Why Humans Matter (The 4th Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality by Luciano Floridi)

Abstract

Where are we now historically? Who are we becoming? Where are we going? These are the main questions of Floridi's book. The answer to the third question is wrapped in the answers to the other two questions. Floridi overtly answers: we are now in hyperhistory; we are becoming predominately inforgs; we are at the doorway of a no-return path towards a total onlife existence surrounded by the envelope of the infosphere. I will explain Floridi's answers and his technical terminology later. Before I do so, I have a few background comments. Floridi admittedly uses neologisms as a technique for solving what he calls in his Preface "a huge conceptual deficit" (ix) for understanding the increasing control by the technology of ICT (information and communication technology). Though not mentioned by Floridi, Neil Postman called the current development of technology, the Technopoly, and Marshal McLuhan coined the phrase "looking at the world through a rear-view mirror" to describe our failure to comprehend the current envelopment of humanity by electronic media. So, I suppose we can expect a plethora of new linguistic coinage to help us understand the rapidly changing cybersphere, and cyborgs, a linguistic coinage that Floridi finds below par. Before going further, I state what I think amounts to the covert and even repressed message of the book-of the answers to the three questions of the condition of humanity in our current and development historical situation. The repressed message is one of biophobia: life is messy, mortal, and murky; whereas, modern informatics systems are neat, on the verge of providing a form of immortality, and pure or at least clean-all unobtainable in the biosphere. Moreover, the biosphere included and especially humanity will become the silent servants of the infosphere and of ICTs. The skeptical and cynical reader may wonder whether all this new linguistic coinage does no more than cloak the real issues, cover the real message, and attempt to promote a new

Global Initiatives and Higher Education in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

“…Without going into detail, we also need to take note of the significant changes that took place regarding human self-understanding. According to Floridi (2014), the first revolutionary change in human self-understanding was instigated by Copernicus (1473Copernicus ( -1543. Copernicus' finding that Earth is orbiting the sun 'displaced the earth from the centre of the universe' and forced people to reconsider their role and place in the solar system (Floridi 2014:87).…”

How to identify an argument type? On the hermeneutics of persuasive discourse

“…Since the start of the digital revolution, people have faced an information overload that is difficult to deal with, both in quantity and quality. Related phenomena such as mis-and disinformation can have deleterious consequences, especially when they occur in communicative interactions aimed at changing people's minds or behavior, in short, in 'persuasive communication': efforts to convince people to believe or do something run the risk of being perverted into efforts to manipulate them into believing and doing something (Brave et al, 2022;Floridi, 2014). Gaining a better insight into the cognitive aspects of how people process information in persuasive messages could contribute to finding a solution for such problems of the information age.…”

Serious games in theology

“…This entails a revolution in the logistics of education and is connected to and embedded in an informational environment, called the infosphere (cf. Floridi 2011:228;2014). In this infosphere, the participants are more and more becoming 'informational organisms' called 'inforgs', interacting with other inforgs and 'smart, engineered artefacts' (Floridi 2011:232).…”