Against digital ontology.
The paper argues that digital ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is digital, and the universe is a computational system equivalent to a Turing Machine) should be carefully distinguished from informational ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is structural), in order to abandon the former a...
| Published in: | Synthese Vol. 168; no. 1; pp. 151 - 179 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Springer Nature
May2009
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=37254810&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 37254810 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2009 vid: 168 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 37254810 10.1007/s11229-008-9334-6 ppf: 151 ppct: 28 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 437KB tig: atl: Against digital ontology. aug: au: Floridi, Luciano affil: School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, de Havilland Campus, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK St Cross College, IEG, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK su: Ontology Turing machines Computer systems Boolean algebra Binary principle (Linguistics) Epistemics Realism sug: subj: Ontology Turing machines Computer systems Boolean algebra Binary principle (Linguistics) Epistemics Realism keyword: Analogue Continuous Digital Digital ontology Digital physics Discrete Informational structural realism Kant’s antinomies Kant's antinomies Structural realism ab: The paper argues that digital ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is digital, and the universe is a computational system equivalent to a Turing Machine) should be carefully distinguished from informational ontology (the ultimate nature of reality is structural), in order to abandon the former and retain only the latter as a promising line of research. Digital vs. analogue is a Boolean dichotomy typical of our computational paradigm, but digital and analogue are only “modes of presentation” of Being (to paraphrase Kant), that is, ways in which reality is experienced or conceptualised by an epistemic agent at a given level of abstraction. A preferable alternative is provided by an informational approach to structural realism, according to which knowledge of the world is knowledge of its structures. The most reasonable ontological commitment turns out to be in favour of an interpretation of reality as the totality of structures dynamically interacting with each other. The paper is the first part (the pars destruens) of a two-part piece of research. The pars construens, entitled “A Defence of Informational Structural Realism”, is developed in a separate article, also published in this journal. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2009. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2009 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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