Review of "information - A Very Short Introduction"

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Et cetera: Steven Poole's non-fiction choice

On information, trade and brands


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Steven Poole
The Guardian, Saturday 15 May 2010
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Information: A Very Short Introduction, by Luciano Floridi (Oxford, £7.99)

We live, or so we are told, in an "information economy", so we had better be sure what we mean when we say "information". Floridi's splendidly pellucid text lays out the meanings of information in the mathematical theory of communication, computing, thermodynamics, biology, and economics, offering thoughtful examples and helpful warnings against loose talk – as when he enumerates a list of commonly used verbs that do not describe what genes do with information (they don't "send", "contain", "describe", "carry", or "encode" it).

Having completed his task of scrupulous exegesis, Floridi argues in favour of a global "information ethics", under which "informational systems" in general are the fundamental units of moral agency rather than (just) living beings, and "evil" appears to be defined as increasing the entropy of the "infosphere". This approach promises at least some piquant redescriptions of problems and a new angle on planetary ecology, though some details remain to be filled in. If the term didn't carry such negative connotations, I would be tempted to call Floridi's book a shining example of infotainment. But it does, so I won't.

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