclusions together, one grasps the obvious: if humans
(animate) and computers (inanimate) tend to become of equal value, “life” cannot be
considered as the highest of all values anymore. The lowest common denominator
between animate and inanimate beings is informational existence. Information comes
first and this is what brings entities into being, into existence. Information is good and
entropy is bad. The more informative, the more existing, and sequentially the “better.”
This is one of the main aspects of Floridi’s Information Ethics (IE): “From an IE
perspective, the ethical discourse now comes to concern information as such, that is not
just all persons, their cultivation, well-being and social interactions, not just animals,
plants and their proper natural life, but also anything that exists” (Floridi, 1999, p. 43).
Focusing on the existence of information, rather than life on its own is the key for
grasping information carrying entities as the main entities and information as an
environment as the main environment in a historical state where ICT’s are a necessary
condition for the societies’ prosperity. If humans and computers are equal necessary
components of a society’s structure, then society is re-ontologized.
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4.2 Hyper/posthistory
Floridi speaks of this historical state, where users and ICT’s are equally needed, by the
name of “hyperhistory.” To his theory, hyperhistorical existence doesn’t exclude
historical and prehistorical states in terms of space. They can exist simultaneously, in
the sense of different degrees of dependence to the ICT’s. Some societies do not use
ICT’s, thus living pre-historically. Some use ICT’s only to record and keep track of their
history, thus living historically. Some are completely dependent of ICT’s for the very
society’s maintenance, and in this sense they include history, but also surpass it:
“Prehistory and history work like adverbs: they tell us how people live, not when or
where. From this perspective, human societies currently stretch across three ages,
as ways of living. According to reports about an unspecified number of uncontacted
tribes in the Amazonian region, there are still some societies that live
prehistorically, without ICTs or at least without recorded documents. If one day
such tribes disappear, the end of the first chapter of our evolutionary book will have
been written. The greatest majority of people today still live historically, in societies
that rely on ICTs to record and transmit data of all kinds. In such historical societies,
ICTs have not yet overtaken other technologies, especially energy-related ones, in
terms of their vital importance. Then, there are some people around the world who
are already living hyperhistorically, in societies or environments where ICTs and
their data processing capabilities are the necessary condition for the maintenance
and any further development of societal welfare, personal well-being, as well as
intellectual flourishing. The nature of conflicts provides a sad test for the reliability
of this tripartite interpretation of human evolution. Only a society that lives
hyperhistorically can be vitally threatened informationally, by a cyber attack. Only
those who live by the digit may die by the digit.
To summarise, human evolution may be visualised as a three-stage rocket: in
prehistory, there are no ICTs; in history, there are ICTs, they record and transmit
data, but human societies depend mainly on other kinds of technologies concerning
primary resources and energy; and in hyperhistory, there are ICTs, they record,
transmit and, above all, process data, and human societies become vitally
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dependent on them and on information as a fundamental resource.” (Floridi, 2012,
p. 129-130).
Hyperhistory becomes then a result of the Fourth Revolution, due to the ICT’s impact on
the human existence. Another way of understanding this hyperhistorical state is
through Flusser’s terminology. By “posthistory” he refers to a state where human
evolution depends on non-linear nodes of information. The logical, historical rules of
cause and effect break and the informational environment we live in is rather spaceless.
The rules set by the previous revolutions are under criticism, since every logical
discourse dissolves into informational bits: “According to the suggested model of
cultural history, we are about to leave the one-dimensionality of history for a new,
dimensionless level, one to be called, for lack of a more positive designation,
‘posthistory.’ The rules that once sorted the universe into processes, concepts into
judgments, are dissolving. The universe is disintegrating into quanta, judgments into
bits of information” (Flusser, 1985, p. 15). In respect to both Floridi and Flusser from
now on I refer to this state as hyper/posthistory. The values by which the social space
operates should not be based on hierarchical schemes, such as capitalist/worker, or
vectoralist/hacker, that actually are schemes of historical processes. ICT’s as network
media are reflected on the societies’ new structure that is rather networked instead of
linear. Summarizing Floridi and Flusser’s theories for historical transcendence in the
context of this paper: In history, everything is based on linear schemes, cause and effect,
processes, and hierarchies. In hyper/posthistory, everything is based on networked
schemes, information flow, and equal participation in all decisions. The emergence of
the latter does not mean the instant elimination of the former. Several societies still live
historically. Still, all are directed towards a hyper/posthistorical understanding of the
world.
Floridi summarizes that this hyper/posthistorical dramatic state generates a deep
rethinking “about (a) the world, (b) about ourselves, (c) about our interactions with the
world and (d) among ourselves” and invites the development of “(a) a new philosophy
of nature, (b) a new philosophical anthropology, (c) a synthetic e-nvironmentalism as a
bridge between us and the world and (d) a new philosophy of politics among us” (2012,
p. 131). Practically, this summarization is the answer to the struggles described in
chapter 3. The rethinking about what is the current environment and e67
nvironmentalism is an answer to the struggle about data and information flood, as the
consensus of a new ethical framework should treat information and data, as the natural
resources material. The “new philosophical anthropology” and the “new philosophy of
politics” is the proposed answer to the political struggle between hackers and
vectoralists – a proposal that might lead to the opposition’s end, through the
development of the new ontology of beings that will surpass the need for hierarchical
schemes of power in the name of something – be it called “capital” or “information.” The
next two subchapters analyze these subjects.
4.3 Infosphere – The Environment
Floridi claims that IR has caused a migration to a new environment, namely the
infosphere. Until now, ethically, to sustain life was the highest value of all, thus the
biosphere (= the sphere that sustains life) was the main environment for such a set of
ethics. Now, with IE as outlined in 4.1, that animate and inanimate beings gain equality
after IR, the new common environment shall be called infosphere. The
hyper/posthistorical nature of contemporary ICT’s makes access to any part and any
moment of the infosphere available at any place and any time. For instance,
revolutionaries mentioned in Chapter 2 are affecting the world instantly with their
actions as their acts happen locally and globally, while at the same time they have access
to infinite sources of any time of history in any place that can work as a tool to their
goals’ end. The infosphere is one of IR’s dramatic effects, and follows the equally crucial
impact of other revolutions:
“As a consequence of such reontologization of our ordinary environment, we shall
be living in an infosphere that will become increasingly synchronized (time),
delocalized (space), and correlated (interactions). Previous revolutions (especially
the agricultural and the industrial ones) created macroscopic transformation in our
social structures and architectural environments, often without much foresight. The
informational revolution is no less dramatic.” (Floridi, 2007, p. 61)
In subchapter 3.3.2, the problem of information and data flood was parallelized to the
problem of waste and pollution that calls for an ecological rethinking about the terms.
Living in the infosphere calls for such a treatment, based on the paradigm of living in the
biosphere. Floridi notes: “Data security and protection and information supply, for
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example, are technical problems comparable to the problem of keeping toxic waste out
of the water supply. The analogy is anything but farfetched” (2002a, p. 3). Elsewhere he
gives the example of the “new Large Hadron Collider that is being built at the CERN […]
to explore the physics of particles” that “will produce about 1.5GB data per second”
(2007, p. 60), while later (2010, p. 6-8), he foresees the arrival of the zettabyte era – the
“exaflood” being the name for the tsunami of exabytes surrounding our hard drives,
from 161 in 2006 to 988 in 2010. That’s where he calls for an ecological treatment of
the infosphere, where he introduces a model where information can be considered as a
resource – the raw material, as a product – the new information, and as a target – that is
the way new information affects the whole of the infosphere and the possibilities of
recycling it by returning it to the infosphere (2010, p. 105-108). This is the way
information and data flow as the consisting particles of the new way of being. The
entities should be educated about and for these terms. Information manufacturers are
both producers and consumers, so everyone should be ethically and ecologically aware
on the amount of information produced and how it is handled6. In comparison to the
Industrial age when emphasis was given in the know-how of manipulating material
resources, IR moves the point of focus to the know-how of manipulating immaterial
information resources, the science of design:
“A hyperhistorical society is a neo-manufacturing society in which information is
both the raw material we produce and manipulate and the finished good we
consume. In such a society, when it comes to skills, we really need to place more
emphasis than ever before on the so-called maker’s knowledge, the knowledge that
is enjoyed by those who know how to design and produce the artefacts, that is,
those who know how to create, design, and transform information.” (Floridi, 2013,
p. 250)
A final remark on the infosphere and the surpass of the historical criteria. Information is
immaterial, so infosphere is totally mental. Historical processes as dialectic materialism
are transcended together with history in the hyper/posthistorical context. Instead of
political states, one finds here states of mind, instead of national states, one here finds
By the time this paper is written, Google announced a seven person advisory committee to decide what,
how and why will be forgotten – in accordance to the European Court of Justice’s recent “right to be
forgotten” ruling. Luciano Floridi is one of the committee members (Balkam, 2014).
6
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utopian states, in the sense of an ideal potential Utopia built upon mental processes,
based on probabilities and possibilities.
“The infosphere, often equated to its most prominent, digital region, namely
cyberspace, is not a geographical, political, social, or linguistic space. It is the atopic
space of mental life, from education to science, from cultural expressions to
communication, from trade to recreation.” (Floridi, 2002b, p. 3)
In this case, living in the infosphere is the final goal of every utopist that calls for total
equality between animate and inanimate beings, and an end to political struggle based
on possession. If a vectoralist owns more information than a human user, this does not
make her/him ruler of the information game, since an online artificially intelligent
computer can generate double the amount of information in a few moments. Having
information as a resource, product, and target simultaneously as the general ethical
value, leads to the abandonment of possession as the main criterion. Possession is
replaced by potentiality. IR leads to the infosphere, where it’s not important how much
one already has, but how much can one produce and return at the same time – at any
time, in any space, for any time, for any space.
4.4 Inforgs – The Inhabitants
The entities living under the main values of IE in the infosphere are called by Floridi
“inforgs,” informational organisms. As IR reontologizes entities and existing becomes
more valuable than being alive, “we are witnessing an epochal, unprecedented
migration of humanity from its Umwelt to the infosphere itself, not least because the
latter is absorbing the former. As a result, humans will be inforgs among other (possibly
artificial) inforgs and agents operating in an environment that is friendlier to digital
creatures” (Floridi, 2007, p. 63). To understand what it means to be an inforg is to
summarize the contents of this chapter until now on the existence of a perceivable
entity. If ICT’s have such a crucial impact on an entity that appears to deal more with
information than material values then one is an inforg. If one cares less on how much
money is earned and more on the information produced (online or offline, doesn’t
matter), one is an inforg. If one produces and consumes information and is ecologically
aware of the importance on doing both, one is an inforg:
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“One day, being an inforg will be so natural that any disruption in our normal flow
of information will make us sick. Even literally. […] Today, we know that our
autonomy is limited by the energy bottleneck of our batteries. […] Google IRL (in
real life) will signal the collapse of that thin membrane still separating the worlds of
online and offline. […]If you spend more time connected than sleeping, you are an
inforg” (Floridi, 2007, p. 63).
The “augmented revolutions” of Chapter 2, the fact that human beings are inseparable
from ICT’s and that revolutions cannot be constituted without them, all these support
the argument that the new entities are inforgs. If IR’s media and their users direct to
such a reontologization, then this is the message of IR. The fourth revolution, or IR,
offers this new ontology. “What is being?” is now answered “being an inforg.” “What is
non-being?” is answered “being non-informative.” This leads to this chapter’s
conclusion that subsequently is very close to the paper’s final conclusion.
4.5 Concluding Contexts
This attempt to reach firstness of IR lead to the examination of the ontology of
consisting entities within IR. Chapter 2 provided with signs, symbols, and indications
that IR and its entities use to be expressed. Chapter 3 provided with relations and
struggles found in IR, established by its entities and their means of production. Based on
all these, this chapter examined what these entities are, how they function in general,
what is their ontology. If this sort of ontology describes the entities’ firstness, it’s a fair
approach towards IR’s desired firstness. IR gave birth to its entities’ new ontology.
Understanding this ontology is finally understanding IR. Summarizing this chapter, in
order to move on to the conclusions:
Information reshaped being-in-history. Being means being reontologized in the context
of hyper/posthistory. It’s not historical processes and leading winners that “write
history” anymore. Through ICT’s every being writes history instantly, in other words
history is written only collectively, in other words there is no more history, as the term
was perceived before history’s transcendence.
Information reshaped the being’s current environment. It’s not being-in-the-biosphere
anymore. Being is more important than being alive, so being means carrying
71
information, existing. If something, animate or inanimate carries is less informative than
something else, then its ethical importance is lower, and it exists less.
Beings reformed by the notion of information after IR are called inforgs. When this
reontologization is realized from a respectful amount of such information entities, all
residues from historical values – such as economic terms describing information,
political class oppositions based on either information or capital – will be replaced by
the new hyper/posthistorical values – such as information terms describing relations
and probabilities, inforgs using and returning data and information to the infosphere.
Entities conscious of what it means to be an inforg won’t be lost anymore among
phenomena as “data/information flood,” or “identity loss.” Who one is will depend on
the knowledge of what one produces and what one consumes. The more improbable the
way one produces and consumes, the more informative, the more existing, the ethically
better. The more probable the way one produces and consumes, the more entropy, the
less existing, the ethically harmful for the infosphere’s ecosystem with the loss of
identity being maintained. An education of this time should be built upon the notions of
information. Information literacy should become the main subject, that does not only
teach how to consume information, store it, and learn through it, but also how to
produce it for the infosphere, and when, how, and why to delete it.
If IR resulted such entities, its quality should reflect their quality, as the entities of the
Industrial Revolution’s quality is reflected on the beings of this age.
Figure 4 (Hancock, 2014):
Hancock’s “iVincent” image
shows a toy Van Gogh
painting a Van Gogh painting
representation on a
smartphone. This image sets
hyper/posthistory in context
and makes one wonder: Is it
relevant to ask whether a
robot is dressed up as a
human or whether a human
is dressed up as a robot? Is an
artificially intelligent device
currently equal to a Van Gogh
if both entities are “inforgs”?
Was IR a struggle for equality
between animates and
inanimates, as previous
revolutions were struggles
for equality of gender?
72
Chapter 5: Discussion, Conclusions, Future
5.1 A Summary and a Discussion
This paper used Peirce’s three modes of being as a conceptual navigational framework
to render IR perceivable from as many different epistemological viewpoints as possible.
The research was divided in four chapters, one for definitions of the two interrelated
terms in play, “information” and “revolution,” and the other three based respectively
one the Peircean phenomenological approach. I briefly summarize them here to discuss
their relations.
Chapter 1, the analysis of definitions related the terms “information” and “revolution.”
Information means data that gain improbable meaning. Revolution means an
improbable opposition to a previous scientific or social state. I suggested that both bare
a conceptual similarity examined under certain scopes. Semantic –meaningful –
information is a revolutionary praxis as a struggle against entropy. Revolution is an
informative praxis as a struggle against common sense. A revolution based on
information should be perceived as an improbable action against well-established
values that have lost their meaning, against proliferating common sense, against
entropy, against repetition and boredom. “Terror” becomes the maximum degree of
revolutionaryness, in a reverse relationship with entropy becoming the minimum
degree of information. “Information” and “revolution” appear as generators of
improbability. In this sense, IR is a revolution of constant refresh of mental states, and
everyday life means “expect the unexpected.”
Chapter 2, Peirce’s thirdness, examined IR in terms of the media it uses, since “the
medium is the message.” The concept of “revolution” changes as the media change.
Social and political revolutions reflect the technical and scientific ones. Revolutionaries,
in coherence to the previous conceptualization, have been called “terrorists.” They are
acting within an environment of new media, in augmented realities, building
“augmented revolutions,” bridges between realities and virtual realities, constructing
improbable revolutionary situations. Terrorists of our time use the new technical media
we are not yet used to. Equally frightful is the usage of similarly new media to monitor
actions of “potential terrorists.” The new networked media reflect a philosophy of
interconnectivity, a conceptual mode opposed to the pre-IR state of industrial
73
specialization. The political class opposition was roughly outlined in this chapter to be
thoroughly discussed in the next. From this chapter let it be kept that whenever and
wherever ICT’s are in play, IR aspects are indicated. If ICT’s are taken for granted IR is
not that revolutionary anymore, but becomes part of the common sense.
Chapter 3, Peircean secondness, described IR as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution
and examined IR’s current inner struggles. The industrial age left some conceptual
residues to the perception of the new technologies and the values under which they are
used are quite industrial. Until recently ICT’s were considered to be tools for attaining
industrial ideals, while as seen in the previous chapter ICT’s work better for other
purposes that have to do completely with information-related subjects. In the Industrial
Revolution the relation man/machine was a relation of monetary profit, and who
controlled the capital and the means of production was the one controlling the “game”
(capitalism). In IR humans and computers interact equally in terms of information. By
hand, information was initially thought to be the new capital. New classes were
therefore founded, based on information possession and control (vectoralism). Yet,
human beings being now connected through/to ICT technologies slowly accumulate the
new values based purely on information instead of capital, developing a new ontology,
traces of it found in the “augmented revolutions” of hackers, that are built completely
out of information, bridging “reality” and “virtuality.” New problems (data/information
flood, vectorialism, loss of identity) arising from the misconceptions, quite similar to
problems of the Industrial Age, are to be solved with this development of a new set of
ethics for this ontology based on information – explained in the next chapter. From this
chapter let it be kept that IR is not a better version of Industrial Age, but it replaces it
completely to build new sets of values. Industrialism and capitalism are included in IR
only as means of comparison to the new ontology born.
Chapter 4, a step towards the ontological quality of Peirce’s firstness, presents IR as a
process of reontologization that generates the revaluation that humans will need to
cope with, in order to survive in the new information environment. Using Floridi and
Flusser’s terms, the environment is called infosphere and the historical current is
named hyper/posthistory. Humans are not the “measure of all things” any more, but all
things carrying information, namely inforgs, are the measure of all things. Development
of new information in opposition to entropy becomes the absolute ethical, economic
74
and ecological goal, replacing values such as good/evil, wealth/poverty, and minimizing
the aforementioned burning issues of big data, vectorialism, and identity loss. The more
the awareness about an ecosystem based purely on information structures, the less the
industrial terms domination. Inforgs are the common sense that IR generated, equal
treatment between animate and inanimate beings. As long as something produces and
consumes more information it is informationally valuable, no matter the political or
economic power. The latter powers are historical criteria fulfilled in capitalism that are
transcended in hyper/posthistory. Vectoralism, identity loss, and information/data
flood were passages from the Industrial Age to the IR’s epicycle. As long as entities lose
more and more their trust to the historical values of political and economic power,
acting as revolutionaries through ICT’s, IR is established converting the states of mind
for informational organisms, human or not. This is the ongoing ontological impact of IR
to its inhabiting entities, that are habitually accepting the new norm. This firstness, the
inforgness, expressed by ICT’s as a thirdness, recognized as a secondness to industrial
mentalities, reflects the firstness of IR – that leads to the following definition of it.
“Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not
admit this can survive at the present day.” (Wiener, 1948, p. 132) Paraphrasing Culkin’s
“we shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” (1967) I conclude “we in-form
our revolutions as our revolutions in-form us.” Humans added the variable
“information” onto the notion of “revolution.” Thus, revolution of information
informationalized humans and their revolutions. Humans now revolve around
information as information revolves around them. At a certain point they become
inseparable, and revolution is not a valid term. If inforgian existence is valid, the merge
of “information” and “organism” then there is nothing revolutionary anymore in IR, only
inforgs revolving around inforgs.
5.2 The General Definition of Information Revolution
As said in the introductory “Research Question,” the idea for a general definition of IR is
of direct influence by Floridi’s GDI. In a sense, I try to specialize it in regards to
“revolution.” After applying Peirce’s phenomenology for observing IR, I keep Floridi’s
tripartite structure of GDI to express the triadic nature of Peirce’s modes of being. The
definition by itself is a quality – IR’s firstness, the goal of this paper. Yet, it’s divided in
three parts that reflect the quality’s relation to each mode, answering: GDIR1, firstness:
75
What is IR’s quality in itself, what is IRness?, GDIR2, secondness: What is IR in relation
to something comparable?, GDIR3, thirdness: What are IR’s indicative signs, that when
one speaks of them one speaks of IR? The three are of course interrelated. One can read
them in any sequence, as Peirce needs to describe the modes in different sequences to
explain them better (1955, p. 74-97). By extracting this definition I propose (and further
suppose) that if IR is recognizable, traceable, and tangible, hyper/posthistorical
societies and their inforgs are to expect a new form of revolution. If IR becomes part of
our everyday life, thus isn’t that revolutionary anymore, this means that we talk of IR as
common sense, as we talk about Industrial or Agricultural Revolutions.
GDIR) Information Revolution is a phenomenon recognized as a state anytime and
anywhere, if and only if:
GDIR.1) semantic informational existence is ethically more valuable than life in a
hyper/posthistorical time and a simultaneously local and global space where
data is the main natural resource.
GDIR.2) it is superimposed on the Industrial Revolution, including it, but also
replacing it and opposing it, together with all previous sorts of scientific and
social revolutions through the oscillation between ICT’s and their users, building
societies where identity is found through the struggles of informational relations
instead of economic possession.
GDIR.3) it is expressed by structures and functions that are characterized by
shiftability, liquidity, and reversibility between indicative symbolic elements that
can be recognized in different occurrences as: inforgs, hybrids, humans, subjects,
objects, networks, actors, agents, tools, machines, media, mediations, operators,
apparatuses, or artificialities, with the list to be open.
The shift to relation from possession means that after IR, I am is not what I have or what
I look like, but what I am related to. Of course, this is a transitional stage, where money
can still “buy dreams,” but contemporary political acts of revolutions together with
global economic crises show that soon this value will have to be abandoned when the
number of sources directing to one’s informational entity will be more important than
this entity’s content in a bank account. The comparison will by the time be more and
more irrelevant, like the discussion between “land owning” and “monetary
76
representation” in the Industrial Age. The discussion cannot be anything else but open,
like the discussion for any other kind of passing or already gone revolution. This paper
does not hold that every single aspect of IR is analyzed – that’s a de facto value due to
IR’s nature of limitless sources. Yet, I hold that several questions are raised during the
analysis, linking to infinite other ones, inspiring researches, conversations and
arguments. But this is the definition of IR: to answer these questions would be out of the
paper’s scope – to have knowledge of them always being born is to have understood the
nature/culture of IR.
5.3 Future Work
On the one hand, my suggestion for the abandonment of IRness as a newness is
completely irrelevant when observing historical and prehistorical societies. Further
analysis could include reasons that hold these societies from evolving towards
hyper/posthistorical societies. If the above analysis is correct, then, what is keeping
other societies from entering the new ontology? What is the global dysrhythmia that
doesn’t let inforgs access equally in the infosphere? How can this IR’s analysis
contribute to its message’s relevance to entities that haven’t yet spoken of IR? Could
there be an educational model based completely on information values, applicable to
historical societies?
On the other hand, what is to be expected for the societies that take IR as a complete
revolution, and as common sense? And if human isn’t the “measure of all things”
anymore, and life becomes interior to existence, then what could be the subjects of the
next revolution? Since the notion of revolution is transformed after every revolution, is
it possible that IR has transformed the ideal that revolutions cannot be predicted? Could
artificialities predict next revolutions, thus becoming revolutionary? If the prediction of
revolutions means the expectedness of revolutions, i.e. the non-revolutionaryness of
revolutions, does this mean that the “end of history” brought the “end of revolutions”? If
such a frightful hypothesis of higher and higher probabilistic expectability for
revolutions is valid, then paradoxically, revolutions will be simultaneously “actual” and
“boring.” And if this hypothesis breeds terror to inforgs, then in fulfils the
revolutionaryness requirement. But would that be revolutionary enough?
77
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