Matter & Information

1. Matter & Information Rainer E. Zimmermann Fakultät 13, Hochschule München (UAS) & Clare Hall, UK – Cambridge rainer.zimmermann@hm.edu

2. Matter & Information • What is Digitalization? • What is Information? • Mediating Aspects: Theory of Systems • Space & Language • Outlook: Critical Geopolitics & Ethics

3. Matter & Information Research Tradition: Frank Fuchs-Kittowski, Werner Kriesel (eds.): Informatik & Gesellschaft. Festschrift für Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski. (Lang, Frankfurt a.M., 2016) Project at the HTW Berlin (since 1994).

4. Acknowledgements José María Díaz Nafría (León), Kyriaki Goudeli (Athen), Annette Grathoff (Wien), Wolfgang Hofkirchner (Wien), Michael Keller (München), Kanelia Koutsandrea (Athen), Cecile Malaspina (London), Silvia Mazzini (Berlin), Muraad Nofal (München), Renate Quehenberg (Wien), Klaus Ruthenberg (Coburg), Tomáš Sigmund (Prag), Verena Streitenberg (Berlin), Evi Maria Weigl (München), Doris Zeilinger (Nürnberg), Zhang Xiaomeng (Beijing)

5. Matter & Information Philosophyas Science ofTotality • Concepts (Whatis […]?) • Heuristic Approach (logicalframework) • EthicsasResult (Spinoza) Rainer E. Zimmermann: Ethicsfrom Systems asMetaphysicalReconstruction (emcsr2014, Vienna) Systema 2 (3), 2014, 4-9.

6. Matter & Information 1. What is Digitalization?

7. Matter & Information • Around 1520 BC the Lord of the Seals Amenemhet constructs a water clock for Pharao Amenophis I. in Egypt. • Around 725 the monk Yixing in China constructs an astronmoical instrument that also serves as clock and utilizes an important detail called escapement.

8. Matter & Information Christoph Ransmayr: Cox oder Der Lauf der Zeit. Fischer, Frankfurt a.M., 2016.

9. Matter & Information Escapement https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemmung_(Uhr)

10. Matter & Information Consequence: Sequential Processing of Events by means of an artificial division of a process that is analgous in principle. Categories: Space, Time, Matter […] Cognitive Aspect: Reflexion is digitalized in the first place. As is consciousness altogether.

11. Matter & Information Consciousness pre-reflexive vs. reflexive (= propositional) Digitalization is thus a method of thinking which is grounded in anthropological properties of human beings (and hence, there is no choice)

12. Matter & Information 2. What is Information?

13. Matter & Information Examplefrom Topos Theory: • Identificators (ClassificationofNames) Dog  („is a“) German Shepherd

14. Matter & Information 2. Similarity Mappings (Classification of Properties) Chihuahua  („is similar to an“) Shepherd

15. Matter & Information Commutative Diagram: Dog*  Dog Chihuahua  Shepherd Dachshound bottom-up (from the initial object to the general concept) ( = push out)

16. Matter & Information Dog*  Dog Chihuahua  Shepherd Dachshound top-down (from the general concept to the terminal object) ( = pull back)

17. Matter & Information Modus Ponens: Boolean Algebra as sequential identification of objects Information processing = discrimination (recognizing a difference), classification (determining the type of difference), attribution (determination of affiliation), always with a view to principles of algebra (e.g. negation)

18. Matter & Information But careful! Metaphorization! „Dog“ in a transferred sense (metonymy, synecdoche) Also: „Hot Dog“. There is a space of free play for the general concept (lexikologie, syntax, semantic)

19. Matter & Information Symbolical terminology by Lacan, derived from liguistics in the sense of Saussure: S/s S = signifier, s = significate. Example: hippopótamos [Salomon referring to Adam & Eve]

20. Matter & Information Gregory Bateson: Information is the difference that makes a difference. „Darkness of the Lived Moment“ (Ernst Bloch) Rainer E. Zimmermann, Zhang Xiaomeng: Sayable and Unsayable Within Lived Immediacy. [in press, 2017]

21. Matter & Information Basis for the existential choice of possibilities that takes place permanently, although mostly unnoticed: Transition from possibility to actuality. Hence: Dialectic between identity and difference and the sublation of both within indifference. (Schelling!)

22. Matter & Information It is only mythology where S = s. (Tolkien‘s Elves always in a bad mood.) It is the intrinsic difference that secures mysteries and lets expect a manifold of forthcoming events. Hence, the world is questionable, and it is necessary to interpret it in a contextual way.

23. Matter & Information Consequence: Digitalization as well as Information Processing depend on the anthropological constitution of human beings. They are thus cognitively determined and serve primarily the orientation within the world.

24. Matter & Information At the same time we have here the starting point of critical thinking: from the Greek κρίνειν [krínein] = to differ. This is the nucleus of philosophical activity. (How is a concept introduced? What is the original condition for it? Is this still useful?)

25. Matter & Information Short excursion into Physics

26. Matter & Information Noether‘s theorem for arbitrary boundary conditions (gauge invariance!): Symmetries referring to conserved quantities. Homogeneity of time = conservation of energy Homogeneity of space = conservation of momentum Isotropy of space = conservation of angular momentum

27. Matter & Information Electrical charge, other charges of elementary particles etc. are represented by wave functions that are Lorentz-invariant scalars, different from the classical symmetries mentioned above.

28. Matter & Information Entropy = potential information Structure = actualized (invested) information (complexity = memory of production) organization vs. capacity Entropy + Structure = conserved quantity? Symmetry left = isotropy of time (direction-independence)

29. Matter & Information Todd L. Duncan, Jack S. Semura (2004): The Deep Physics Behind the Second Law: Information and Energy as Independent Forms of Bookkeeping. Entropy 6, 21-29. Rainer E. Zimmermann (2005): Otherland Revisited II, in: id., Vladimir G. Budanov (eds.), Towards Otherland, INTAS vol. 3, Kassel University Press, 29-44 (41).

30. Matter & Information Rainer E. Zimmermann: Matter & Information as Attributes of Substance, Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 226, 177-180 (2017) Carlo Rovelli: Meaning = Information + Evolution. arXiv:1611.02420 [physics.hist-ph]

31. Matter & Information 3. Mediating Aspects: Theory of Systems

32. Matter & Information Cognition and Communikation are thus inseparables. Because of social mediation of human beings, communication has the structure of a network. If networks are represented by mathematical graphs then, their vertices signify agents (persons), and their edges communicative interactions. zwischen ihnen. (Small-World-Theory = 6 separations of agents, Erdös number)

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35. Matter & Information Definition 1: We call system a network of interacting agents producing a space with a well-defined boundary that is open in the sense of thermodynamics. (R. E. Zimmermann: Metaphysics of Emergence, part I, xenomoi, Berlin, 2015, p. 27)

36. Matter & Information Network(Dynamics) & Space (Range of Interactions) = System Minimal Assumption: Validity of Thermodynamics The forming of systems is thus the methodological procedure which serves the orientation within the environment, according to the logical laws. (Discourses!)

37. Matter & Information 4. Space & Language

38. Matter & Information [Mathematics] Topos = Algebra of a logical theory whose propositions are the points of a space. (Steve Vickers, 2007) [Linguistics] modified Topos (?) = Algebra of a pre-scientific theory whose propositions are the points of social space.

39. Matter & Information Discourse = „talk going forth and back“ = communicative praxis Individual Discourse = mediated singularity within the „governing discourse“ of the public Morphogenesis and morphology of the „governing discourse“ is the representation of the structure of social space (and of ist network).

40. Matter & Information Discourse serves the reduction of system complexity. Already digitalization is such a reduction.

41. Matter & Information 5. Outlook: Critical Geopolitics & Ethics

42. Matter & Information Gearóid O Thuatail [Gerard O’Toal] und Simon Dalby (eds.): Rethinking Geopolitics. Routledge, London, New York, 1998.

43. Matter & Information In Michel Foucault, different from Jürgen Habermas, the intersubjective formation of consensus is described by external and thus contingent phenomena of unfolding power. The discourse becomes thus the present understanding of actuality.

44. Matter & Information Hence, for a given field of knowledge, it is the discourse that defines what is sayable (what is sayable within a framework that fixes what must not be said, what can be said in which form and by whom – hence what can be said in a more strictly regulated sense as what is simply sayable in the hermeneutic sense).

45. Matter & Information Ethics: checks behaviour and actions with respect to their adequacy. The criterion is the presently available knowledge about a given situation. Moral: values behaviour and actions as good or bad. The criterion is what has been passed on by hear-say and tradition.

46. Matter & Information Ethics is thus essentially knowledge. (checked knowledge = ἐπιστήμη [epistéme]) Moral is thus essentially belief. (non-checked knowledge = prejudice = δόξα [dóxa])

47. Matter & Information Refusal of complexity is thus a moral attitude, and not an ethical one. What adds to complexity within ongoing evolution? (Globalisation, Industrialization, Digitalisation in technical terms, change in work and life balances (emancipation of women, of the youth etc., change in sexual behaviour, change of life styles), etc.)

48. Matter & Information Refusal of complexity leads backward to mythological thinking (S = s), but still in a bad mood. alienation/ideology (Marx), non-simultaneousness (Bloch), bad faith (Sartre) Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, 1951)

49. Matter & Information Volker R. Grassmuck: Die Turing-Galaxis. Lettre International 28, 1995, 48-55. Transition from the Gutenberg galaxy to the Turing galaxy characterized by a transition from quantity into quality.