Holding on to Reality: The Nature of Information at the Turn of the Millennium

In Holding On To Reality, Borgmann shares his perspectives and reservations about the information age as enabled by information technology. He traces the nature, philosophy and history of information by splitting the book into three sections which address natural, cultural and technological signs. If, in the beginning, signs were in the service of describing reality we are now (according to Borgmann) at a time in which information has become so divorced from physical reality that signs assert their own existence with independent validity. Some reviewers have compared Borgmann to Thoreau ("improved means to an unimproved end") and I believe that the comparison aptly captures the tone of the book. In his conclusion, he discusses the decline of meaning and the corresponding rise of information. He warns that while the more obvious forms of suffering decrease (in part, due to the powers of information technology) there is a corresponsing rise in a more insidious kind of suffering. He characterizes this suffering as the "dilation and attenenuation they suffer when the moral gravity and material density of things is overlaid by the lightness of information." Holding On To Reality is a complex book. It deserves time and sustained attention from a reader, even if he or she does not share its cultural conservatism. I found myself willing to follow the arguments, but believe that a number of the most important conclusions rest on untested and unexplored nostalgia. Even disagreeing with the book, however, does not detract from its accomplishment or its ability to provoke thought and begin an important internal dialogue. One thing that I missed was a selected bibliography. The notes mention a wide variety of sources for further reading and it would have been useful to have a view on which Borgmann would recommend for going further in the various topics which he raised. I would recommend this book for a wide variety of readers. It should appeal to people interested in the philosophy or history of meaning and information. Please be aware that it is not an introductory text and is both dense and demanding. This is not a book that can be skimmed or in which chapters can easily be skipped.

It's an interesting problem: How to write and publish an entertaining and informative book about "being lost", without getting the reader "more" lost. Or, how to use technology to free itself and that bound up with it. At times in reading Albert's work (whose erudition is beautiful) he seemed clever. That would be technology wining the match. Yet, with a twist of a phrase and bit of a story, what was becoming the surface of a maze, revealed a rounded corner, with new views and vistas. Depth, not surfaces. Little things, like music in a park, or the sun in the morning. One is informed by Albert, much in the way the ancient sages schooled their students... send them on a journey, a trip, to visit the master on the next mountain range. As with Albert's book, it's not what you take from it, but where it is able to take you.

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)

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 RealityWhat 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.

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.