Category Archives: information architecture

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Technological Information: Information as Reality

The final section of Borgmann‘s treatise on information and reality deals with the final type of information, technological. As with the previous sections, Borgmann begins by recounting a history of technological information, beginning with the discovery of electricity (via ambers) and magnetism, as well as the binary system of counting. Beginning with two as the “least number of signs needed to transmit any information” (p. 131) to the development of information theory and virtual reality.

In the discussion of technological information, Borgmann again demonstrates the value of contingency rather than structure in creating valuable information. In a related lesson that is very practical for information architecture, Borgmann touches on the limitations of information when human intelligence is the necessary receptor. Humans are limited in their capacity to remember numbers to seven (which started me thinking of how often seven is considered a sacred number within Christianity). While the potential to convey information via a computer chip may be growing at an exponential rate, we are still confined by the limitations of the end user. Too much information can be just as restrictive (and detrimental to the success of a website) as too little information.

This, we begin to see, is at the heart of Borgmann’s concerns about technological information for we have begun to replace human intelligence with computers as they “step forward as reality in their own right” (p. 144). The problem he sees facing the world at the start of the new millennium is virtual reality that is slowly replacing reality by removing us from reality’s contingencies. Whereas natural information, clearly Borgmann’s preferred information, is easily understood and yet non-intrusive since, you’ll remember, the signs we see from nature are the thing itself, technological information appears transparent but is actually extremely opaque. Most of the world runs on technology that very fun understand and is extremely hard to discern. Borgmann also worries about the permanence and comprehensiveness of technological information, seeming to lament the lack of wonder now that everything can be mapped precisely and digitally by Google Earth. With technological information, a one to one relationship between reality itself and the information about reality is possible and Borgmann worries that we will be misled by this virtual reality that in fact “provides no information about the world out there and is in this regard totally ambiguous” (p. 186). Because technological information, in Borgmann’s view, is completely parasitical, there is a danger that we will suffer the fate of hosts in nature – possibly even death.

While I agree with Borgmann that it is important to keep a balance between natural, cultural, and technological information, it is hard not to feel that Borgmann’s views are too black and white. Obviously, humans have made tradeoffs at each point in our development, leaving behind our skills in reading natures signs and losing much of the oral traditions of our ancestors. At each stage, however, we have also made great gains as well. Rather than seeing the potential benefits of technological information for human development – benefits that we are already seeing with advances such as mapping the human genome – Borgmann seems to have adopted the attitude of the Luddites, fearing that nothing good can come from technology.

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Summary & Thoughts on Pt. III (Chapters 11-15) and the Conclusion

Borgmann, A. (1999). Holding on to reality: The nature of information at the turn of the millenium. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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Cultural Information: Information for Reality

In this second portion of Holding on to Reality, Borgmann explores the second type of information, cultural information. Whereas natural information has a direct relationship to reality, cultural information can be about reality or used to shape reality. The example Borgmann uses is an architectural drawing, which can be a description of something that already exists as when a drawing is made of an existing cathedral or it can be used as a blueprint for creating a new structure. Cultural information is humanity’s attempt to produce information about reality and in Borgmann’s view, this process of production is not as spontaneous and organic as natural information. Whereas natural information “emerges,” cultural information must be “wrested” (p. 59).

Borgmann begins by reviewing the two primary ways humanity has produced information: writing and structure and later, measurements and grids. Philosophers since Plato have tried to codify reality by understanding the relationship between structure and contingency. Borgmann looks at Plato’s examination of alphabetic writing and Pythagoras‘ related attempts to understanding structure through the shapes used to construct religious buildings with the idea that these elements would reveal significant information about reality. Plato was forced to conclude that structure alone was not sufficient to understand reality; instead, reality is made up of both structure (the “how” of things) and contingency (the “what” of things). While reality can be deconstructed into its basic elements, it cannot be extrapolated from those elements alone. The idiosyncrasies, or contingencies, are what give the meaningless elements significance when combined into specific objects. Philosophers and scientists later discovered that more information could be discovered by imposing structures such as grids and measurements onto reality to create precise schematics of reality. This process and the information it produced shifted Western thought drastically and ushered in the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason.

Borgmann moves on from the production of information to the conversion of instructions about reality into real things, or the realization of information (p. 85). Borgmann spends a chapter each on the primary activities for this realization: reading, playing, and building. Each area has its own advantages and disadvantages when it comes to creating reality. For example, in order for the conversion process to happen, one cannot merely see the letters making up the words on a page. Instead, the reader must bring intelligence and knowledge in order to transform the symbols and words into comprehension. Those with low literacy levels cannot make this conversion and, consequently, are confined to a reality that is “restricted to what they can immediately see and hear” (p. 92). For playing, Borgmann uses music to illustrate the distinction between the abstract music written on an authoritative score and the performance, or realization, of the piece. Of course, the design can never fully depict the realization of thing since then “it would be a duplicate of, rather than information for, a thing” (p. 113) – a point I found applicable for information architects. It goes back to Morville and Rosenfield’s cautions about insisting on a close adherence to a metaphor in constructing a website. There comes a place where the architect must decide the proper balance between the level of detail needed to create the right feel without overstepping into the realm where the exactness of the information obscures the essential goal.

But back to Borgmann and cultural information. Pythagoras believed that the “essential structure… [came] closest to the surface in music, mathematics, and cosmology” and by discovering that essential structure, one could find the essence of reality itself (p. 96). Finally, Borgmann looks at building, the activity that “engages reality so vigorously, it is also most at the mercy of contingency and most revealing about it” (p. 105). Unlike modern and post-modern thought which view idiosyncrasies as the result of randomness and therefore meaningless, in Borgmann’s view it is contingency that creates significance.

While I found Borgmann’s historical review interesting, such as the fact that silent reading was once considered “a rare and astounding skill” (p. 90), I am mistrustful of his interpretation of reality and humankind’s purpose. He makes a good case that the pure essence of reality can never be known because while we can determine the structure of things through analysis, contingency will always remain elusive and ever changing. He argues that mainstream thought has reduced contingency to “randomness and meaninglessness” but cannot supply any proof for the meaningfulness and significance (p. 105). I constantly felt that he was trying to sneak in an argument for the existence of god into something that purported to be purely philosophical in nature which likely made me even less receptive. Life can be eloquent without a need for some deeper significance of pure reality giving it validity.

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Summary & Thoughts on Pt. II, Chapters 6-10

Borgmann, A. (1999). Holding on to reality: The nature of information at the turn of the millenium. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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Natural Information: Information about Reality

Information can illuminate, transform, or displace reality…Without information about reality …the reach of experience quickly trails off into the shadows of ignorance and forgetfulness…Information allows us to transform reality and make it richer materially and morally. – Albert Borgmann, Introduction to Holding on to Reality, 1999

So begins Borgmann’s treatise on information to Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium. Borgmann takes great pains to show the path humankind has taken to reach the point we are today. The book is divided into three parts about the three different types of information: natural, cultural, and technological. The first part deals with natural information, or the information contained by the things themselves in the world around us. In Borgmann’s view, this is the information humans evolved to read and therefore it is the information with which we have the easiest affinity. Unlike technological information, with natural information there is no confusion between signs and things since it is the things themselves that serve as signs. A rock formation is a sign of where one is headed when it is far away but up close, it is only the rock formation.

In order to survive, it was imperative that people understood natural information and how to read natural signs. Information about which “signs” indicated a poisonous plant or a good source of nutrition could mean the difference between life and death. As a result, people were heavily on oral traditions to pass along the information about how to interpret the natural signs. People developed a number of skills and devices to enable them to maximize capacity for remembering this information, such as rhythmic mnemonics but the amount of information that could be passed on in this way was limited. As a result, people had to choose only the most valuable information to include.

All of this changed with the development of written language. I found it fascinating that Plato expressed some of the same concerns Borgmann has about the dangers of new technologies. In a way, writing was the innovative technology that changed everything. With written language, information did not have to be sifted as stringently; instead, it could all be recorded with precision and accuracy. Inevitably, just as Plato feared, people lost the ability to remember long passages, as well as some of the ability to read the natural information.

I found myself worrying along with Borgmann (and Plato) about whether we have any idea of the far-reaching consequences of the technological advances we continually covet. I often wonder what would happen to our society if something were to happen that disabled all electronic devices. I remember reading a book a few years back of how people survived the Great Depression and thinking that if forced into similar circumstances, I wouldn’t even know how to begin.

One of the points he brought up in this chapter is that we are drowning in information; not only do we have the things themselves but all the signs that we have created that overwhelm the things themselves. This was the part of the discussion I found most relevant to the topic of information architecture on a very practical level. On the one hand we want to provide multiple paths to the information on a website but on the other hand, too many “signs” can drown out the message we are trying to convey. I like too the idea of thinking about what information is critical and stripping out everything else so that all that is left is Borgmann’s “elegant reality” (p. 28).

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Summary & Thoughts on Pt. I, Chapters 1-5

Borgmann, A. (1999). Holding on to reality: The nature of information at the turn of the millenium. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.