From Things to Non-things

The terrestrial order, the order of the earth, consists of things that take on a permanent form and provide a stable environment for dwelling. They are the 'things of the world', in Hannah Arendt's sense, things that 'have the function of stabilizing human life'.1 They give stability to human life. This terrestrial order is today being replaced by the digital order. The digital order de-reifies the world by informatizing it. Decades ago, the media theorist Vilém Flusser remarked: 'Non-things are currently entering our environment from all directions, and they are pushing away the things. These non-things are called information.'2 We are today experiencing the transition from the age of things to the age of non-things. Information, rather than things, determines the lifeworld. We no longer dwell on the earth and under the sky but on Google Earth and in the Cloud. The world is becoming increasingly intangible, cloud-like and ghostly. There are no tangible and arrestable [hand- und dingfest] things.

Things stabilize human life insofar as they provide a continuity that 'lies in the fact that . men, their everchanging nature notwithstanding, can retrieve their sameness, that is, their identity, by being related to the same chair and the same table'.3 Things are the calm centres of life. They have now been wholly enveloped by information. Information is anything but a calm centre of life. It is not possible to linger on information. It is relevant only fleetingly. It lives off its capacity to surprise. Information's fleetingness alone can account for the fact that information destabilizes life. It constantly attracts our attention. The tsunami of information agitates our cognitive system. Information is not a stable, uniform entity. It lacks the solidity of being. Niklas Luhmann characterizes information thus: 'Its cosmology is a cosmology not of being but of contingency.'4

Things are increasingly receding into the background of our attention.5 The present hyperinflation and proliferation of things are precisely a sign of an increasing indifference towards them. We are obsessed not with things but with information and data. We now consume more information than things. We are literally becoming intoxicated with communication. Libidinal energy is redirected from things to non-things. The result is infomania. We are all infomaniacs now. Object fetishism is probably a thing of the past. We are becoming information and data fetishists. There is now even talk of 'datasexuals'.

The industrial revolution solidified and expanded the sphere of things, distancing us from nature and the crafts. But only digitalization puts an end to the paradigm of the thing. It subordinates things to information. Hardware is the subordinate base for software. Hardware is secondary compared to information; it can be made smaller and smaller. The Internet of Things turns things into information terminals. 3D printers devalue the being of things; things become merely the material derivatives of information.

What becomes of things when they are penetrated by information? The informatization of the world turns things into infomatons, that is, into information-processing actors. The car of the future will no longer be a thing that is associated with fantasies of power and possession, but a mobile 'centre for the distribution of information', that is, an infomaton that communicates with us: 'The car speaks to you, informs you "spontaneously" about its general condition - and about yours (it may refuse to function if you do not function well). It gives advice and takes decisions. It is a partner in a comprehensive negotiation over how to live.'6

The analysis of Dasein in Heidegger's Being and Time must be revised in light of the informatization of the world. Heidegger's 'being-in-the-world' involves the 'handling' of things that are either 'present-at-hand' or 'ready-to-hand'. The hand is a central figure in Heidegger's analysis of Dasein. Heidegger's 'Dasein' (the ontological name for the human being) gains access to the environment by way of the hand. Its world is a sphere of things. But today we live in an infosphere. We do not handle things that are passively given but communicate and interact with informatons which are themselves acting and reacting. The human being is no longer a 'Dasein' but an 'inforg' who communicates and exchanges information.7

In the smart home, informatons take care of us. They make sure everything is cared for. The inhabitant of a smart home is carefree. The telos of the digital order is probably the overcoming of that care which Heidegger takes to be the characteristic trait of human existence. Dasein is care. Artificial intelligence is currently busy completely de-caring human existence by optimizing life and doing away with the future as a source of care, that is, by overcoming the future's contingency. If we have a predictable future in the form of an optimized present, we need not care.

The categories of Heidegger's analysis of Dasein, such as 'history', 'thrownness' and 'facticity', all belong to the terrestrial order. Information is additive not narrative. It can be counted but not recounted. As discontinuous units that are relevant only fleetingly, information does not add up to a story. Memory is increasingly beginning to resemble a storage container in which all kinds of information are crammed. Addition and accumulation take the place of narration. History and memory are characterized by a narrative continuity that stretches across long periods of time. Meaning and coherence are founded on narration. The digital, that is, numerical, order is free of history and memory. Thus, it fragments life.

As a constantly self-reinventing, self-optimizing project, the human being rises above 'thrownness'. Heidegger's idea of 'facticity' expresses the fact that human existence is based on the non-available. Heidegger's being is another name for the non-available. 'Thrownness' and 'facticity' are part of the terrestrial order. The digital order de-facticizes human existence. It does not tolerate any non-available ground of being. The motto of the digital order is: being is information. All of being is therefore available and controllable. Heidegger's thing [Ding], by contrast, embodies the being-conditioned [Be-Dingtheit], the facticity of human existence. The thing is the cipher standing for the terrestrial order.

The infosphere is Janus-faced. It does give us more freedom, but at the same time it exposes us to more surveillance and control. Google presents the interconnected smart home of the future as an 'electronic orchestra' with the inhabitant as 'conductor'.8 In truth, however, what the authors of this digital utopia describe is a smart prison. In a smart home, we are not autonomous conductors. Instead, we are conducted by various actors, even invisible actors that dictate the rhythm. We expose ourselves to a panoptical gaze. A smart bed fitted with various sensors continues the surveillance even during sleep. In the name of convenience, surveillance gradually creeps into everyday life. The informatons that free us from so much work turn out to be efficient informants that surveil and control us. In this way, we become incarcerated in the infosphere.

In a world controlled by algorithms, the human being gradually loses the power to act, loses autonomy. The human being confronts a world that resists efforts at comprehension. He or she obeys algorithmic decisions, which lack transparency. Algorithms become black boxes. The world is lost in the deep layers of neuronal networks to which human beings have no access.

Information by itself does not illuminate the world. It can even have the opposite effect. From a certain point onwards, information does not inform - it deforms. We have long since crossed this threshold. The rapid advance of informational entropy, that is, of informational chaos, pushes us into a post-factual society. The distinction between true and false is erased. Information now circulates in a hyper-real space, without any reference to reality. After all, fake news is a kind of information, and one that is possibly even more effective than facts. What counts is short-term effect. Effectiveness replaces truth.

Like Heidegger, Hannah Arendt holds on to the terrestrial order. She thus frequently refers to stability and duration. The things of the world stabilize human life, but so too does truth. Unlike information, truth possesses a firmness of being. Truth is characterized by duration and stability. Truth is facticity. It resists any change or manipulation. It thus forms the foundation of human existence: 'Conceptually, we may call truth what we cannot change; metaphorically, it is the ground on which we stand and the sky that stretches above us.'9

It is telling that Arendt places truth between earth and sky. Truth is a part of the terrestrial order. It gives human life stability. The digital...