Infosphere (''information'' + -''sphere''), analogous to a
biosphere
The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be ...
, is a
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
realm of
information
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
,
data
In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted ...
,
knowledge
Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distinc ...
, and
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inquir ...
, populated by informational entities called
''inforgs'' (or, ''informational organisms'').
Though one example is
cyberspace
Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
, infospheres are not limited to purely
online
In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...
environments; they can include both
offline
In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...
and analogue information.
History
The first documented use of the ''infosphere'' was in 1970 by
Kenneth E. Boulding
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (; January 18, 1910 – March 18, 1993) was an English-born American economist, educator, peace activist, and interdisciplinary philosopher.David LatzkoKenneth E. Boulding Commentsat personal.psu.edu. Accessed 24 April 200 ...
, who viewed it as one among the six "spheres" in his own system (the others being the sociosphere,
biosphere
The biosphere (from Greek βίος ''bíos'' "life" and σφαῖρα ''sphaira'' "sphere"), also known as the ecosphere (from Greek οἶκος ''oîkos'' "environment" and σφαῖρα), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be ...
,
hydrosphere
The hydrosphere () is the combined mass of water found on, under, and above the surface of a planet, minor planet, or natural satellite. Although Earth's hydrosphere has been around for about 4 billion years, it continues to change in shape. This ...
,
lithosphere
A lithosphere () is the rigid, outermost rocky shell of a terrestrial planet or natural satellite. On Earth, it is composed of the crust (geology), crust and the portion of the upper mantle (geology), mantle that behaves elastically on time sca ...
, and
atmosphere
An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...
). Boulding claimed:
e infosphere...consists of inputs and outputs of conversation, books, television, radio, speeches, church services, classes, and lectures as well as information received from the physical world by personal observation.... It is clearly a segment of the sociosphere in its own right, and indeed it has considerable claim to dominate the other segments. It can be argued that development of any kind is essentially a learning process and that it is primarily dependent on a network of information flows.
In 1971, the term was used in a ''
Time Magazine
''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...
'' book review by R.Z. Sheppard, who wrote:
In much the way that fish cannot conceptualize water or birds the air, man barely understands his infosphere, that encircling layer of electronic and typographical smog composed of cliches from journalism, entertainment, advertising and government.
In 1980, it was used by
Alvin Toffler
Alvin Eugene Toffler (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016) was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on th ...
in his book ''
The Third Wave'', in which he writes:
What is inescapably clear, whatever we choose to believe, is that we are altering our infosphere fundamentally...we are adding a whole new strata of communication to the social system. The emerging Third Wave infosphere makes that of the Second Wave era - dominated by its mass media, the post office, and the telephone - seem hopelessly primitive by contrast.
Toffler's definition proved to be prophetic, as the use of ''infosphere'' in the 1990s expanded beyond media to speculate about the common
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
of the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
,
society
A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Socie ...
and
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
.
In his book ''Digital Dharma'', Steven Vedro writes:
Emerging from what French philosopher-priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ( (); 1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955) was a French Jesuit priest, scientist, paleontologist, theologian, philosopher and teacher. He was Darwinian in outlook and the author of several influential theological and philos ...
called the shared noosphere
The noosphere (alternate spelling noösphere) is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the Russian-Ukrainian Soviet biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and the French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernads ...
of collective human thought, invention and spiritual seeking, the Infosphere is sometimes used to conceptualize a field that engulfs our physical, mental and etheric bodies; it affects our dreaming and our cultural life. Our evolving nervous system has been extended, as media sage Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan (July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980) was a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory. He studied at the University of Manitoba and the University of Cambridge. He began his ...
predicted in the early 1960s, into a global embrace.
In 1999, the term was reinterpreted by
Luciano Floridi
Luciano Floridi (; born 16 November 1964) is an Italian people, Italian and British people, British philosopher. He holds a double appointment as professor of philosophy and ethics of information at the University of Oxford, Oxford Internet In ...
, on the basis of biosphere, to denote the whole informational environment constituted by all informational entities (including informational agents), their properties, interactions,
processes, and mutual relations.
[. New York: Routledge.] Floridi writes:
e computerised description and control of the physical environment, together with the digital construction of a synthetic world, are, finally, intertwined with a fourth area of application, represented by the transformation of the encyclopadeic macrocosm of data, information, ideas, knowledge, beliefs, codified experiences, memories, images, artistic interpretations, and other mental creations into a global ''infosphere''. The infosphere is the whole system of services and documents, encoded in any semiotic
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...
and physical media, whose contents include any sort of data, information and knowledge...with no limitations either in size, typology, or logical structure. Hence it ranges from alphanumeric texts (i.e., texts, including letters, numbers, and diacritic symbols) and multimedia products to statistical data, from films and hypertexts to whole text-banks and collections of pictures, from mathematical formulae to sounds and videoclips.
To him, it is an environment comparable to, but different from
cyberspace
Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday rea ...
(which is only one of its sub-regions, as it were), since it also includes offline and analogue spaces of information. According to Floridi, it is possible to equate the infosphere to the totality of
Being
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
; this equation leads him to an informational
ontology
In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality.
Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...
.
Manipulation of the Infosphere
The manipulation of the infosphere is subject to
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
and its rules. Information is considered to be
Shannon information
In information theory, the information content, self-information, surprisal, or Shannon information is a basic quantity derived from the probability of a particular event occurring from a random variable. It can be thought of as an alternative wa ...
and is treated in a physical sense separate from energy and matter. The manipulations to the infosphere include the erasing, transfer, duplication, and destruction of information.
Use in popular culture
The term was used by
Dan Simmons
Dan Simmons (born April 4, 1948) is an American science fiction and horror writer. He is the author of the Hyperion Cantos and the Ilium/Olympos cycles, among other works which span the science fiction, horror, and fantasy genres, sometimes wi ...
in the
science-fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel univers ...
saga
''Hyperion'' (1989) to indicate what the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
could become in the future: a place parallel, virtual, formed of billions of networks, with "
artificial life
Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemistry ...
" on various scales, from what is equivalent to an insect (small programs) to what is equivalent to a god (
artificial intelligences
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
), whose motivations are diverse, seeking to both help mankind and harm it.
In the
animated sitcom
An animated sitcom is a subgenre of the sitcom that is animation, animated instead of live action and is generally made or created for adult animation, adult audiences in most cases. ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', ''The Simpsons'', ''South Park'', and ...
''
Futurama
''Futurama'' is an American animated science fiction sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series follows the adventures of the professional slacker Philip J. Fry, who is cryogenically preserved for 1000 years a ...
'', the Infosphere is a huge sphere floating in space, in which a species of giant, talking, floating brains attempts to store all of the information known in the universe.
The
IBM Software Group created the
InfoSphere brand in 2008 for its
Information Management
Information management (IM) concerns a cycle of organizational activity: the acquisition of information from one or more sources, the custodianship and the distribution of that information to those who need it, and its ultimate disposal throug ...
software products.
IBM InfoSphere products
/ref>
See also
* Noosphere
The noosphere (alternate spelling noösphere) is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the Russian-Ukrainian Soviet biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and the French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernads ...
* Semiosphere
The semiosphere is an idea in biosemiotic theory proposing that, contrary to ideas of nature determining sense and experience, the phenomenal world is a creative and logical structure of processes of semiosis where signs operate together to pr ...
* Ideosphere
* Simulated reality
The simulation theory is the hypothesis that reality could be simulated—for example by quantum computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds that may or may not know that they live i ...
*Umwelt
In the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, ''umwelt'' (plural: umwelten; from the German '' Umwelt'' meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the stu ...
References
External links
The Infosphere, The Futurama Wiki
Blog by Steven Vedro based on his book, ''Digital Dharma''
L. Floridi, ''A Look into the Future Impact of ICT on our Lives''
Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, 1999.
* ttp://www.blesok.com.mk/tekst.asp?lang=eng&tekst=374 L. Floridi ''Ethics in the Infosphere''{{Information-science-stub
Ethics of science and technology
Information society
Ontology (information science)