Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium

Portada
University of Chicago Press, 1999 M04 15 - 274 páginas
Holding On to Reality is a brilliant history of information, from its inception in the natural world to its role in the transformation of culture to the current Internet mania and is attendant assets and liabilities. Drawing on the history of ideas, the details of information technology, and the boundaries of the human condition, Borgmann illuminates the relationship between things and signs, between reality and information.

"[Borgmann] has offered a stunningly clear definition of information in Holding On to Reality. . . . He leaves room for little argument, unless one wants to pose the now vogue objection: I guess it depends on what you mean by nothing."—Paul Bennett, Wired

"A superb anecdotal analysis of information for a hype-addled age."—New Scientist

"This insightful and poetic reflection on the changing nature of information is a wonderful antidote to much of the current hype about the 'information revolution.' Borgmann reminds us that whatever the reality of our time, we need 'a balance of signs and things' in our lives."—Margaret Wertheim, LA Weekly

Dentro del libro

Contenido

The Decline of Meaning and the Rise of Information
9
The Nature of Information
17
Ancestral Information
24
From Landmarks to Letters
38
The Rise of Literacy
47
Cultural Information Information for Reality
55
Producing Information Writing and Structure
57
Producing Information Measures and Grids
73
Technological Information Information as Reality
123
Elementary Measures
125
Basic Structures
141
Transparency and Control
166
Virtuality and Ambiguity
179
Fragility and Noise
193
Information and Reality
213
Notes
235

Realizing Information Reading
85
Realizing Information Playing
93
Realizing Information Building
105

Otras ediciones - Ver todas

Términos y frases comunes

Pasajes populares

Página 6 - Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Acerca del autor (1999)

Albert Borgmann is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montana. He is the author of Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life, Crossing the Postmodern Divide, and Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium, all published by the University of Chicago Press.

Información bibliográfica