106 Informational environments
a certain class of technological artefacts will be porous, where both mapping regularities and kinds of sources might be subject to modification. Laboratory-based
scientific observations will be a case in point here, where not only the conditions
of observation have to be methodically and carefully crafted but also their object
and the way in which it provides information about natural affairs. Simulations
of world affairs will provide another example of the difficulties in distinguishing
between creating new modes of uptake of natural information and the creation
of artificial structures that introduce new kinds of information: is the simulation
intended to refer to a concrete world affair or to some kind of general, idealised
set of world affairs, or even to a fictional one, and how is reference accomplished
in these cases? I will discuss this issue in Chapter 8.
Leaving most of these interesting and relevant complexities of the status of
artificially created information in science aside, the paradigm of changes in the
informational environments of human beings will be the introduction of technologies that, without necessarily interfering with the ecologically relevant conditions
in people’s environments, alter the way in which information that is relevant to
their activities is available to them, so as to alter the way in which they collect
and act upon that information. In some cases, the kind of information available
to them will have changed, too. These are the kinds of change that I will discuss
in Part II in some more detail. The argument will look into two complementary
directions: first, what do we do when we add something to an informational environment? We might be extending the reach of perception and cognition, but there
are several meanings to what that extension is, or might be. Second, what happens
when informational environments are changed? Perception and action might be
affected in several ways, and strategies might be required for accommodating
for those changes. The effects of the extensions in question and the strategies of
accommodating them will be worth exploring by means of taking a closer look at
some examples of current and emerging technologies.
Note
1 I have to thank Volker Munz and Harald Wiltsche (personal conversation) for highlighting this problematic aspect of an important subclass of philosophical thought experiments. Although the possible worlds and counterfactual conditions thus conjured up
are problematic with respect to the conditions of real-world perception, the thoughtexperimental method as such echoes a basic understanding of experimental practice:
selecting, isolating and manipulating some variable of the target and measuring the
results. The analogy will be much more substantial for scientific thought experiments
though.
a certain class of technological artefacts will be porous, where both mapping regularities and kinds of sources might be subject to modification. Laboratory-based
scientific observations will be a case in point here, where not only the conditions
of observation have to be methodically and carefully crafted but also their object
and the way in which it provides information about natural affairs. Simulations
of world affairs will provide another example of the difficulties in distinguishing
between creating new modes of uptake of natural information and the creation
of artificial structures that introduce new kinds of information: is the simulation
intended to refer to a concrete world affair or to some kind of general, idealised
set of world affairs, or even to a fictional one, and how is reference accomplished
in these cases? I will discuss this issue in Chapter 8.
Leaving most of these interesting and relevant complexities of the status of
artificially created information in science aside, the paradigm of changes in the
informational environments of human beings will be the introduction of technologies that, without necessarily interfering with the ecologically relevant conditions
in people’s environments, alter the way in which information that is relevant to
their activities is available to them, so as to alter the way in which they collect
and act upon that information. In some cases, the kind of information available
to them will have changed, too. These are the kinds of change that I will discuss
in Part II in some more detail. The argument will look into two complementary
directions: first, what do we do when we add something to an informational environment? We might be extending the reach of perception and cognition, but there
are several meanings to what that extension is, or might be. Second, what happens
when informational environments are changed? Perception and action might be
affected in several ways, and strategies might be required for accommodating
for those changes. The effects of the extensions in question and the strategies of
accommodating them will be worth exploring by means of taking a closer look at
some examples of current and emerging technologies.
Note
1 I have to thank Volker Munz and Harald Wiltsche (personal conversation) for highlighting this problematic aspect of an important subclass of philosophical thought experiments. Although the possible worlds and counterfactual conditions thus conjured up
are problematic with respect to the conditions of real-world perception, the thoughtexperimental method as such echoes a basic understanding of experimental practice:
selecting, isolating and manipulating some variable of the target and measuring the
results. The analogy will be much more substantial for scientific thought experiments
though.