Hyper_Text_Hyper_Reality_ilharco_2006_Fernando_Ilharco_1

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Enciclopdia e Hipertexto

Hyper-text and Hyper-reality: Contributions for the Study of the Ontological Contoursof Technological Information Networks[1]

Fernando Ilharco

Abstract

This article briefly develops some themes considered worth of pursuing in establishing theontological relevance of the overwhelming presence of information technology, of itsdevices and information, in the contemporary world. First, I address the question of themeaning of the screen as such. Then, I argue that both the notions of screen and displaypoint to a grounding notion of agreement. This is followed by an analysis of the traditionallyanalysed and questioned correspondence between sight and true. Next I recoverHeideggers notion of Ge-stell and work it out on the realms of information technology (IT).Finally, I conclude by trying to point out the technological based ontological contours ofglobalisation.

Information as Screen

Let me start with a few numbers about our pervading world of technologicalinformation (Borgmann 1999). The last decades have witnessed a massive penetration ofTV screens into peoples day-to-day lives. It is a long way from November 1937, when theBBC made its first outside broadcast - the coronation of King George VI from Hyde ParkCorner - which was seen by several thousand viewers, to the landing on the Moon in 1969,carried by satellite to an estimated audience of more than 100,000,000 viewers (E.B. 1999),

to the Live Aid music festival, in London and Philadelphia, in 1985, which raised US$120million, while attracting an estimated TV audience of 1.5 billion (R.M. 2002), or to thefuneral of Princess Diana in August 1997, followed by an estimated TV audience of 2,500million (ABCnews 1999), which represents more than 40 per cent of the worlds population.Bay Watch is nowadays the most widely viewed TV series with an estimated weeklyaudience of 1.1 billions. From 1996 on the series has been translated in 44 languages, andit is watched in 142 countries, in every continent except Antarctica (Guinness Book 2002).More recently, the majority of the worlds population watched on TV and on the Internet that is, on screens the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. All these eventswere and are what they are also, and perhaps mainly, on account of their presentation ordisplay on screens in front of which we increasingly find ourselves.

The PC screen seems to be experiencing an even more accelerated spreading than the TVscreen. In 1985 there were 90,1 and 36,4 computers per 1000 people, respectively in theUSA and in the UK. The USA is forecasted to grow to 592 Internet users per 1,000 people

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in 2002 (Int. Ind. Alm. 2002). It is projected that by the end of 2002 there will be 601 millionworldwide Internet users. The amount of computers in use today is estimated to be morethan 625 million, up from the 551.1 million computers at year-end 2000 (Comp. Ind. Alm.2002). The diffusion of mobile phones is even more pervasive. Last year the number ofmobile phones worldwide was double that of Internet users. In 2002 the mobile phoneusers worldwide is estimated to reach one billion. It is expected that by the end of 2003 inEurope 69% of people will have a mobile phone. (D.L. 2002).

This pattern of invasion, and implicitly of colonisation(Habermas 1987) of the everydayworld, by information technology (IT) screens is also significant in cultures and regions ofthe world other than the industrialised Westwhere the phenomenon is most obvious(Castells 2000). China for example is expected to become the world leader in the amount ofmobile phones in use by the end of 2002 (D.L. 2002). It is evident that screens being TV,PC, mobile phones, or palmtop screens are a medium (way or mode) into and ontoreality, and also part of that same reality as well. What does this mean for our lives? Whatdoes it mean that we spend a significant part of our waking lives literally dwelling intechnological information, watching whats on at the screen? What is our watching of PC,TV, computer, and palmtops screens?

Screens present, show, exhibit, what is supposed to be relevant datain each context, be ita spreadsheet while working at office, or a schedule while walking in the airport, or a moviewhile watching TV. Screens exhibit what was previously chosen, captured, processed,organised, structured, and finally presented on the screen.

The screen, as a screen, finds itself at the centre of the activity: in showing it attracts ourattention, often also our physical presence, as it locates our activity. It is often the focus ofour concerns in that environment, being at office, working, or at home, watching a movie orthe news. Apparently the screen enters our involvement in-the-worldas a screenwhenwe attend to it by turning it on. When we push the on button the screen locates ourattention, we sit down, quitphysically or cognitivelyother activities we may have beenperforming, and watch the screen, as it is the place, the location, the intentional experienceof consciousness, in which what is relevant or supposedly relevant for us at that particulartime is happening. We rely on it as a transparent ready-to-hand being that shapes, affects,mediates our own be-ing(Heidegger 1962). Yet, this involvement, shaping and mediationthat screen brings does not happen, i.e., it is not only when we turn the on button that it ispresent. On the contrary, that we push the on button means precisely that the screening ofscreen, its possibilities in its transparency and pervasiveness, is already there in a worldwhere we, beings-in-the-world (Heidegger 1962), are already relying, basing ourselves, ourpossibilities, the references in which we dwell, and the whole phenomenon of in-the-world(Heidegger 1962), on the screenhoodof screens. Hence, screen, in-the-world, locates us,centres our activities and possibilities, either if we are actively engaged with screens orotherwise once we have experienced screens as screens we are always already relyingor counting on them.

Screen as Skin

Screen looks like a rather simple word. It is both a nounand a verb and its contemporary plurality of meanings can

be brought together along three main themes:projecting/showing(e.g., TV screen), hiding/protecting(e.g., fireplace screen), and testing/selecting(e.g.,screening the candidates) (OPDT 1997:681-2).




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The origins of the word screen can be traced back to the 14th century. According to theMerriam Webster Dictionary(MW) the contemporary English word screen evolved from theMiddle English word screne, from the Middle French escren, and from the Middle Dutchscherm. It is a word akin to the Old High German (8th century) words skirm, which meantshield, and skrank, which meant a barrier of some kind. Yet, the word screen still suggestsanother interesting signification, further away from us in history. It is a word probablyakin (MW) to the Sanskrit (1000 BC)[2] words carman, which meant skin, and krnti,which signifies he injures (MW). These meanings, possibly, are the ones from which theMiddle Age words evolved. This Sanskrit clue suggests thus that the notions of protection,shield, barrier, separation, arose as metaphors of the concept of skin, possibly that ofhuman (or animal) skin.

Let me now suggest a very brief sketch of the chronological etymological relations thesewords seem to have. A barrier or a protection is something raised over and against anothersomethingthe original Sanskrit meaning. This other something faces the barrier, as thewind faces the windscreenof a car, which means that the screen protects againstsomething that moves towards it. That which is moving towards the screen could havebeen understood as a projection (from the Latin word projectare, which meant to throwforward) over a surface - just like the arrows and bullets were projected over the shields, orlike the heat is projected onto the fireplace screen. The screen protects and sheltersbecause it receives and holds the projection of that which is not to be received inside thecover the screen provides. But what happens when something stopped by the screen isallowed to pass through? The answer is that it was screened. This means that it waspermitted to pass through that barrier. The screen as a barrier is now understood as asystem for detecting [for example] disease, ability, attribute (OPDT:681-2).

When we say his geniality is just a screen (MW) we are relying on this notion ofseparation, of a barrier, between what is the surface symptoms, appearance, superficiality- and what is inside that surface disease, the thing itself, essentiality. Indeed it seems nottoo difficult to admit that an expression with the same meaning as the one above could behis geniality is just a skin. This recovers within a rich context the meaning of skin of theSanskrit word carmanreferred. This interpretation links, or so we hope, the three centralthemes of meaning attached to the word screen: hiding/protecting, projecting/showing, andtesting/selecting (OPDT 1997:681-2).

The screenas the location for screeningis something common, and to some extentsomething fundamental, to the computer, TV, mobile phone, palmtops, and to many otherIT devices. We act on, and interact with, most information technologies by observing ortouching screens. The screen is the typical face or interface of information technology. Onthe basis of the etymological analysis presented thus far, we might indeed say,acknowledging its intuitive meaningfulness, that the screen is the skin of informationtechnology.

Display as Agreement

Often we refer to screens as displays. This word

display entered the English language as a verbin the 14th century, and as a noun in the 17thcentury (MW). As a verb display means to put or




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Those aspects in turn are linked to the idea of unfolding and of agreement. The Latin prefixdis-was akin to the Latin word duoand to the ancient Greek word dyo(MW), which meanttwo, both or together (Crane 2002). This suggests that the unfolding referred to above, themaking evident, that the word display points to, is something achieved togetherby anexplicit or implicit agreement of two persons. Indeed by more than one person because themeaning of duoshould have been used to stress the together-ness implied in the prefix dis-and not the character of being just two as such. It is this same notion of agreement,sharing, and together-ness, that is nowadays present in verbs such as discover (be first to

find in OPDT:211) or disclose (expose, make known in OPDT:210).

The implied agreement refers to a grounding understanding, which is the basis on whichour own actions in the world gain their references and significance. Obviously it does notmean that one has to agree with the terms, conditions, analysis, or format of that which isrevealed. The agreement is only on the referential whole (Heidegger 1962) within which thescreen is a screen that attracts our attention as part of our ongoing activity in that form oflife.

Sight as True

This account of the etymology of displayalso touches upon another aspect highlyrelevant to our investigation: the way inwhich the notions of evidence, agreement,or something without complications orcomplexities join in the contemporaryEnglish word display with the human senseof sight. The relationship between what isevident and what is put or spread before

the view (MW), made equivalent in theword display, belongs to the central strandof Western philosophy that assumes Beingas beholding (Heidegger 1984), and goes

spread before the view (e.g., displaythe flag), tomake evident (e.g., displayedgreat skill), toexhibit ostentatiously (e.g., he liked to displayhiserudition) (MW). As a noun it means a setting orpresentation of something in open view (e.g., afireworks display), a clear sign or evidence, an

exhibition (e.g., a displayof courage), anostentatious show, an eye-catchingarrangement by which something isexhibited (MW). These notions of showing, inopen view, and making evident are central to theword display.




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back to the ancient Greece.

In-the-world we, as the beings that we ourselves are, have a structural tendency to assumethe primacy of seeing (Heidegger 1962). The screen is first and primordially seeing,watching, perceiving with the eyes. Seeing, according to Heidegger (1962:214), is apeculiar way of letting the world be encountered by us in perception. In everydayness(Heidegger 1962) the human sense of sight performs a central role in our involvement in-the-world (Heidegger 1962). What is at stake in this supremacy of seeing, so to speak, isnot a characteristic or feature of humans, but an ontological conception of being human inwhich cognition is conceived as seeing. For us this fundamental conception, of theontological primacy of seeing, grounds the way in which screens unfold in-the-world asscreens, already relevantrather than as mere dynamic surfaces.

Heidegger (1962:215) notes that the early Greeks conceived cognition in terms of thedesire to see. Aristotles (1998: 4, n. 980a) treatise Metaphysicsopens with the sentenceBy nature, all men long to know. In order to capture what Aristotle wrote, with reference toancient Greek, Heidegger suggests that we must stay with the original meaning of thesentence, which would then translate as: The care for seeing is essential to mansBeing (Heidegger 1962:215). That such a reading is correct is supported by the text ofAristotle that follows that sentence:

By nature, all men long to know [i.e., The care for seeing is essential to mans Being]. Anindication is their delight in the senses. For these, quite apart from their utility, areintrinsically delightful, and that through the eyes more than the others. For it not only with aview to action but also when we have no intention to do anything that we choose, so tospeak, sight than all the others. And the reason for this is that sight is the sense thatespecially produces cognition in us and reveals many distinguishing features ofthings (Aristotle 1998: 4, n. 980a).

In its turn, this thesis rests on Parmenides (c.515 BC - ?) early conception of BeingForthinking and Being are the same (Parmenides in Heidegger 1984). In order to clarify thisposition of Parmenides, Heidegger takes the word translated in the last quotation asthinking, and seeks the roots of its original ancient Greek meaning, which is to perceivewith the eyes (Heidegger 1962:215, fn.3). Accordingly, this view of cognition implies,Being is that which shows itself in the pure perception which belongs to the beholding, andonly by such seeing does Being gets disclosed. Primordial and genuine truth lies in purebeholding (Heidegger 1962:215). Such an ontological conception of seeing is at the core ofWestern thought, and grounds many chief epistemological developments ever since. SaintAugustine also noted this priority of seeingthis correspondence between seeing andcognition. In this regard Heidegger (1962:215) refers to Saint Augustines notes from TheConfessions:

We even use this word seeing for the other senses when we devote them to cognizing() We not only say See how that shines (), but we even say See how that sounds,See how that is scented, See how that tastes, See how hard that is () Therefore theexperience of the senses in general is designated as the lust of the eyes; for when theissue is one of knowing something, the other senses, by a certain resemblance, take tothemselves the function of seeinga function in which the eyes have priority (SaintAugustine quoted in Heidegger 1962:215-6).

This priority of seeing, in which cognition is understood as seeing, and thus seeing as theaccess to truth, gets revealed in a particular way in the phenomenon of screen, that is, onour world grounded on technological information. In the phenomenon screen, seeing is notmerely being aware of a surface. The very watching of the screen as screen implies an




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already there ontological agreement about the nature of the worldas a world that isrelevant (and true) to us that share it, in and through the screening of the screen.

This power of sight, of already agreementcoming as screen, can for example be seen withregard to our general view of television in everyday life. Though there are manyobservations we can make here, we will refer to only one of these. What do we tend to thinkof people who live, on a permanent basis, without a television in their house? A few yearsago a writer and her husband in the UK received a visit from the police to enquire abouttheir reasons for not having a television[3] We tend to think of this as strange (maybesomehow dangerous). Why is this so? Maybe we feel that these people do not share thealready agreementand the relevance impliedthat the television is. We often refer tothem as living in another world. Our analysis provides an explanation for such a view. AsFry (1993:13) puts it, the television has arrived as the context and those people seem tobe out of that context.

The power of television to reinforce what is presented just by the presentation itself hasimportant consequences in our daily lives: all that is important is revealed on televisionwhile all that is so revealed on television acquires some authority (Adams 1993:59). Butthis power does not belong to the essence of television but rather to the essence ofscreens, as the following example will show

The kind of data about us that appears on a screen, at the bank, at the office, at themedical doctor, at a public department, is often taken as more valid and trustworthy thanourselvesas many of us have found out to our dismay. That the hidden meaning ofscreen is already agreement indeed helps to explain this. It is because screen is essentiallybound by already agreement that that data is often taken as more valid and trustworthythan ourselves. Thus, this primacy of that which is on the screen over that which is not onthe screen seems to be an issue that need to be taken into account while designing newsystems. Seemingly trivial decisions about entities and attributes to be included/excluded inthe database have important ontological consequences for how we will understand ourworld, and relate to and in that world, in which these decisions will function as ontologicalclues displayed on screens.

Ge-stellas Background

Let me now address a key aspect on the ontological contours of technological information:the intimate relationship between IT and globalisation. We all experience that information

technology (IT) and globalisation are phenomena deeply linked. Research in diverse fieldshas been pointing out this aspect as well (e.g., Angell 2000; Beck 1992, 1997; Dahrendorf1993; Desai 2001; Dicken 1994; Featherstone 1990; Giddens 1999; Gray 1999; Walsham2000, 2001). Trying to address the planetary development and spreading of IT, I relied onHeideggers (1977) grounding notion of Ge-stellas the essence of modern technology. Thisfollows the Heideggers (1981) clue of the Der Spiegelinterview (in 1966, published in1976) in that his phenomenology of modern technology should be picked up and furtherdeveloped.

The work of Heidegger (1977) on technology is a widely recognised turning point inWestern thought on this theme, so it is likely that it might only be a matter of time before

Heideggers influence on these issues is felt more heavily. As Heidegger (1977) stressed,although the tool character of technological objects is obviously correct, by no means doesit signify that technology is itself essentiallya tool (Heidegger 1977:6). The tool-nessbelongs to the realm of appearances, that is, to particular and actual technological devices.




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For Heidegger (1977) the essence of modern technology is anything but a tool.

At the centre of our argument is the historical evolution of the notion of the technological[4].Historically techniques were organised groups of movements, generally mostly manual,united to reach a particular end. As such, techniques mix with the origins of human history.[I]n all civilisations technique has existed as a tradition, that is, by the transmission ofinherited processes that slowly ripen and are even more slowly modified (Ellul 1964:14).Before the arrival of industrial technology there was not the technological but rather therewere techniques. People have their techniques for hunting, for fishing, for clothing, forfighting, for transport, for building, and so forth.

The involvement of man in his activities as they were delivered to him by culture andtradition, suddenly changed from the activities themselves to the way in which thoseactivities were performed. This shift has the relevance of a changing of worlds. [W]hat wetalking about is a world once given over to the pragmatic approach and now being takenover by the method (ibid.:15). Hence, in this passage from the realm of techniques andtradition to the domain of the technological there lies the origin of the relationship betweenindustrial and information technologies. What precisely led from techniques to thetechnological no one knows.

The technological is a deliberate grasping as a unityof the ways, both manual andmechanical, in which activities are performed. The technological does not rely on thetradition of the many techniques. The logosof technology relies on the ever more efficiencyit brings to human activities. The technical procedures must fit the criterion of being themost efficient way of achieving a result. This is the ordering process towards an ever moreefficient relationship of man to his world; its tradition becomes its own path of efficiency.Heidegger (1977) indicates this course as the essence of modern technology.

Heidegger (1977) took Aristotles thesis of the four causes(Aristotle 1998) in order to de-construct causality, which reigns in the instrumentality that characterises the tool-ness oftechnology. He asks what unites the four causes from the beginning? (Heidegger 1977:8)He shows that causality is grounded on a revealing, which in itself is a granting of thepossibility of truth, of Wahrheitin German.This revealing is an already there that gathersthe four causes of occasioning, letting beings come into unconcealment, to presence asbeings to be preserved (bewahren), to endure (whren), to be watched over and kept safe(wahren), to be manifest (Wahrnis). Technology is therefore no mere means. Technologyis a way of revealing (Heidegger 1977:12). This way of revealing is an ontological onebecause it does not only concern the beings that come into presence, a crafts work or amachine, but also and fundamentally it is the disclosure of is-nessas such. Thetechnological revealing is primarily and fore mostly the background against which appearsthat which is. This ontological revealing is the fundamental nature of technology.

Would this revealing be the essential nature of modern technology as well? Heideggers(1977:14) answer is unambiguous: It too is a revealing. [A] tract of land is challenged intothe putting out of coal and ore. The earth now reveals itself as a coal mining district, the soilas mineral deposit (). The field that the peasant formerly cultivated and set in orderappears differently than it did when to set in order still meant to take care of and tomaintain (ibid.:14-5). Modern technology changes decisively the coming into presence ofhumans, things, animals, tangibles and intangibles; of that which appears for man. Arevealing not only reveals that which is differently, but also reveals and conceals differently.Truth, meaningfulness, thus being-in-the-world (Heidegger 1962) is differently grounded.There is nothing metaphorical here. Modern technology changes substantively that which isdecisive in-the-world. It lets unfold a whole conception of is-ness, engulfing what-to-do/what-to-be, and appearing as a challenging.




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This challenging forth is a setting-in-order that setsupon nature. As a challenging-forth ofnature, technology is always directed from the beginning toward driving on to themaximum yield at the minimum expense (ibid.), that is, towards efficiency. In this waytechnology reveals a world of resources. These resources belong to an already ongoingprocess, which essentially does not designate the dam, the hydroelectric plant, themachine, or any other typical technological object, because it rather chiefly designatesnothing less than the way in which everything presences (ibid.:17). The unconcealmentthat the technological revealing brings about is a particular standing in which beings showthemselves in their belonging to an efficiently ordering process. This is for Heidegger whatis most essential about technology. He calls it Ge-stell, enframingin Lovitts (1977)translation.[5] In Ge-stellthe real is revealed in the mode of ordering; that is, enframingreveals, that which it reveals is ordering.

IT as Ontology

The ordering element of Ge-stellis the very technological nature of IT. IT endorses itsessential belonging to Ge-stellprecisely because it is order about data and/or information; itis an efficient ordering process directed to data, information, and thus to meaning. Thus,essentially IT is order about meaning, which implies that within IT meaning is dominated byorder.[6] But how can meaning be dominated? The answer has been given: IT dominatesmeaning in that Ge-stellis an ontological revealing.

IT brings efficiency directly to the domain of language, that is, to mans essence (Heidegger1962, 1971, 1978), to human fundamental coupling in/with/to the world. Acting in languageIT affects horizontally each and every kind of human activity. Castells (2000:70) mentionsthat it is because information is an integral part of all human activity that all processes of

our individual and collective existence are directly shaped[7] by IT. Language is that whichadjusts us to environment and to others. We are what we are in language. Affecting ourstructural coupling, in autopoietic terms (Maturana and Varela 1980, 1992), IT substantivelyaffects us. Fundamentally acting in language IT is a part of being-in-the-world, opening up away for the ontological decisiveness of Ge-stellfurther to unfold.

Heidegger pointed out that the typewriter reveals the intrusion of technology into thedomain of language (Zimmerman 1990:206). Yet, nor the typewriter neither handwritingprovides the efficiency of the production of texts as successfully as the contemporary wordprocessor. In processingwords, language enters the ordering process of technology: Inthe technological world, even language becomes an instrument serving the production

process. Heidegger argued not only that German dialects are being pushed aside bystandardized German (promoted by radio and television, as well as by schools), but that theGerman language itself is being replaced by Anglo-Americanthe universal language ofmodern technology (ibid.:215); indeed we might say the same as far as it concerns alllanguages touched upon by IT.

Hence, IT essentially is a background against which that which is appears. Within IT thereal shows up as an environment overloaded with detailed and towards-ordered information(McLuhan 1987). Ontically the domination of IT is linked to this planetary spreading oftechnological information and technologies of information; ontologically that domination isthe very spreading of the essence of IT. As more and more IT devices penetrate every

corner of the earth Ge-stellunfolds, enframing enframes. To confirm this we only need tomake a thought experience.

Let us think, how would we all live without IT?




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A formally correct answer is that that world would indeed be another world, which meansthat IT is a world. The kind of possibilities, thus of intentions, aspirations, and actions, thatthese two worlds reveal are evidently substantively different. For example, without IT wewould never have seen images of the earth taken from the moon, because man wouldnever have gone there. The moon would still stand in the sky above us, as the mystery itstill is, although no longer recognised as such. The possibilities for being that IT hasbrought to us, and the way in which these possibilities address the whole earth and the allof human activities, is per sede dominating character of Ge-stellas an essential element ofthe essential way in which IT unfolds in the world. It is in accordance with the possibilitiesrevealed by IT as background that man nowadays is experiencing the real.

Hannah Arendt (1958) argues that modernity is founded, besides the discovery of Americaand the Reformation, on Galileos invention of the telescope, which firstly made possible toconsider the nature of the earth from the perspective of the universe. Our analysis isconsistent with this view. Not only is Ge-stellfundamentally linked to the Renaissance andEnlightenment, but also the telescope might indeed essentially be understood as an ITdevice. This fundamental perspective began to come to actuality as its distinctive sign whenthe project of landing a man on the moon shows its factual possibility in the 1960s. Bylanding on the moon it was the earth and not the moon that was mainly discovered in a newway. The pictures of the earth taken from the moon, offer us a concrete push for thehistorical theme of the globe to enter its own epoch. Thus, mans landing on the moonmight have not brought a new fundamental perspective on human experience, but havingrelied on an opened perspective, to which Arendt claim the invention of the telescopebelongs, it might have recovered and strengthened that same perspective, so that it is inour epoch what is more typical and decisive.

In its ordering in information, IT shows up the real as a systematic way of renderingmeaning, which equals saying that IT shows up as a system of information. The meaning ofthe world revealed in/within/through IT, for example, is in exact science identifiable throughcalculation so that it remains orderable, i.e., so that nature and humanness be kept underthe essential revealing of Ge-stell. It is because technology unfolds in this way thatenframes:

that nature reports itself in some way or other that () it remains orderable as a system ofinformation (Heidegger 1977:23).

In this paragraph Heidegger addresses indirectly the essence of IT that we are indicating bysuggesting that ordering meaning is the evident nature of a system of information. He usesthe expression system of information to disclose the orderability that for him is an implicitand evident meaning of that same expression.

The meaning of the real, in the sense of the world in which we always already findourselves, is identifiable as to remain orderable. As a systematic way of renderingmeaningas a system of informationIT changes the perception of the real, which isequal to say that it changes reality. [R]eality, as experienced, has always been virtualbecause it is always perceived through symbols that frame practice with some meaning thatescapes their strict semantic definition (). Thus there is no separation between realityand symbolic representation (Castells 2000:403). The perception of reality depends uponthe structure of information, which is substantively affected by IT.

Revealing the real, forming the background, establishing itself as a world, IT determines therelation of man to that which exists. Through technology the entire globe is todayembraced and held fast in a kind of Being experienced in Western fashion and representedon the epistemological models of European metaphysics and science (Heidegger




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1984:76). This all inclusive human experience of reality was first concretely unveiled in thesixteen century by the Memory Theater of Giulio Camilio (Borgmann 1999:175), in whichall information about reality would be gathered in one well-ordered information-space (ibid.).The prototype of this space is today the Internet and its logic of navigation, hypertext, andsearch engines (ibid.).

World as Globe

This power of Ge-stell, concealed in modern technology, rules the whole earth (Heidegger1966:50). Ruling the whole earth, it logically and necessarily reveals what is the earth assuch. The earth, our world, is now enframed, that is, united, and thus it appears assomething, as the globefor the case of our age. Ge-stellreveals the earth as a globe. Asthe earth is ITised it becomes global. This globe as such, hanging suspended in space, is atechnological being because it relies, depends, and appears only on grounds of a worldpreviously revealed by Ge-stell. Phenomenologically we confirm this by describing

rigorously the event of the globe in space, which it is not something we perceive directlywith the eyes, much in the sense Aristotle (1998) used this expression to refer toknowledge, and Parmenides (quoted in Heidegger 1985) used it to indicate thinking assuch. On the contrary the globe hanging suspended in space is a photograph, a picture, ora video. Only a very few men actually saw, with their eyes, directly and naturallyI wouldsay, the globe in space as such. Hence, this globe in space, the icon of our epoch, is atechnological being.

By making the earth global, IT makes all human activities globalised. Hence, the globalisedworld is that on the basis of which the possibilities for being are now revealed in our lives.This revealing is everywhere, not only as a present-at-hand entity (Heidegger 1962), that is,

as something to be observed, fragmented and analysed, but also and more significantly asa ready-to-hand being. Globalisation is thus the human dwelling upon this earth beingglobalised. In globalisation all of our activities and involvement in-the-world make senseagainst a ready-to-hand globalised background. This signification was somehow capturedforty years ago in McLuhans expression global village in which the world is understood,taken, presupposed, absorbed, as one whole community in which distance and isolationhave been dramatically reduced by information technologies (McLuhan 1995). Still, there isa difference in the distinction we are pointing out: the global village is nowadays a ready-to-hand entity. A crucial way in which the essence of IT essencesis thus this substantivetransformation of earth into the globe. The globe hanging suspended in space is nowadaysthe most common and ready-to-hand equipment of our daily coping. The globe is now part,

a constitutive element, of being-in-the-world. As such it is an a prioripresent meaning ofwhat we are and it contextualises, shapes, forms, develops, materializes every and eachone of our activities.

This conception of the earth made global, and of the globe made an object hangingsuspended in space, has for long been prepared, particularly by Renaissance andEnlightenments quests for man to be the master of his destiny. This perspective is theHistory of Western civilisation, and its origins go back to the Romans, and to a less extentto the ancient Greeks as well.[8] The Romans understood the world as the empire of Rome(Crane 2001: entry terra, particularly the references to Cicero Balb. 6.16, and to Agr.2.13.33). Wherever Rome reached, the world was revealed against the imperial presence

of Rome. IT and globalisation currently rely on this same perspective.

In globalisation the essence of IT addresses the real. Thus, globalisation is not aphenomenon of the economy, of the markets, of politics, of culture, or of any other kind of




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human activity. Globalisation is an aspect of the essence of IT, which, as ontological, hasprimacy over all the other aspects characteristic of the present epochit is how man ismaking sense of the world today. It is the basic and fundamental perspective on the basisof which each and every human activity in the world now gains its meaning. The globalperspective is the background against which the several arenas of human activity are beingaddressed.

Almost wherever we look now we find the picture of our age, the globe: on the TV channelslogos and news bulletins (e.g., CNN, BBC, CBS, ABC, TVE, TF1), on a significantpercentage of the advertising material that runs in magazines and newspapers, in thematerial of international organisations (e.g., UN, OECD, WB, IMF, Greenpeace). Yet in thisappearance of the essence of IT, it is not the picture as such before our eyes that is mostrelevant for us. What matters, because it is what changes our lives substantively, is theglobe hanging suspended in space as background of our action in-the-world. What is atstake is the collective appropriation of the meaning of that image and perspective in humanactivities. This human embodiment of the globe in space is what is most decisive inglobalisation.

Globalisation as a setting that establishes possibilities and the contours of the analysis, hasbeen an explicit or implicit assumption for much of the research of recent years in severalareas of interest besides economy, markets, finance, and world power,[9] which might beconsidered the ones most obvious; for example the law (e.g., Borchgrave 1996; Braithwaiteand Drahos 2000; Evenett, Lehmann, and Steil 2000; Gessner and Budak 1998; Wiener1999); culture and social issues (e.g., Albrow 1997; Appadura 1996; Doheny-Farina 1996;Fearherstone 1990; Jameson and Miyoshi 1998; Postman 1993; Stromquist and Monkman2000; Rash 1996; Wresch 1996); the individual versus the collective (e.g., Angell 2000;Friedman 2000; Davidson and Rees-Mogg 1999); sports (e.g., Bairner 2001; Miler,Lawrence, McKay, Rowe 2001). As the earth turns into a globe, and man assumes the roleof the subject observing, analysing, and intervening upon this globe, everything is in theprocess of being globalised.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, in the USA, the terrorist acts in Bali and in otherplaces also are examples of the unfolding of this globalisation of everything. The underlyinglogic of that new kind of terror is imminently global. Its global operational reach is acorollary of something more important and previous to it: the global perspective. Globalterror is conceived and unleashed against a background in which human action, even whenthat action is inhuman, makes sense within this global ready-to-hand perspective.

The global perspective means an addressing of the world from space, that is, mansactivities in the world disclose their meaning while addressed, so to speak, from outside theworld. Yet, as it is obvious that man is not in outer space, that picture of the globe mightpoint to other matters as well. The out of the world perspective is primordially a statementof the totality in which reality makes sense today. The world is the globe. A globe is aspherical object (OPDT:319), as such it is something delimitedit is sphericalandobjectified. The globe is an object because it was previously delimited. It matters the least ifthe world turned out to be a globe or a parallelepiped. That the world is delimited is whatmatters here because while enframingIT necessarily limits, reduces, restricts, regulates,controls. Within the essence of IT the world turns into an object surveyed, scrutinised,monitored, controlled, dominated by man. This rationale of IT is fully disclosed in the globalperspective. Constrained to this earth by our condition we have found a way of acting as ifwe had it at our disposition from the outside (Arendt 1958).

Revealing the world as an object man reserved for himself the role of the subject. Thus, inglobalisation the Cartesian dualism is thriving. Yet, what holds correct is not that




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globalisation supports the dualist subject/object model, but rather the reverse. It is onaccount of the path that Cartesianism has had in the Western world for the last centuriesthat globalisation comes into presence. Grasping the Cartesian temper of globalisation, andstripping out the words and signs of the picture of the globe suspended in space, we canmore rigorously access what is at stake in globalisation. Is the globe hanging suspended inspace the full representation of globalisation? The answer is No, because everything saidis said by someone, everything surveyed is surveyed by someone, any perspective is theperspective of someone (Merleau-Ponty 1962). Man is simply not in space. Man is in theworld always already involved. When putting man back into the picture the representationof the globe discloses quite easily the subject/object model, but at the same time itbecomes untenable. Man has taken himself out of the representation of the globe becausethis approach is based on a Cartesian epistemology, in which man, as the subject,assumes himself as the final and objective court of reason (Palmer 1969, Zimmerman1986). Globalisation and IT draw on this stand, and strengthen it as well.

Technology as Globalisation

IT and globalisation go hand in hand.In some cases IT is pointed out as anenabler or as a promoter ofglobalisation. In other cases it is justindicated as a result of the spreadingof IT. Our argument is that theessence of IT holds in itself as alogical corollary the unfolding ofglobalisation. EssentiallyIT and

globalisation are the samephenomenon: Ge-stell.Informatization is globalisation[10](Anderson 2001:205) because whatfirstly and primordially Ge-stellenframes is mans relation with aworld in which he is what he is:

Now that modern technology has arranged its expansion and rule over the whole earth, itis not just the sputniks and their by-products that are circling around our planet; it is ratherBeing as presencing in the sense of calculable material that claims all the inhabitants of the

earth in a uniform manner without the inhabitants of the non-European continents explicitlyknowing this or even being able of wanting to know of the origin of this determination ofBeing. (Evidently those who desire such a knowledge least of all are those busy developerswho today are urging the so-called underdeveloped countries into the realm of hearing ofthat claim of Being which speaks from the innermost core of moderntechnology) (Heidegger 1972:7; parentheses from the original).

The essential way in which IT unfolds appears in globalisation. IT/Globalisation is now partof being-in-the-world, and, thus, it potentially alters many aspects of what we are and ofwhat we do. Always and already in a globalised networked world, now a consummated partof the primary phenomenon of being-in-the-world, we can read with deeper meaning

Heideggers (1984:57) words: [m]an has already begun to overwhelm the entire earth andits atmosphere, to arrogate to himself in forms of energy the concealed powers of nature,and to submit future history to the planning and ordering of a world government. This worldgovernment relies on the metaphysical contours of globalisation. It is surely a set of bodies




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whose concerns are the global addressing of issues (e.g., UN, WTO, WB, IMF, WorldEconomic Forum, NATO), but above all, it is a global logic of acting. This global logic, forexample means in economic competitive terms, that companies instinctively and intuitivelytake the whole planet as their typical arena. Morita, the leader of the Japanese companySony, described globalisation as global localisation (in Angell 1995). The planet is takenas a whole and at once, and the managers locate each function and each process, fromR&D, software development, raw materials, and customer care, to finance, management,taxation, and markets, wherever on earth a higher output/input ratio is detected. Globalefficiency drives the action in an ITised reality.

Once one has experienced the real-ness of IT our sense of reality changes as it cannotanymore not take into account the possibilities disclosed in IT. The IT reality is not a mereway of adjusting ourselves to the real. IT is the real and as such it is human action thatadapts to IT. For example, a mobile phone indicates the possibility of reaching and beingreachable by every other person on this planet. As this possibility is grasped, andappropriated on a societal basis, it not only cannot be reversed, but it imposes itself as anew mode of being and acting.

Globalisation as Metaphysics

Action is now global, that is, the referential whole (Heidegger 1962) in which each one of usalways and already is immersed, is global. In this action that globalises, that is, inglobalisation, the world shows up as a planetaryIT system. The real appears as a planetarysystem of communication, that is, as a fundamental mode of coupling and adjustingourselves to and in the world. In this world turned into a village, a properly shaped andappropriated languageneeded for the coupling of the entities of this new communityis

emerging as global: a new English, the Anglo-American the universal language of moderntechnology (Zimmerman 1990:215). In/with/through IT is now the mode in which many ofus in the Western world experience ourselves in-the-world. In this light it is interesting tonote that the contemporary scientific and professional communities call the Internet centralrouters the truth(Village Voice 2001).

Hence, IT and globalisation essentially are the same phenomenon; an ontologicalphenomenon that addresses being-in-the-world. IT/globalisation addresses human ongoing adjustment to the world and thus it features a domination over meaning in that it isthe essential unfolding of the ontological revealing that rules our epoch. As an appearanceof Ge-stellglobalisation is the logos, the ground for action, against which what appears

appears. Globalisation means, rigorously, the globalisation of everything. As such, as aphenomenon with metaphysical contours, globalisation holds complete domination over allthe phenomena of our times.

We should mention that this domination is not equal to social, political or economicuniformity whatsoever. Although by the logic of this investigation that kind of event cannotbe put aside, it cannot be taken as inevitable as well. What is at stake in here is a muchdeeper disclosure of the real against which uniformity and multiformity, themselves, showup. For example, the ontological background of Ge-stellis that on the basis of which theWestern world is developed and many Asian and African countries are labelleddeveloping. IT and globalisation, as the background of our times, are becoming the

implicit criteria against which countries, regions, and cities will be further and furtherclassified (Heidegger 1972:7). In its grounding of an age, we could say of IT, and thus ofglobalisation, what Heidegger (1977:115) synthesised about the fundamental way in whichmetaphysics unfolds: IT/globalisation grounds [our] age, in that through a specific




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interpretation of what is and through a specific comprehension of truth it gives to [our] agethe basis upon which it is essentially formed. This basis holds complete domination over allthe phenomena that distinguish [our] age.

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[1]This article was prepared for the Project Enciclopdia e Hipertextoof the Faculdade deCincias da Universidade de Lisboa (http://www.educ.fc.ul.pt/hyper) and draws upon thefollowing papers of mine: The Globalisation of Everything or Ge-stellby Other Name: APhenomenological Analysis of Information Technology, just submitted to a conference onphenomenology and the human sciences; The Emergence of Ontological Agreement inOrganisational Life, co-authored with Lucas Introna presented in Interpretive Approachesto Information Systems and Computing Research, 26th and 27th, July 2002, BrunelUniversity, London, UK; and Globalisation Out of Information: A Hermeneutic andAutopoietic Analysis, to be presented at the International Association for Development ofthe Information Society (IADIS) e-Society 2003 Conference, June, Lisbon, Portugal.

[2] Sanskrit - the language in which The Vedas, the oldest sacred texts, are written - wasan early form of an Indo-Aryan language, dating from around 1000 BC. The Indo-Aryanlanguages derived from Proto-Indo-European (before 3000 BC), from which also evolvedSlavic, Baltic, Classical Greek, Latin, Germanic and other families of languages. Old HighGerman, Middle English, and Middle Dutch, belong to the Westbranch of the Germanicfamily. Middle French belongs to the Italic (Latin) family (Crystal 1987).

[3] I was unable to recover the specific details of this story, which I read around 1998/1999in a major UK newspaper.

[4] In general the term the technologicalis closely related to the term the technique;to theFrench expression la techniquein Elluls (1954) La Technique ou lenjeu du sicle(TheTechnological Society, 1964);and to the German expression die Technikof Heideggers DieTechnik und die Kehre(1962b) The Question Concerning Technology(Heidegger 1977).

[5] In the ordinary usage Gestellmeans some kind of apparatus, frame, shelf, or skeleton.Hyphenating the wordGe-stellHeidegger both wants to bring forward the gathering thatthe prefix Ge-denotes, and to open us to the whole realms of meaning addressed by thefamily of verbs centred in the verb stellen, and in the noun Stell. The noun means place,spot, location. The verb stellenmeans to place, to set, to put, to stand, to arrange, toregulate, to provide, to order, to furnish or to supply, and in a military context, to challengeor to engage (Lovitt 1997:15 fn.14; Ciborra 1998:318). Ge-stellis translated by Lovitt (ibid.)by enframing,trying to suggest through the use of the prefix en-something of the activemeaning that Heidegger gives to the German word (ibid.:19 fn.17).

[6] Literally, order about means domination (OPDT:522).

[7] Castells adds: (although certainly not determined).

[8] For example, refer to Crane (2001) to the entries of the Latin words terra, sphaera,orbis, globosus, globo, con-globo, and to Greek entry sphaira; Strabo in 2.3.1. refersexplicitly to the earth as the terrestrial globe.

[9] Markets and technology, e.g., Barnett and Cavanagh 1994; Corsi and Kudrya 1998;Henderson 1999; Ohmae 1990, 1996; Woods 2000; financial system, e.g., Campbell 1996;Gray 1998; Hutton and Giddens 2000; politics and world power, e.g., Baylis and Smith1997; Beck 1997; Nye and Donahue 2000; Rosenau and Czempiel 1992; Vayrynen 1999.

[10] Our translation from the original Informatizao globalizao.
