{"id":58,"date":"2014-09-04T09:40:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-04T09:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/seat\/?p=58"},"modified":"2014-09-04T09:40:06","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T09:40:06","slug":"and-another-paper-at-issei-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"And another paper at ISSEI 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

As well as the presentation on ‘Measuring Information’ in the Information <\/em>Workshop run by Chris Bissell<\/a>, I gave a presentation on ‘Information and Religion’ in a workshop entitled Religion and Reason Facing Law and Science<\/em> at ISSEI<\/a>. (My presentation was originally accepted for a Workshop on ‘Science and Religion’ but that workshop was cancelled.)<\/p>\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n

Increasing numbers of workers in an ever-widening range of disciplines have been discovering that a theory of information provides new insights into their field.\u00a0 Hans Christian von Baeyer, for example, argued in his 2003 book that information is the new language of science. Wolfgang Hofkirchner argues that our understanding of information is undergoing a paradigm shift with far-reaching consequences, and the philosopher of Information Luciano Floridi has put forward the thesis that information underpins a fourth revolution (following the three due to Copernicus, Darwin and Freud) which repositions our sense of identity. After the fourth revolution (which actually started the moment our ancestors painted on the walls of their caves) we are informational agents \u2013 inforgs \u2013 dispersed in an infosphere.<\/p>\n

Albert Borgmann identified three roles for information: information about<\/em> reality; information for<\/em> reality and information as<\/em> reality.\u00a0 This presentation explores\u00a0 information about<\/em>, for<\/em> and as<\/em> religion.<\/p>\n

Information about<\/em> religion concerns the use of information-thinking to describe and understand religion. Gregory Bateson\u2019s widely-cited definition of information as \u2018a difference which makes a difference\u2019 might itself be a description of religion. To be a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew\u2026\u00a0 is to be different from people who are not that:\u00a0 and it makes a difference to your life. To an extent this is just saying that religion is about identity and identity is an informational concept, but understanding religious identity in terms of information brings with it new insights which potentially provide different ways of thinking about religion. I have argued elsewhere, for example, that information is inherently provisional: that it cannot ever be anything else but provisional. So religious identity, too, from an informational perspective, cannot be anything other than provisional.<\/p>\n

Information for<\/em> religion concerns information as a tool of religion. Borgmann discusses information for reality as specification: defining and shaping reality, and so, similarly, information defines and shapes religion.\u00a0 Religious texts might be interpreted as the specification manuals of religions, but the unwritten traditions are information as well, and by understanding the nature of information we can look for insights into how religions are maintained and passed on from generation to generation.<\/p>\n

Information is core to many religious formulations.\u00a0 Creations stories, for example, recognise the role of the informational concepts of difference and identity, as in the Genesis description of God separating night from day and land from sea, and the first man, Adam, naming the animals.<\/p>\n

More recently some writers have been exploring how ideas which subvert materialism\/physicalism and emphasise the primacy of information might open doors to a world-view that aligns with religious formulations.<\/p>\n

Information as<\/em> religion, is information replacing religion or delivering a religion itself. For some writers information thinking provides the basis for something close to a grand narrative.\u00a0 Hofkirchner, for example, seeks from an information science paradigm a new Weltanschauung: a new world-view; a new philosophy; a new way of thinking, and sees in this a route to addressing the global problems that arise from technological development, enabling a global, sustainable, information society. Information has been proposed as an alternative to religion as the basis of ethics, too. Floridi has spoken of an information ethics which \u201cholds that every entity, as an expression of being, has a dignity, constituted by its mode of existence and essence\u201d and that \u201cthere is something even more elemental than life, namely being […] and something even more fundamental than suffering, namely entropy<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The potential scope of an exploration of the value of information ideas to religion is vast. This presentation suggests a framework for thinking about the field and points to a few specific examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As well as the presentation on ‘Measuring Information’ in the Information Workshop run by Chris Bissell, I gave a presentation on ‘Information and Religion’ in a workshop entitled Religion and Reason Facing Law and Science at ISSEI. (My presentation was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,6,7],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-workshop","tag-information","tag-issei","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/terg\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}