=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-332/paper-2
|storemode=property
|title=Understanding the Informational Turn: the Fourth Revolution
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-332/paper1.pdf
|volume=Vol-332
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/wspi/Floridi08
}}
==Understanding the Informational Turn: the Fourth Revolution==
<pdf width="1500px">https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-332/paper1.pdf</pdf>
<pre>
                    Understanding the Informational Turn:
                                the Fourth Revolution



Luciano Floridi1, 2
1
    Research Chair in Philosophy of Information and GPI, University of Hertfordshire; 2St Cross
College and IEG, University of Oxford.
Address for correspondence: School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire, de Havilland
Campus, Hatfield, Hertfordshire AL10 9AB, UK; l.floridi@herts.ac.uk




Abstract
In this paper I argue that recent technological transformations in the life-cycle of information
have brought about a fourth revolution, in the long process of reassessing humanity’s
fundamental nature and role in the universe. We are not immobile, at the centre of the
universe (Copernicus); we are not unnaturally distinct and different from the rest of the
animal world (Darwin); and we are far from being entirely transparent to ourselves (Freud).
We are now slowly accepting the idea that we might be informational organisms among
many agents (Turing), inforgs not so dramatically different from clever, engineered artefacts,
but sharing with them a global environment that is ultimately made of information, the
infosphere. This new conceptual revolution is humbling, but also exciting. For in view of this
important evolution in our self-understanding, and given the sort of IT-mediated interactions
that humans will increasingly enjoy with a variety of other agents, whether natural or
synthetic, we have the unique opportunity of developing a new ecological approach to the
whole of reality.

</pre>