For my metaphysics term paper, I originally sought out to answer the question of whether I, as a software engineer, actually create something. Some dreary economic Eyores like to hang their heads over the fact that manufacturing of “real things” has fled the United States in favor of various less-real things (pizza delivery, information, management, etc.), and it strikes me as something of a personal affront that my work results in nonexistent things. Moreover, the nominalist view that my work results merely in magnetic particles oriented in just-so configurations on metal platters, or in small holes burned just-so in plastic discs, is also no way to comfort oneself with the significance of one’s life work during the dark watches of the night.

Well, the idea drifed a little bit. That question is really about the ontology of software, which turns out to be a different thing from information. Software is intimately tied up with computational theory, whose ontological destiny is conjoined to the metaphysics of mathematics, partcuarly (I think) of Universal Turning Machines. At least this seems like a good direction to take were one to strike out on this analysis afresh. However, this is not the paper I wrote.

Seeking to be faithful to my title rather than my original career-justifying impluse, I stuck with analyzing information itself. Enjoy the paper. If my conclusion surprises you, please know that I share your company; I really didn’t know where things would go when I began, and I was surprised to find where they ended up. I think my analysis of the transmission and storage of information is still somewhat weak, but for now I will stand by the overall conclusion the paper reaches. Enjoy.

On the Ontology of Information (61kB)

Abstract entities are things like numbers, classes, relations, and colors which are real existents having no spatiotemporal presence. It might better comport with the contemporary philosophical zeitgeist to identify abstract entities with mental states (if not mere brain states!), but this approach is less than satisfactory. My idea of Boltzmann’s constant is irreparably a first-person phenomenon, as is my hypothetical interlocutor’s idea of the same, but the number itself is clearly not captive to first-person status. The account of how ideas can be mediated between minds falls victim to an infinite regress if ideas do not at some point refer to a third-person object. Moreover, ideas qua ideas have the property of belonging to the mind holding them, but physical constants lack this property; therefore, they cannot be identical to their mental conception. The same applies to other abstract entities.

Thus abstract entities can be considered to be real objects to which the identity relation applies but which are not individuated in space-time and are not themselves minds. (Minds may be a kind of individual thing which is not abstract and not spatiotemporal, but space forbids a treatment of this case here.) Each abstract object is the locus of a given set of properties, and so can be said to possess essence or whatness. Each can be identified by some description or definition (e.g., that proposition which is expressed by the English sentence “Blancmange is white”), and so can be said to possess individuation or thatness. Their thatness is of a qualitatively different kind than that of concrete minds and spatiotemporal objects, which cases may call for differing accounts of individuation.

A fictitious object, or fiction, is a kind of abstract entity that originates in the mind of an author. Its essential properties, or its whatness, are determined by the author and can be mediated to readers’ minds linguistically. Its thatness obtains only in the minds of the author and the reader, and not in the real state of affairs.

Yet fictions are not to be identified with ideas or conceptions. It is true that I must have a conception of Trogdor the Burninator in order to think about him, but this approach may again create an infinite regress, since if I need an idea of Trogdor to think about him, I also need an idea of my idea of Trogdor to have my idea of Trogdor. Furthermore, this requirement is no less true of non-fictional, concrete, spatiotemporal objects like the Graber Administration Building.

Also, fictions are counterfactual, but must be conceivable; inconceivable objects may not participate in existence in any sense. The legendary Square Circle of Bow Mar may be claimed to be gilded and thirteen stone in weight, but the mythic device cannot be said to exist even abstractly, since it cannot be meaningfully conceived. A non-contradictory fiction, like a pro-life Democrat elected to national office, is not similarly disadvantaged, but to qualify as fictional it necessarily does not obtain in the real state of affairs.

Suarez identifies three kinds of distinctions: real, mental, and modal. Real distinctions hold between things which have their own independent existence and can endure separation from each other without either thing ceasing to exist. Mental distinctions hold between things which are not actually distinct, but are only thought of as such because of incomplete mental concepts or ideas. Suarez introduces the concept of modality to address those distinctions which really exist but which cannot endure separation without one of the distinguished things ceasing to exist. Modal distinctions fill a key role in rationalizing identity.

Modes are not distinct things or entities in themselves. Rather, they are necessarily conjoined to and cannot possibly exist without the prior existence of the thing of which they are modes. They modify the thing to which they are attached, conferring some property to it which would not otherwise have adhered in the object, but they do not in adhering create any new object.

An example might be helpful. To begin with, assume that the independent existence of universals like “blackness” or “being oriented towards the cause of global justice” has been established by prior argumentation. Blackness really exists and is really distinct from, say, whiteness, but it is an abstract object, having no spacio-temporal existence in any conceivable state of affairs. When blackness finds instantiation in a distinct object like a U2 Special Edition iPod, the device’s black color is said to be a mode of the object. The existing object is modified by the adherence of the universal color in the particular MP3 player, but no new object called “iPod-black” or “this iPod’s black color” is created—thus no real distinction exists between black and iPod. The black color—not Blackness Itself, but this black in this object—is modally distinct from the iPod.

Modal distinctions contribute to our understanding of identity by providing a framework for understanding how universal properties can inhere in particular objects. If we wish to consider the identity of the object we hold to be our iPod, we would of course wish to keep our reflections as simple as possible without multiplying needlessly the entities under consideration. We would not want, upon realizing that our iPod looks black, to divorce “black” from “iPod” and christen the color a new object to be identified. Not only would identity quickly become an unapproachable jumble of concepts (portable MP3 player, hard, shiny, U2-endorsed, etc.), but it would not be clear how properties could possibly inhere in the object under consideration. If each property were a distinct object in itself, we would find ourselves bereft of any means of claiming that the iPod actually held properties; instead it would have some dubious relation to independent objects like “black” or “having been signed by The Edge.” However, if we hold properties to be modes of the object, the object’s identity becomes not just more graspable by the metaphysician, but also a real ground to differentiate it from other objects.

The assignment was to write a 500-word (no more!) précis of the first chapter of A.E. Taylor’s Elements Of Metaphysics. Being a somewhat long-winded gentleman, I found this to be challenging.

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Metaphysics is a difficult discipline. Its subject matter touches very general and simple issues, impinging on all our intellectual pursuits, yet benefiting from nothing like a well-established consensus or authoritative laboratory experiments.

Some deny the possibility or propriety of metaphysics. All such denials are self-contradictory, always making metaphysical claims in the process of denying that such claims can be made. Further, if one would hold the problems of metaphysics to be intractable, one would be committed forever to the disheartening inseparability of appearance from reality.

Metaphysics attempts to rescue appearances from the scourge of contradiction, replacing troublesome cases with a coherent and non-contradictory view of reality. When we think validly (or “logically”), we attempt to think about what is true or real; hence the law of non-contradiction is no mere logical law, but a fundamental metaphysical principle as well.

Metaphysics thus separates reality from our experience of it, but it is the latter which still forms the discipline’s raw material. Taylor describes experience as “immediate psychical fact” (p. 23). It is concerned with the direct perception of real objects, or objects which can actually have some direct connection “the psychical life of a sentient subject” (p. 24). Thus “real” objects are those which actually have this connection or would have it if all conditions of perception (except the presence of the perceiver) were actually to obtain.

Reality cannot be a succession of states of consciousness, since a state of consciousness requires a subject to be having it, which subject would not itself a be state of consciousness. Similarly, contra Hume, reality cannot be a “series of impressions and ideas connected by psychological laws of succession,” (p. 29), as these facts and laws would constitute part of reality, but would not themselves be impressions or ideas.

Experience is immediate, being incorrigibly distinct in the moment from the memory of an experience or later reflection on past experience. Experience is composite, having both the fact of its immediate existence (the that) and the content of the experience itself (the what). Only the perfect, or “pure” experience of all things and all their implications in one perfect experiential instant would fully suffice us our metaphysical purposes, but this kind of experience is inaccessible to us. Hence to best inform our fallible metaphysical investigations, we must identify the characteristics of this “pure” experience and understand how our actual experience differs from it.

Metaphysical method must be analytical, analyzing experience with an eye toward discovering its broader implications. It must be critical, seeking to criticize previous thoughts in light of current discoveries. It must be non-empirical, refusing to accept facts or observations without analysis. Finally, it must be non-inductive, being independent of confirmation from outside our data.

Taylor’s description of the discipline of metaphysics is helpful, and his rebuttal of the denials of metaphysics is outstanding. His description of “real” objects seems trustworthy, but is not entirely satisfactory. Without having any flaws obvious to this reader, it seems vulnerable to attack by the astute critic.