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

Albert Borgmann (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226066231 | ISBN-13: 978-0226066233 | Publication Date: December 15, 2000 | Edition: 1

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's remarkable how far we've traveled into the Information Age without coming up with a very good idea of what information actually is. Technologists define information as bits and bytes, but that seems too precise somehow to get at the heart of the idea. Everyday speech defines it as just about any interesting piece of news, but that seems equally vague. Holding On to Reality is a philosopher's ruminative attempt to find the sweet spot between those two understandings, feeling for an idea of information that does justice both to its deep roots in human history and its broad implications for human culture at the edge of the 21st century.

For Borgmann, information is defined as much by the mind and cultural context of the people who behold it as by the physical traces (notches on a bone, voltages on a wire) that embody it. Fleshing out that notion, he tracks the changing nature of information across the face of history--from the natural signs that mattered most to prehistoric people to the alphabets and maps that shaped ancient and medieval culture to the mechanically logical forms of information that began to emerge in modern times.

Borgmann's observations suffer somewhat when he turns his sights on present-day information technologies and the cultural changes they have wrought. His cultural conservatism shows most strongly here and, at times, comes out sounding more cranky than critical. But on the whole, his insights are supple and thought-provoking. If we are ever going to really understand where the Information Age has come from and what it's about, we'll need more books like this one. --Julian Dibbell --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Inside Flap

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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (December 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226066231
• ISBN-13: 978-0226066233
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #920,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Now More Than Ever Before, January 11, 2000

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Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (Hardcover)

Albert Borgmann examines "the nature of information at the turn of the millennium." In his Introduction, he examines Information vs. Reality. He then makes several distinctions which serve to organize the book into three separate but related parts: Natural Information: Information about Reality, Cultural Information: Information for Reality, and Technological Information: Information as Reality

What is Borgmann's ultimate objective? In his own words, "we need both a theory and an ethics of information -- a theory to illuminate the structure of information and an ethics to get the moral of its development." To achieve this objective, he creates a frame of reference within which to understand the evolution of "information" from primeval times when it served to disclose distant reality until now when it frequently seems to have a reality wholly apart from the actual world.

The importance of Holding On to Reality is perhaps most evident in its Conclusion when Borgmann invites his reader to reflect upon "The Lightness of Being" and "Adjusting the Balance" while hiking with him across his beloved Montana. Obviously, Borgmann struggles to hold on to the reality of his own world. With passion as well as eloquence and erudition, he inspires his readers to do so with theirs.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fully grounded philosophy, November 17, 2000

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Mary "jypsee" (Florida) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (Hardcover)

Borgmann is a professor of philosophy at a university in Montana. This is an important point for several reasons: his use of his immediate surroundings to illustrate his theory of communication and his ability to tie that theory to his field of academic philosophy. While keeping his analysis of communication theory close to the history of communication, Borgmann weaves his story into a cogent read of contemporary issues in communication based on his foundation as a "realist." He manages to escape embracing a social contstructionist stance, but only barely. For his view of reality fits nicely with both a realist and a constructionist view. This is an amazing accomplishment. For those interested in the practical: his explanation of writing and structure are not to be missed. In this chapter he offers a way to think of the digital-ness of our past, present, and future via the use of information as a whole thing with a context and information as "reality...structured all the way down, and at the bottom...composed of a small number of meaningless, but well-defined elements." (p. 61)

15 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Holding onto our head -- a history of information, December 29, 1999

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cyber_shadow "cyber_shadow" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Holding On to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium (Hardcover)

Borgmann traces a "history" of what the Western world has thought of as reality and information. For Borgmann, information is a "sign" that "informs" an individual about "some thing within a certain context," so our information about reality is socially contextual.

I found this compelling reading, especially as many other authors seem to confound "information" and "knowledge". I found his last section, dealing with technology, as less convincing than the earlier sections of his work; he does not seem to think as deeply about electronic information technology as he does about earlier information technologies. His work also suffers from having a very limited, Anglo/Northern-European bent, with the notable exception of his discussions of American Indian technologies of information.

However, Borgmann's book is well worth reading for anyone who needs or want to think deeply about information and knowledge, and the relation of social constructions to our perception of reality. As another reviewer noted, this book deserves a slow, careful reading.