Review of Information A Very Short Introduction
Information: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) (Paperback)
Review, by Lee J. Whittington
Sat in a small office for a seminar on modal logic, my then logic tutor told me that "if you read something once and do not understand, it is your fault. If you read something twice and do not understand, it is the authors fault". This is something to be kept in mind when reading this book.
The title should not fool the reader. This is not "Information for Dummies". The book can be technical and difficult requiring occasional reflective breaks. Unlike some of the other VSI series, to understand the book properly will take more than three or four hours.
However, this is where Prof. Floridi comes into his own. Using many elegant metaphors, analogies and examples, Floridi provides some of the intuitive first steps required to understand what would be baffling concepts. My favourite metaphor is that used for understanding quantum superposition, whereby we are asked to think of a Escher painting. The use of a simple example (John and his blinking car battery light) pervades the book which helps the reader grasp the interconnectedness of the various uses of information, which may otherwise simply look like equivocations.
The philosophy in the book is distributed throughout, but culminates in the final two chapters. It is somewhat a shame that more of the philosophy of information and information could not be covered, but then 1. The book would not be a short introduction and 2. The book would not be a way into the subject but on the subject. I find some of Floridi's ethical moves profound and others a little harder to swallow, not because they are implausible, but because they are novel enough to invoke at least some scepticism.
Information: A Very Short Introduction is not an easy book, but an extremely rewarding one if you are at least willing to blame yourself for not understanding everything the first time your eyes glean the text.
Review, by Lee J. Whittington
Sat in a small office for a seminar on modal logic, my then logic tutor told me that "if you read something once and do not understand, it is your fault. If you read something twice and do not understand, it is the authors fault". This is something to be kept in mind when reading this book.
The title should not fool the reader. This is not "Information for Dummies". The book can be technical and difficult requiring occasional reflective breaks. Unlike some of the other VSI series, to understand the book properly will take more than three or four hours.
However, this is where Prof. Floridi comes into his own. Using many elegant metaphors, analogies and examples, Floridi provides some of the intuitive first steps required to understand what would be baffling concepts. My favourite metaphor is that used for understanding quantum superposition, whereby we are asked to think of a Escher painting. The use of a simple example (John and his blinking car battery light) pervades the book which helps the reader grasp the interconnectedness of the various uses of information, which may otherwise simply look like equivocations.
The philosophy in the book is distributed throughout, but culminates in the final two chapters. It is somewhat a shame that more of the philosophy of information and information could not be covered, but then 1. The book would not be a short introduction and 2. The book would not be a way into the subject but on the subject. I find some of Floridi's ethical moves profound and others a little harder to swallow, not because they are implausible, but because they are novel enough to invoke at least some scepticism.
Information: A Very Short Introduction is not an easy book, but an extremely rewarding one if you are at least willing to blame yourself for not understanding everything the first time your eyes glean the text.
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