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ISR is Still a Digital Ontology

Article  in  Erkenntnis · July 2018

DOI: 10.1007/s10670-018-0041-5

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12 ORIGINAL RESEARCH

3 ISR is Still a Digital Ontology

4 Bruce Long1,2

5 Received: 6 July 2017 / Accepted: 10 July 2018

6  Springer Nature B.V. 2018

7 Abstract

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8 I will analyse Floridi’s rejection of digital ontologies and his positive proposal for
9 an informational structural realism (ISR). I intend to show that ISR is still funda-

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10 mentally a digital ontology, albeit with some different metaphysical commitments
11 to those that Floridi rejects. I will argue that even though Floridi deploys the method
12 of levels of abstraction adapted from computer science, and has established a
13 Kantian transcendentalist conception of both information and structure, ISR still
14 reduces to a discretised binary, and therefore digital, ontology. The digital
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15 ontologies that Floridi rejects are John Wheeler’s ‘‘It from Bit’’ conception and
16 computational (including pancomputational) metaphysics (although there are oth-
17 ers). They’re rejected predominantly on the basis that they rely upon a false
18 dichotomy between digital discrete and continuous metaphysics (with which I
19 agree). ISR involves a Kantian transcendentalist conception of de re relations that is
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20 intended to avoid this false dichotomy. However, I’ll argue that the binary, discrete,
21 digital component of digital ontology is retained in ISR, and therefore ISR is still a
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22 digital ontology since its conception of information reduces to binary discrete de re

23 relations. As such, ISR comes down on one side of the rejected ontic dichotomy of
24 digital metaphysics, and so an informational metaphysics that is not a digital
25 ontology is still a promissory note in the philosophy of information.
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26
27

28 1 Introduction
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29 Luciano Floridi has rejected digital ontology (digital ontology), ‘‘also known as
30 digital metaphysics’’ and provided an alternative ontology in the form of a non-
31 eliminative but Kantian transcendental structural realist ontology he has called
32 informational structural realism (ISR) (Floridi 2008a, b, 2009a, 152, 155, 2010a, b).

A1 & Bruce Long

A2 bruce.long@sydney.edu.au; bruce.long@unimelb.edu.au
1
A3 University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
2
A4 Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

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33 ISR is an attempt to provide a transcendental and ontologically neutral structural

34 realist ontology: the de re difference or non-uniformity based structure can be
35 realised in any space including noetic and abstract spaces. This constitutes a type-
36 uncommitted or category-uncommitted metaphysical existential basis for both data
37 and structure delivering an informational metaphysics using a liberal (transcenden-
38 tal) approach to the naturalisation of information.
39 Floridi talks of differences as non-uniformities and does not appear to separate
40 the two (Floridi 2011b, 356), but the key element is differences or difference
41 relations, since non-uniformities all incorporate differences, but not all differences
42 are non-uniformities. The difference relation between two distant celestial bodies is
43 not a non-uniformity, and although it may map to a uniformity in some
44 representational mathematical space, this latter uniformity is not the one that is

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45 required (although such a uniformity in a representing space would itself be the
46 requisite kind of nonuniformity as a difference relation de re).

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47 The ISR Floridi proposes is also intended as a quasi-unifying middle-ground
48 ontology between ontic structural realism and epistemic structural realism: to
49 constitute a unified structural realism pursuant to solving some of the difficulties
50 with structuralist scientific realisms. It reconciles (definitionally, conceptually, and
51 ontologically) with Floridi’s strongly semantic theory of information, according to
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52 which information reduces on the same transcendental and ontologically neutral
53 basis to data realised as binary nonuniformities de re and differences de re (Floridi
54 2004, 2005, 2011a).
55 First I will provide a very concise non-comprehensive survey of relevant part of
56 relevant digital ontology(s) and explain the basis of Floridi’s rejection of them.
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57 Then I will briefly outline the key metaphysical elements of his ISR. Finally I’ll
58 argue that ISR is still a digital ontology.
59 My premises will be that the metaphysical basis for ISR is intrinsically both
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60 discrete and binary, and thus it is digital to a significant enough extent that it makes
61 a metaphysical commitment to one side of the analogue-versus-digital false
62 dichotomy that Floridi (correctly) ascribes to most digital ontologies. I will suggest
63 that the most plausible analysis is that there are multiple kinds of digital ontology,
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64 and that Floridi’s Kantian and transcendentalist, and yet, I will further argue, still
65 reductive, informational structural realism is a de re discretising binary digital
66 ontology. That is—it has a metaphysical outlook that emphasises de re structure and
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67 relations and de-emphasises propositional and lexical structure de dicto just as ontic
68 structural realism does as compared to epistemic structural realism with respect to
69 the nature of relations and structure.

70 2 Digital Ontology

71 According to Floridi’s informational structural realism, reality, including the

72 material world is, at bottom, information. However, the definition of information
73 and the nature of information is contested and an open metaphysical question. Most
74 theorists tend to answer it with pluralism about information, according to which the
75 nature of information is to be regarded and defined differently depending upon the

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 ISR is Still a Digital Ontology

76 context and level of abstraction at which the term ‘information’ and its conceptual
77 content is being deployed, and to what specific end with respect to theory and
78 application (Sommaruga 2009; Adami 2016, 50; Adriaans 2010; Baumgaertner and
79 Floridi 2016, 158).
80 In Floridi’s computer-science inspired theory, levels of abstraction are
81 representational levels supporting explanation and modelling for a complex system
82 by way of information hiding and abstraction: details of lower levels of the system
83 are elided or hidden—often using black box techniques1—in order to reduce the
84 analytic and representational complexity of models and designs (Floridi 2008a,
85 227–228). When applied to pluralism about information, the approach of levels of
86 abstraction involves the ability to define the nature of information differently at
87 different explanatory and representational levels.

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88 Pluralism about the nature of information also accommodates liberal natural-
89 ism(s) and conceptual pluralism about information in science. For example, in

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90 statistical mechanics and in applied mathematical theories of communication
91 [including Claude Shannon’s original Shannon 1998 (1948)] information is often
92 taken to be identical to physical entropy both materially and conceptually, and/or
93 statistical measures of both are taken to be identical (Blazsó 2011; Landauer
94 1996, 1999). Yet in applications like quantum information theory, information is
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95 often defined more in keeping with ideas about superposition states. Corresponding
96 digital ontologies (including pancomputationalisms) regard the universe as reducing
97 to something like Qubits2 (Vedral 2010; Lloyd 2013; Bub 2005).
98 Floridi’s Kantian transcendentalist conception of the nature of information does
99 not draw upon quantum computing theory or statistical mechanics (although in
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100 establishing its ontic basis Floridi does make reference to quantum field theory and
101 the quantum field for support) but instead upon a basic metaphysical analysis of
102 differences or non-uniformities de re as constituting the basis of relations, which are
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103 in turn regarded as the existential basis of structure (Floridi 2004, 2008a, 2011a, b).
104 The same non-uniformities and differences de re are the basis of data and thus
105 information.
106 Floridi’s conception of the nature of information is transcendental in the sense
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107 that it could be applied to relations and therefore informational structure in

108 statistical and algebraic spaces, or in principle in any kind of space (noetic, abstract,
109 or physical, for example) in which relations qua differences de re can be taken to
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110 exist according to the definition of the space and its nature. If, according to its
111 definition and nature, a space can have any kind of de re nonuniformity or
112 difference in it that constitutes are relation—then information is thus realised in that
113 space.
114 Since, according to ontic structural realism, the structure realised by relations is
115 all that science and scientists can be realist about, the informational status of de re

1
1FL01 In engineering, and especially software engineering and computer architecture, black box abstraction
1FL02 involves reducing the representation of a complex subsystem to a ‘black box’ with only inputs and
1FL03 outputs to simplify the design process of the rest of the system connected to it, or which incorporates it.
2
2FL01 Thanks to a reviewer for this.

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116 differences that realise relations places information at the bottom of the ontology
117 according to Floridi’s ISR:
118 The outcome is informational structural realism, a version of ontic structural
119 realism supporting the ontological commitment to a view of the world as the
120 totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other…sig-
121 nificant consequence of ISR is that, as far as we can tell, the ultimate nature of
122 reality is informational, that is, it makes sense to adopt LoAs that commit our
123 theories to a view of reality as mind-independent and constituted by structural
124 objects that are neither substantial nor material (they might well be, but we
125 have no need to suppose them to be so) but informational (Floridi 2008a, 219,
126 241).

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127 In the Sect. 4 I will argue that this ontology is confused,3 but for now I return
128 briefly to digital ontologies or computational metaphysics.

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129 There are numerous computational metaphysics. However, the earliest is
130 arguably due to computing pioneer Konrad Zuse who proposed in the 1950s that
131 the universe might be either running on, or else somehow as, an enormous
132 computer. This distinction between the universe as computer versus being computed
133 is at the root of both many objections to pancomputationalism, as well as the
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134 motivation for many of its variants (Floridi 2009a, 152–153). However, it’s not our
135 concern here.
136 A quite different idea of a digital basis for material ontology was stated by
137 physicist John Wheeler. Wheeler dubbed it ‘‘it from bit’’, and although his interest
138 was in the data and information present in quantum superposition states and
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139 quantum information, his conception of natural ontology was specifically binary
140 digital:
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141 It from bit. Otherwise put, every it—every particle, every field of force, even
142 the spacetime continuum itself—derives its function, its meaning, its very
143 existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-
144 elicited answers to yes or no questions, binary choices, bits. It from bit
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145 symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom—at a
146 very deep bottom, in most instances—an immaterial source and explanation;
147 that what we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no
148 questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all
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149 things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory

150 universe (Wheeler 1989. My emphasis).
151 Floridi’s informational metaphysics also involves the setting of the existential
152 dependence of every material thing upon an immaterial source and explanation.
153 Wheeler’s immaterial source and basis is binary digital yes–no questions asked of
154 nature (to save the phenomena) by instruments in the setting of a specific cosmology
155 according to which the mind of the subjective observer is constructive—participates
156 in the creation—of the structure and behaviour of measured quantum systems.

3
3FL01 I am not the first to do so. See Barbour (2015) and Adriaans (2010).

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 ISR is Still a Digital Ontology

157 This unusual observer-constructive element arises because Wheeler’s binary

158 conception, in addition to being contextual to computer science of the time, is also
159 rooted in his famous commitment to the participatory and anthropic cosmological
160 principles respectively (the first due to Wheeler, and the latter to John Barrow and
161 Frank Tipler, Meijer 2015). Wheeler’s somewhat esoteric (but nevertheless
162 influential) theories were aligned with the project of regarding measuring agents
163 and their subjective perception as not only intrinsic to the system of measurement
164 and observation—but as constructive and creative of it. This also influenced
165 Wheeler’s concept of epistemic structural realism, according to which the structures
166 about which scientific realists can be realist are intra-theory and inter-theory
167 structures based upon relations obtaining in formal representations such as
168 equations.

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169 Floridi’s metaphysics trucks no such subjective participatory-constructivist
170 cosmology, and instead posits a minimal Kantian transcendental basis: ontologically

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171 neutral (with respect to substances and such) de re (minimal or binary4) non-
172 uniformities or differences. Nevertheless, in Floridi’s metaphysics just as in
173 Wheeler’s ‘‘It from bit’’ thesis, something not material or even substantial is taken
174 to be at the bottom of the ontology. Moreover, as I will discuss in Sect. 4, there is a
175 subjectivist epistemic component to ISR by virtue of the reconciliatory purpose of
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176 ISR with respect to epistemic structural realism and ontic structural realism: the
177 deployment of the concept of levels of abstraction involves an ineliminable
178 epistemic and teleological component. These factors set ISR apart from ontic
179 structural realisms, most of which are physicalist in their commitments: the
180 structure about which scientists and science are to be realist is physical somehow
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181 (Ladyman 2011, 2014; Kyle Stanford et al. 2010; Ladyman and Ross 2013; Cao
182 2003) [More recent offerings in ontic structural realist theses have tended to favour
183 regarding structure as stochastic at bottom, or else as reducing to concrete
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184 modalities, but retain the commitment to materialism (French 2014; Ladyman and
185 Ross 2013)].
186 It has been observed that Wheeler’s very binary (yes–no, on–off, 0–1) digital
187 conception of digital ontology was perhaps inadequately conceived, since he was
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188 concerned with the ontological status of non-binary superposition states and
189 accompanying quantum indeterminacy, which is dealt with comprehensively using
190 irrational numbers and probabilistic approximations (although complex numbers
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191 can be deployed in some cases):

192 Is Wheeler’s reasoning…self[-]consistent? Wheeler argued that all reality
193 arises from the posing of yes/no questions. Yet, his restriction to yes/no
194 question ascribes only rational numbers to what he considered reality … he
195 needs the trichotomy (smaller, equal to, or larger than) of real numbers as to
196 arrive at complete sets of vector spaces and in particular singularities. Yes/no
197 as a binary choice should be extended (Meijer 2015, 58–561). See also (Planat
198 2014, 209–210).

4
4FL01 Binary here simply means two part: there is no lexical or symbolic encoding of values (0 and 1) or else
4FL02 labelling such ‘true’ and ‘false’.

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199 Apart from Wheeler’s ‘‘it from bit’’ ontology, digital ontologies are largely
200 pancomputationalisms. Pancomputationalism is characterised by additional algo-
201 rithmic and computational posits present in the theories of computer scientists Zuse
202 and (more recently) Fredkin, and to some extent by that of mathematician Stephen
203 Wolfram (Bynum 2014, 125–126; Floridi 2009a, 154–55). Fredkin’s theory requires
204 that nature be regarded as necessarily discrete at a fundamental level digital and that
205 there be no ultimately continuous processes in nature. In this, Fredkin embraces
206 Einstein’s assertion of the probable discrete nature of the world following from the
207 discrete (at Planck length and time) nature of quantum phenomena and objects
208 (Einstein 1950).
209 Fredkin maintains that the solution is to be found with information theory.
210 According to his Finite Nature hypothesis the universe is not only computational by

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211 virtue of being fundamentally digital/discrete, with the quantisation of reality being
212 at Planck length, but also itself a computational process (Fredkin 1992, 116–17).5

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213 Pieter Adriaans and Johan Van Bentham refer to approaches like Fredkin’s under
214 the broad heading of ‘metaphysical computationalism’, and the Zuse and Fredkin
215 varieties are only two of a number of proposed models which differ on the basis of
216 such factors as whether or not the universe is considered to be somehow encoding
217 messages, and whether the interpretation of what it is doing should be algorithmic or
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218 otherwise computational (Adriaans and van Benthem 2008, 8:12). There are
219 numerous versions and re-interpretations of this metaphysical outlook, which has
220 also come to be referred to as or under the rubric of computational philosophy
221 (Fredkin calls it ‘digital philosophy’) and which roughly encompasses digital
222 physics and pancomputationalism.
223
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Wheeler’s above explicitly binary statement of his ‘‘it from bit’’ emphasises
224 neither (cellular or other) automata nor algorithms, but binary questions about states
225 in nature (Floridi 2011a, 91). However, there are other less binary interpretations of
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226 ‘‘it from bit’’ which allow quantum superposition states and what are now
227 recognised as Qubits as the computational and thus ontological basis of nature
228 (Vedral 2010; Lloyd 2013). Other computational metaphysics don’t require ‘‘It
229 From Bit’’ ontology, but allow it (Dodig Crnkovic and Giovagnoli 2013).
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230 Floridi rejects Wheeler’s ontological stance as arising from an illegitimate

231 extrapolation from digital elements of physics and instrument-based enquiry. Floridi
232 primarily takes issue with the algorithmic and computational elements that he
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233 regards as part of digital ontology. He mounts a Kantian and (somewhat liturgical6)
234 attack on digital ontology by way of an argument from epistemic access (Floridi
235 2009a, 161–63). He deploys the concept of levels of according to which principle
236 certain ontological and systems structural and dynamical minutiae are removed
237 from the formal (often mathematical) schema of the model of a system for
238 readability, ease of manipulation, and clarity.

5
5FL01 See also (Zenil 2013, 3–5; Vedral 2010; Brooks 2012a, b; Beavers and Harrison 2012, 349–351;
5FL02 Chaitin 2012, 280–281; Hutter 2012, 408–412).
6
6FL01 Inconsequentially, he uses angelic Biblical characters to illustrate his argument.

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239 3 Floridi’s Attack

240 Floridi’s strategy is to demonstrate that as far as anyone knows or could know in
241 principle—the analogue–digital dichotomy for the possibilities of the material world
242 posed by proponents and opponents of digital ontology may be a non-sequitur:
243 reality may be neither analogue nor digital. Thus, postulating that the universe is
244 either digital or analogue at bottom cannot get started in principle (or more to the
245 point, should not), since at best the dichotomy is false and the ontological question
246 is not binary, but open.
247 Floridi’s (thought experimental) argument proceeds as follows. Archangel
248 Michael can objectively see and manipulate the true stuff of being: the stuff that is
249 the ontological basis of everything upon which everything material existentially

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250 depends. Floridi refers to this using Kant’s rubric of the noumenal (162.) In phase/
251 stage 1 of the argument, Michael Dedekind cuts the noumenal stuff with his no-

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252 thickness sword. If the cuts find gaps in the stuff (there are only rational number
253 physical quantities and no material continuum matching irrational numbers), then
254 the world is digital, else there is an un-Dedikind-cuttable irrational continuum and
255 the noumenal stuff is continuous.
256 In stage 2 of the thought experiment (63–68) analogue-only perceiving, epistemic
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257 only agent Archangel Raphael—who has no direct access to the noumenal stuff—
258 gets encoded messages from the noumenal-stuff-cutting Michael, who is treated
259 information-theoretically as a source of information. The approach is reminiscent of
260 the proposal of James Ladyman and Don Ross that scientific realism hangs on the
261 question of physical information channels based upon scientific instruments
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262 between the objective natural world as a set of sources, and the epistemic
263 receiver(s) (Ladyman et al. 2007, 208, 210, 212–214).
264 The upshot of the thought experiment is that Raphael can never really
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265 immediately know what is going on except for Michael’s messages, which he
266 must decode using an analogue to digital converter. Raphael is perpetually limited
267 to indirect access to the noumenal stuff via levels of epistemic abstraction overlaid
268 on the digital output from analogue to digital converters (ADC) and digital to
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269 analogue converters (DAC) set up by another agent—Uriel. Uriel is like the arbiter
270 of the instruments and theory of science: he controls the level of abstraction at
271 which Raphael has access to the messages about the noumenal stuff. So, in the
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272 scenario Dedekind-cut-sword-wielding Michael gets direct real stuff information

273 about digital-analogue status of the noumenal stuff and sends it to Raphael, who is
274 only capable of analogue perception and can only impose analogue or digital
275 encodings upon the message or signal using Uriel’s DAC–ADC device(s). Floridi
276 cites as a confirmatory note that contemporary quantum physics provides evidence
277 that the content or nature of the structure of non-eliminative ontic structural realism
278 is in fact both continuous and discrete since particles of the standard model and
279 quantum systems have both wave like, field like, and point particle like properties,
280 and because according to quantum field theory particles emerge from what is
281 modelled as a continuous quantum field.

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282 So Floridi rejects the analogue–digital ontological speculative question as a false

283 dichotomy or either-or fallacy, regarding instead that there is an open ontological
284 question about the nature and content of the structure of non-eliminative ontic
285 structural realism, and that all can can be known—the only ontologies that exist—
286 are epistemically arbitrated at epistemic levels of abstraction. Raphael cannot
287 perceive anything except in analogue terms, and so cannot know what is happening
288 on the input side of source Michael, and certainly not on the basis of the
289 machinations and epistemic and informational levels of abstraction set up by Uriel.
290 The actual results of our best physics—indicating that the reality is some kind of
291 indiscernable wave-field-particle hybrid—are cited as evidence that there is an
292 either-or fallacy occurring in digital ontology debates and speculations. Floridi’s
293 conclusion is that the bottom of the ontology—for all intents and purposes—is only

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294 informational: Raphael’s (our) access to the Michael noumenal source (the natural
295 content of structure in non-eliminative ontic structural realism) is necessarily only

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296 by way or Uriel’s encoders and decoders, which unavoidably hide the true nature of
297 structure of the world from us.

298 4 ISR is Digital

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299 If I can demonstrate that ISR and its metaphysical basis still fall on one side of
300 Floridi’s false dichotomy enough, then that will present a problem for ISR in the
301 light of his rejection of digital ontology. However, a demonstration that the basis of
302 the ontology of ISR is in fact binary discretising and therefore digital is alone
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303 enough, and is my objective. Floridi seeks a kind of constructivist (he labels it
304 contructionist) middle-ground alternative to accommodate otherwise countervailing
305 objectivist and subjectivist structural realist intuitions. ISR is intended to be
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306 compatible with select elements of non-eliminative ontic structural realism and
307 epistemic structural realism. One motivation for this may be that Floridi seeks to
308 establish a strongly semantic theory of information that places the same conception
309 of data at the ontological base of information as he proposes sits at the bottom of
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310 ISR. Inspired in part by Dretske, Floridi has a naturalistic yet unavoidably
311 subjectivist conception of semantic information (Floridi 2008a, 2011a).
312 The open question in non-eliminative ontic structural realism is about the content
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313 or natural status of the mind, language, formalism, and computation independent
314 structure of the external phenomena that are the objects of scientific study. The
315 recent answer of James Ladyman and Don Ross is that the world is the ‘‘totality of
316 all nonredundant statistics’’ associated with irreducibly stochastic systems (Lady-
317 man and Ross 2013, 146–147). The answer of and Steven French is that the ultimate
318 structure of the universe is innately/inherently modal, and that is as much as we (or
319 ontic structural realists) can say about it (French 2014, 263–264). Floridi’s answer is
320 that it reduces to data that reduce to binary differences or non-uniformities, and that
321 there is no algorithmic or computational component. However, he reduces
322 information to data conceived of as binary discrete uniformities de re. They are
323 binary and discrete, according to the definition of data in ISR, and I suggest that this
324 is where the ontological trouble begins even for a transcendental structural realism.

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325 Floridi’s informational structural realism is not intended to directly unify ontic
326 structural realism and mathematical structuralism. It is intended to reconcile
327 elements of epistemic structural realism with ontic structural realism. Floridi does
328 not claim, as does (Gillies 2010), that mathematical structure might be a special case
329 of informational structure. However, he does say that data as nonuniformities
330 embodying relations [of differences de re at minimum—(Floridi 2011b, 356)] exist
331 in all kinds of spaces. Mathematical spaces are included in this. There is no
332 ontological existential dependency of physical data upon abstract data directly
333 implied, but Floridi asserts that the bottom of the ontology of the entire world is
334 informational in the very real sense that everything reduces to and existentially
335 depends upon information of the Kantian transcendental de re variety (Floridi
336 2011b, 361). These are purely relations entities:

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337 So, ontologically, data (as still unqualified concrete points of lack of
338 uniformity) are purely relational entities. Of course, from a structural

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339 perspective they remain unknowable in themselves (Floridi 2011b, 356).
340 Floridi’s ISR is non-eliminative about objects and emphasises the role of
341 relations between objects posited at various modelling levels of abstraction as the
342 existential basis of informational structure (Floridi 2011b, 348–350). Apparently it
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343 must be the way in which the data as relations are concrete that is unqualified.
344 If mathematical relations as binary difference de re data are the basis for
345 information, then it is not clear why such data can’t be part of a computational
346 process (Floridi 2009a). More to the point, however, they are indicative of a
347 commitment to a digital discretising ontology that bypasses Uriel’s ADC/DAC veil.
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348 Moreover, if abstract mathematical relations are the basis for information just as
349 concrete non-abstract relations as data are, it looks like the conflation of ontic and
350 mathematical structure is unavoidable (Ladyman 2014, S.E.P.5).
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351 Floridi’s transcendental metaphysics of information is not physicalist. It is,

352 however, unavoidably reductive. Floridi reduces semantic information and the
353 structure of ISR both to data, which he defines as nonuniformities constituting
354 difference relations at minimum. Floridi’s diaphoric non-uniformities de re—or data
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355 de re—are one of three diaphoric non-uniformity based data:

356 1. de re binary, discrete, abstract, constructed, and natural (but not necessarily
357 physical), as with non-uniform fields. Includes what I refer to as physical in re
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358 non-uniformities (Floridi 2008a, 235, 2009b, 2011b, 83–84).

359 2. de signo natural and constructed contrasting states.
360 3. de dicto natural and constructed contrasting symbols. (Floridi 2011b, 84. Note
361 the broad definition of syntax incorporating natural syntax.) See also (Floridi
362 2010a).
363
364 However, (II) arguably reduces to (I) according to Shannon’s theory and the
365 definition of sources as stochastic processes, and as dynamical systems according to
366 more recent mathematical communications theory. Even if it does not, it’s still
367 binary discretising, and in fact comes even closer metaphysically and definitionally
368 to Wheeler’s logical yes–no construction of digital ontology. The conceptual and

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369 ontological reduction of (II) to (I) is also compatible with a four dimensionalist view
370 of the universe, which is compatible with contemporary quantum mechanics and
371 cosmology in physics due to Minkowski’s spacetime model, which is also deployed
372 broadly in QFT—both in its Lagrangian and algebraic manifestations (Swanson
373 2017, 204–205, 215). This maps to the idea that information in natural information
374 sources (dynamical stochastic processes and systems) in science is encoded into
375 other mind, language, computation, and theory independent structures (from this
376 point onward, when I use the term I-obtaining, I mean language, mind, computation,
377 and theory independent). Complex encoding (which includes, among other things,
378 neurologically reducing physical information processing sources) delivers con-
379 structed CICS reducing representations.
380 (III) sounds even more like Wheeler’s yes–no it-from-bit posit. An objection is

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381 that there is no querying of nature using scientific instruments to get yes–no answers
382 about natural system states here. Yet in fact that is exactly what Floridi later deploys

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383 in his theory of strongly semantic information as supported by a correctness theory
384 of truth (Floridi 2011b). The idea of natural syntax follows easily from (III) and
385 from Shannon’s theory, according to which continuous, analogue, stochastic
386 information sources involve alphabets of such things as waveforms (Shannon 1998;
387 Gallager 2008, 16, 71–72, 85; Orlitsky and Santhanam 2003; Hayashi 2017, 599).
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388 Floridi is aware of the metaphysical quandry he faces in reconciling differences
389 de re with differences in re (concrete):
390 [I]f a datum is a difference, then a datum is an abstract thing, as a difference is
391 an abstract, rather than a concrete thing. But this raises a severe problem, if
392 data are supposed to be the basic objects in our structural realism (assuming
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393 that this is supposed to be structural realism as a possible position in

394 philosophy of science). For the structural objects need to be concrete things in
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395 the world…you cannot make concrete things out of abstract things, so
396 informational objects do not seem to be viable candidates for the objects in an
397 ontological structural realism fit for the philosophy of science. (Floridi 2008a,
398 247)
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399 Floridi fails to overcome the problem identified in his last sentence above. His
400 response is to attempt to accommodate both kinds of difference under a
401 transcendental schema. Note that his metaphysics is not scientific, since he
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402 classifies science and philosophy in the same category w.r.t empirical coherence and
403 quality:
404 …[I]t is true that no concrete things can come out of purely abstract things, at
405 least not without presupposing some metaphysical superpower that science
406 (and its philosophy) had better leave alone, if they can. However, no reason
407 has been offered to justify the view that data, understood as differentiae de re,
408 may not be as concrete as one’s definition of ‘‘concrete’’ may allow…Now,
409 the correct position is somewhere in between: as far as the argument in favour
410 of ISR is concerned, data are neither purely epistemic (abstract) entities…nor
411 ontic (concrete) differentiae de re inseparably coupled to some epistemic
412 component…They are (or need to be treated as) ontic (concrete) differences

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413 that are then epistemically exploitable as resources, by agents like us, for their
414 cognitive processes. (Ibid.)
415 Among other things, remarkable here is that there is a strong subjectivist
416 justification—requirement in fact—for the characterisation of data. At the same
417 time, there is an anti-platonist view, in keeping with the Kantian transcendental
418 framework.
419 [T]he data/differences in question can be concrete because we do not have to
420 assume something as radical and problematic as Leibniz’s…monads:
421 Eddington’s package hypothesis (Ur-relata ? Ur-relations) is sufficient to
422 support ontic structural realism.
423
424 Second, it should therefore be clear that the interpretation of structural objects

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425 as informational objects is not meant to replace an ontology of concrete things
426 with one of virtual entities…OOP provides us with an interesting example of

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427 how we may conceptualise structural objects and make sense of their
428 ontology…talking of concrete differentiae de re, and conceptualising them as
429 data structures and hence as informational objects, we are defending a version
430 of structural realism that supports at least an irreducible, fundamental dualism,
431 if not a Leibnizian pluralism, as the correct description of the ultimate nature
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432 of reality. (Ibid.)
433 Here Floridi avoids what French would likely identify as mathematical collapse.
434 What results is not an ontological dualism: the ontology has been declared to be
435 information at bottom. Yet he calls object-oriented computer programming (OOP)
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436 into metaphysical service and thus delivers the same outcome via a theory of
437 software systems modelling.
438 Object orient(at)ed programming was introduced in the early 1980s as a stage in
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439 evolution of programming methods. Prior to OOP, most code was procedural:
440 comprised of a set of recipes or procedures that made ‘procedure calls’ to other
441 procedures to implement functions. These procedures were kept in libraries and
442 main program files. This approach was not conducive to ease of implementation for
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443 very large projects, as the code would soon begin to exhibit what in the 1990s came
444 to be called design anti-patterns: chaotic ‘spaghetti code’ or cobbled together
445 ‘stovepipe systems’ that were hard to read and maintain and resulted in software
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446 whose modularity and structure was inadequate for achieving good software
447 qualities like scalability (growing the system) and interoperability (interfacing with
448 other programs).
449 OOP was a new structure that made the properties of encapsulation of data,
450 abstraction, modularity of code, and hierarchy of design intrinsic to the compiler
451 and program design architecture. In OOP the main code element is not procedures,
452 but objects. The objects encapsulate within them a specific data, access to which is
453 controlled by methods (or functions, or procedures) which are part of the object.
454 This results especially in modularity and a kind of black box abstraction conducive
455 to enabling larger program architectures with better software qualities. These
456 objects have an abstract representation in the design of the program, and also a
457 concrete implementation in the program running on a computer (a user looking at

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458 the various graphical elements in a computer game is looking at the behaviour of
459 such objects.) Of course the objects instantiated in the running implementation of
460 the program on the computer are also virtual in many cases: cars in computer games
461 are not real cars. This means that there are multiple conceptions of abstractness
462 involved: objects in code and in the running program are abstractions in the
463 engineering (LoA) sense, and the instantiated objects are often also abstract encoded
464 representations- via a different and additional set of considerations and information
465 channels—of real world entities (like cars) being modeled.
466 Abstraction in modelling in software engineering may be the relevant kind of
467 abstracting-out or abstracting-away-from kind of abstraction, but in software
468 systems modelling this applies to anything (abstracting away from the details of the
469 fictional beings in the code for a fantasy role playing game, for example.) In OOP, it

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470 is frequently the case that engineers abstract away from—other nonconcrete abstract
471 objects or structures: data storage implementations, communications protocols,

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472 network stack architecutres, and many other features of operating systems and
473 computer systems and their code and programs (It should be noted also that in
474 software development and engineering, and object in code and a data structure are
475 two categorically different things).
476 Floridi analyses the basis of digital ontology as algorithmic on top of differences
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477 de re (which I am asserting is discrete and digital-binary). He cites the four theses
478 (1) the nature of the physical universe is discrete, (2) thus the universe can be
479 modelled/represented using discrete values, (3) the universe’s evolution as a system
480 is algorithmically computable, and (4) the laws of the universe are deterministic.
481 Theses (1) and (2) give away the neo-Pythagorean nature of digital
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482 ontology…reality can be decomposed into ultimate, discrete indivisibilia.

483 Philosophers…accept that a necessary feature of what it means for something
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484 to be digital is that of being discrete…Thesis (3) interprets the neo-

485 Pythagorean ontology in computational terms: the ultimate, discrete indivis-
486 ibilia are actually computable digits,…Thus, a digital ontology’’[…] is based
487 on two concepts: bits, like the binary digits in a computer, correspond to the
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488 most microscopic representation of state information, and the temporal

489 evolution of state is a digital informational process similar to what goes on in
490 the circuitry of a computer processor.’’ (Floridi 2009a, 152–153).
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491 I note first of all that it discretisation does not directly entail or require binary or
492 digital discretisation, but Fredkin and Zuse did specifically defer to the model of a
493 digital computer as the basis for their digital ontology hypotheses, and so I think the
494 binary discretisation is intended as Floridi documents. This would not be so clear in
495 Wheeler’s case, since his initial and overall concerns were with the information and
496 data of quantum systems in superposition states and during measurement and
497 decoherence. Yet, as I explained in Sect. 2, Wheeler’s statement of ‘It from Bit’ is
498 specifically binary-digital or yes-no/on-off in nature.
499 I suggest that there is a metaphysical problem with the anti-digital ontology
500 component of ISR. It is at this point where Floridi constructs his conception of data
501 as binary differences de re that I think the problem is most fully revealed. Binary
502 differences de re are effectively—actually in fact—digital bits. Floridi has simply

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503 descended from the Wheeler It-from-bit yes–no binary to the kind of underlying
504 binary that is used to implement digital computers. The participatory cosmology is
505 absent, and yet the transcendental It matters little whether the binary nonuniformity
506 in question is de re or in re—only that it is binary and obviously digital: one side of
507 the non-uniformity is always not the other side or not like the other side—the
508 negation of it. Floridi has traded a predicate logic yes–no for a boolean algebraic
509 yes–no. His it still comes from bit, because his information reduces to what are
510 effectively binary discretisations whose binary oppositional relation is inherently
511 digital in a similar way to the contrasting electrical on and off states in a transistor.
512 Floridi elides the algorithmic (pan)computational component of digital ontology,
513 yet he retains the digital component: the binary discrete relational difference de re.
514 Abstract or transcendental or not—it’s discretised, it’s binary, and it’s unequivo-

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515 cally digital. It follows that we should distinguish ISR from digital ontology, but
516 only on the basis that it is in fact a more ontologically austere digital ontology. It is

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517 unavoidable in Floridi’s Kantian transcendentalist LoA-exploiting schema that the
518 bottom of the ISR ontology is still the same digital bits as are present in digital
519 ontology, and I suggest that it is the digital ontological bottom that makes the
520 computational ontology of Fredkin and Zuse digital, while it is the algorithmic
521 component that makes them—conceptually and practically—computational. Some
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522 pancomputationalists have no commitment to the physicality of the digital binary
523 bits that they argue might be at the bottom of the ontology: their naturalisms are
524 liberal, and in some recent cases like that of Max Tegmark’s MUH and Nick
525 Bostrom’s simulation arguments, no physicality of the underlying computational
526 substrates are assumed. In fact in Tegmark’s hypothesis, abstract mathematical
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527 structures and entities can be viewed as realised on a Pythagoreaon basis or as

528 having any one of a variety of Platonist existential groundings. Moreover, it’s not a
529 digital ontology, because there is no assertion of digital nature. There is such an
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530 assertion with ISR.

531 Thus, although ISR has no algorithmic component, it is still a digital ontology. I
532 suggest that what Floridi is in fact averse to is a computational ontology, or the
533 computational and algorithmic components of what he has called digital ontology.
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534 Shannon’s discrete formula for measuring information in a stochastic physical

535 process or source was applied to continuous systems as a mathematical
536 convenience, but this application of the discrete system or model to the continuous
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537 case, was, as Shannon himself said, an approximation. In other words, Shannon
538 regarded the measure of information/entropy of continuous sources as a discrete
539 idealisation. This involves information loss. Moreover, in quantum terms the
540 decision to equate bits with particles seems arbitrary at best given that QFT says that
541 particles are emergent non-binary features of the quantum field (Floridi 2009a,
542 158–159). Then there is the problem that rejecting digital ontology and Wheeler’s it
543 from bit thesis involves rejecting (in most cases) the idea that yes–no questions/
544 answers are the necessary basis for determining information content. If something
545 like qubits are more appropriate at the quantum scale: this does not involve yes–no
546 questions/answers again. Simply stated, qubits as based upon quantum systems are
547 not binary—and for good reason. The non-binariness is due to the strange stochastic
548 nature of quantum systems.

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549 Floridi uses of the concept of layers of abstraction (LoA) that is important in
550 computer science for systems modelling, computer architecture, simulation, and
551 software modelling and design to help arbitrate the relationship between I-obtaining
552 structure and models (Floridi 2008b, 2011b, 47–50). However, he does this without
553 any commitment to the physicality of the I-obtaining world or its structure, nor any
554 commitment to its nature or content. James Ladyman and Don Ross stop short in
555 their non-eliminative ontic structural realism at physical statisticalism and
556 irreducible stochasticity as the bottom of structure. French stops at naturalised 28
557 inherently modal content (French 2014). Tegmark and (Gillies 2010) stop at
558 mathematical structure as the I-obtaining structure (so the computation independent
559 component of my definition of I-obtaining may not apply.) Floridi stops at
560 transcendental non-commitment in scientific realism about content of external

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561 structure of natural systems and phenomena, and at a binary digital difference
562 relations de re.

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563 5 Conclusion

564 I have argued that in providing an informational alternative to digital ontology,

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565 Floridi has in fact at best rejected a (pan)computational metaphysics and developed
566 an alternative digital metaphysics or digital ontology. Although ISR is a Kantian
567 transcendentalist ontology, it places information at the bottom of the ontology,
568 instead of Wheeler’s digital yes or no binary. The problem with this is that the
569 definition and conception of information that Floridi then offers is data-centric, and
570
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his data reduce to binary nonuniformities. Data reduce to an ontologically neutral

571 binary non-uniformity that is thus, by its very definition, digital. It is not Wheeler’s
572 yes–no logical–linguistic kind of digital on the face of it, but it is exactly the kind of
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573 binary digital that exists in a digital computer transistor wafer and the gate logic that
574 reduces to it in a silicon digital computer implementation. Floridi has exchanged the
575 Wheeler It-from bit yes–no binary to the kind of ontic binary that is used to
576 physically implement transistor logic. His difference de re can be a difference in re,
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577 and this gives the game away. The ontic ground of information in ISR is still binary
578 and obviously digital and Floridi has traded a predicate logic yes–no for a boolean
579 algebraic implementation yes–no. His it still comes from bit, because his
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580 information reduces to bit.

581 There might not be a necessary Wheeler style yes–no question, but the ISR
582 ontology bottoms out at a de re digital binary—a bit. It may not call upon an
583 algorithmic component, but I suggest that having a digital bit as the basis of one’s
584 ontology makes it as digital an ontology as one can have. Moreover, since Floridi
585 insists that all ontologies are epistemically bound—that they are all epistemic in
586 fact—then the algorithmic component of digital ontology that Floridi rejects has
587 arguably re-entered the ontology in the form of epistemic algorithms for
588 construction and conception.
589 I agree with Floridi’s rejection of digital ontology, but the ISR that he has
590 developed is still both effectively and metaphysically a digital ontology, albeit in a

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591 metaphysical form that does not call upon (sentiential, lexical, or lexemic7)
592 propositional content, inquisitorial content (yes–no questions asked of nature using
593 measuring instruments and accompanying theories as is the case with John
594 Wheelers ‘It from Bit’ strategy), or theory-centric conceptions of relations and
595 structure (where the relations comprising structure are those of theories as is the
596 case with epistemic structural realism). Floridi is thus still looking through Uriel’s
597 DAC/ADC veil and proposing a discrete digital I-obtaining structural and
598 informational ontology.
599
600 References
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