Philosophy of Digital Man and Digital Society - 2024

European Vision of the Evolution of Philosophical Ideas from Humanism to “Digital Humanities” and “Digital Philosophy”

The Evolution of Philosophical Ideas from “Digital Humanities” to Digital Philosophy, Digital Economy, and Digital Management

The European vision regarding the evolution of philosophical ideas from humanism to "Digital Humanities" and "Digital Philosophy" entails an analysis of the contemporary significance and self-definition of digital humanities within social and philosophical thought. "Digital Humanities" is understood as an interdisciplinary approach within the humanities, characterized by a new generation of researchers in the social sciences and humanities, who adeptly utilize methods, concepts, and technologies of computer science, programming, and flexible management in response to the influence of digital technologies on the development of philosophy.

Digital humanities, emerging as a novel scientific direction and a modern social-humanitarian domain, function as a cross-disciplinary initiative—a new product of scientific convergence and cooperation—where relevant inquiries are pertinent to both programmers and humanists alike. Presently, the field of Digital Humanities is flourishing in leading universities across the United States, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The experiences of premier global centers for Digital Humanities indicate their explicit identification with this field, which is geographically distributed: 152 institutions in Europe, 16 in Asia, 134 in North America, 9 in South America, and 12 in Australia and Oceania. The analysis has shown that the most prevalent organizational forms are centers (35%), laboratories (15%), and institutes (14%).

Digital technologies, as an object of social and philosophical inquiry, have recently entered the discourse of "Digital Humanities," which is an integral part of digital philosophy. The term "Digital Humanities" (DH) became established in the international academic community in the mid-2000s and now boasts over 800 definitions; however, a consistent and established content remains undefined. One of the key documents in this domain is the Digital Humanities Manifesto, adopted on May 18-19, 2010, whose principal tenets remain relevant today and require further development. The international scholarly community calls for the inclusion of Digital Humanities courses in the curricula of humanities disciplines.

Scholars advocate for the establishment of a distinct specialty in Digital Humanities and the development of corresponding professional training programs, ensuring that skills in this area are considered in hiring and career advancement. The manifesto has been translated into numerous languages and serves as a solid foundation for understanding this field and its overall content. As the authors of the manifesto urge, today, courses in Digital Humanities are incorporated into the programs of many universities, and graduates with the requisite competencies are more competitive in the job market. The "digital revolution" of contemporary society transforms and questions traditional forms of knowledge dissemination, forging new pathways and creating a novel digital realm, as Simon Winchester articulates.

The handbook A Companion to Digital Humanities and A New Companion to Digital Humanities (edited by Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, and John Unsworth), published in 2004, marked a pivotal reference point and guide for digital humanities, documenting the transition from Humanities Computing to Digital Humanities. An updated version of this publication was released in 2016. Both volumes systematically compile the history, principles, methods, and technologies of digital humanities, including specific tools and services for applying computer technologies across various thematic and subject areas. The anthology Debates in the Digital Humanities (edited by Matthew K. Gold and Lauren F. Klein) includes three concurrent collections addressing diverse issues within the realm of digital humanities.

The first volume of the series was published in 2012, opening with The Digital Humanities Moment, which encapsulated the prevailing situation reported by leading publications such as the New York Times, Nature, Boston Globe, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed. Amid budgetary cuts in academia and the closure of departments and personnel reductions, centers and laboratories for Digital Humanities were emerging globally, heralding a new era in the development of digital humanities. The collection examines the state of the digital domain at that time, providing a theoretical foundation and future prospects.

Translations of several articles from this anthology are presented in the textbook Digital Humanities. The second volume, titled Digital Humanities: The Expanded Field, published in 2016, emphasizes that Digital Humanities (DH) can and must evolve in response to movements for social justice, ensuring that countries with low development ratings are included in digital technology initiatives.

In 2019, the third volume was released, featuring the introductory essay A DH That Matters, which expanded a wide array of opinions and descriptions of subjects studied in this field, such as digital art history, and provided an overall snapshot of the state of digital humanities in 2019. Alongside the traditional print version of this collection, readers were offered an online platform for commenting and highlighting text segments, complete with convenient citation tools. This online extension of the book and its additional functionalities were proposed in the publication Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian Macroscope.

Discussions surrounding Digital Humanities by Professor Manfred Thaller, one of the pioneers in this field, include analyses of the development of digital humanities grounded in his personal experience. His analysis prompts us to contemplate many questions that remain relevant today: Will technology dictate contemporary development, or will we actively participate in the advancement of digital technologies?

Another publication, Introduction to Digital Humanities: Concepts, Methods, and Tutorials for Students and Instructors by Drucker, Kim, Salehian, and Bushong, serves as an online textbook based on an "Introduction to Digital Humanities" course taught at the University of California, Los Angeles. This course provided accessible materials on digital technologies, methodologies, and approaches for analyzing humanities data. It includes theoretical arguments for justification, examples of projects, discussion questions, and essential materials for developing digital competencies, such as analyzing Facebook friends using Gephi or creating a digital collection of sources with Omeka. Notably, similar activities are offered by university instructors through courses utilizing the "Learn Digital Humanities" website, where students' mini-digital project developments can be found.

Within the context of the advancement of digital humanities, the anthology edited by D. Nykhan, M. Terras, E. Vanhoutte, and I. Kizhnner highlights digital philosophy, containing articles on the history and formation of this direction, as well as definitions of "Digital Humanities," analyzing the associated challenges.

Digital Humanities represent a field of inquiry, education, and the cultivation of digital competencies situated at the intersection of computer science and the humanities. This discipline entails the utilization of digitized materials and resources of digital origin, merging them with the methodologies of traditional humanities—such as history, philosophy, linguistics, literature, art, archaeology, and music—alongside computer sciences. This confluence offers computational tools and unveils new possibilities for data collection and visualization, information retrieval, and the intellectual analysis of data, including the application of mathematical statistics.

The aims and objectives of research in the realm of Digital Humanities ensure the preservation of cultural heritage through the use of digital technologies. Furthermore, such studies are directed toward the restoration of original materials using computer programs, as well as the refinement of data analysis methods, their structuring, and access to information. The results of employing digital technologies enable the raising of new questions and the application of innovative approaches to the study of the humanities.

In the context of developing this concept, open research data emerge, encompassing initiatives that promote the dissemination of data in the public domain, actively supported by universities. Over time, this concept has evolved into an international initiative that unites efforts in the development and presentation of texts in electronic formats, aiming to devise decoding methods that render texts suitable for machine processing in the humanities, linguistics, and social sciences.

Big data today serve as one of the principal engines of advancement for supercomputers and computational capabilities, integral to Digital Humanities. In June 2013, the UK government published its "Information Economy Strategy," in which big data occupies one of five central domains of growth within the digital economy, alongside the concepts of smart cities, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and e-commerce. Additionally, this document prioritizes funding allocations for scientific projects, thereby engaging the academic community in creating tools for big data analysis.

An example of the application of big data in Digital Humanities is the HathiTrust project, established in 2008 by the universities of California, Indiana, and Illinois, which aggregates electronic copies of over three million research records. In designing tools for the effective utilization of the collections and resources of this electronic library, the organizers encounter numerous challenges related to managing vast data arrays. For HathiTrust, as for any other digital project that operates with big data, one of the primary issues that must be addressed is the organization of databases, which includes challenges such as data quality, structuring of data, deficiencies in descriptions, overcoming copyright limitations for research purposes, accurate visual representation, and fostering a community of scholars around the project.

Data visualization, as a category of Digital Humanities, facilitates the creation of a holistic understanding of the object of study by connecting various types of data, such as temporal and characteristic aspects. In addition, in Digital Humanities, visualization aids memory retention, allows for swift data evaluation, and promotes the dissemination and popularization of digital philosophical knowledge in the age of digitization.

A crucial component of the evolution of digital philosophy and humanities is crowdsourcing, which engages internet users in scientific endeavors and the development of Digital Humanities projects. The primary tasks of these centers include advancing the application of digital technologies to humanities research, consulting, and providing necessary technical support within the humanities domain.

In 2010, Professor of History and Director of the French Center for Open Electronic Publishing, Marin Dacos, published the "Manifesto for the Digital Humanities," declaring that Digital Humanities are interdisciplinary and encompass all methods, means, and perspectives of knowledge associated with digital technologies in this field, resulting in the establishment of the Digital Humanities Manifesto.

In crafting this Manifesto, scholars noted that over the past half-century, numerous experiments have been conducted in the field of Digital Humanities, leading to the formation of Digital Humanities centers, which have become hubs for the development of specific methodologies within this discipline. These endeavors have included the digitization of cultural, scientific, and technical heritage, the mapping of the "World Wide Web," data mining, the application of 3D technologies, broadcasting archives, and digital and multimedia art and literature, all of which have contributed to shaping the domain of Digital Humanities.

This activity knows no borders; scholars from various countries and scientific communities can join in, representing a multilingual and interdisciplinary collective. The goal of this initiative is to achieve progress in digital cognition, enhance the quality of research in the humanities, and enrich philosophical knowledge and cultural heritage, extending beyond the confines of academia.

Thus, there has been a call from international scholars for the inclusion of digital culture in defining the overarching culture of the 21st century. They have urged for open access to data and metadata that must be documented and inter-operable on both technical and conceptual levels.

Scholars advocate for the dissemination, exchange, and free modification of methods, software, digital formats, research results, and their application within the humanities. They call for the integration of Digital Humanities courses into the curricula of humanities and philosophical specialties, literature, and the arts, as well as the creation of an independent Digital Humanities specialty and the development of relevant professional training programs. Such initiatives would ensure that digital competencies are considered in hiring practices and career advancement. Scholars have committed to constructing a system of digital public expertise grounded in a unified terminology, based on the contributions of all community members, which would become a shared resource, serve scientific digital progress, and promote professional growth across all fields.

Participants in this Manifesto expressed their willingness to engage in the selection and dissemination of the best methodologies and products aimed at addressing specific disciplinary and interdisciplinary tasks, capable of evolution and rooted in discussion and subsequent consensus within the relevant academic communities. The openness that underpins Digital Humanities fosters a pragmatic approach to protocols and perspectives, allowing for the coexistence of diverse methods that enrich both the theory and practice of digital humanities, revealing the adaptability, synergism, and flexibility of systems as a cohesive digital whole.

Scholars have called for the creation of cyber infrastructures that swiftly adapt to and meet the genuine needs of the digital society. These infrastructures will be built on an informational foundation and rely on methods and approaches that have already proven effective within research communities. Within the overarching trend of the Digital Humanities Manifesto, numerous problems and contradictions emerge; however, the most common among them, in our view, are articulated by Manfred Thaller and can be summarized as follows:

1. Loss of Focus: It is challenging to recognize the complex conditions that correspond to the formula "for analyzing digital information using means that reflect the methodological requirements of specific research tasks."
2. Narrowing the Scope of Digital Humanities to Text Processing: There is a fixation on the issues of text processing, questioning what cognitive techniques can be derived from computational methods for the humanities.
3. A New Iteration: The development of Digital Humanities has witnessed certain repetitions and closed cycles, given that initially, from 1970 to 1985, humanists spent relatively little time learning command languages and software packages, allowing them to implement their projects much more easily, without the involvement of additional personnel.

According to M. Thaller, contemporary perceptions of digital infrastructures for the humanities overestimate the notion of publishing digital information; consequently, the infrastructure for Digital Humanities, in a series of recent discussions, may be devoid of analytical considerations that are practically essential for a digital library. Overall, it can be stated that in the evolution of Digital Humanities, a transition has occurred, characterized by the formula "From Humanism to the Humanities."

For us, a pertinent question regarding the ideology of Digital Humanities is: how do philosophy as a component of the humanities block coexist with digital technologies? In other words, to what extent can we discuss Digital Philosophy? Is there heuristic interpenetration and real interaction expressed in tangible informational products that function within scholarly collectives? What novel results for philosophy might be attained through digital technologies? In addressing these questions, it should be noted that "Digital Philosophy" has indeed led to a "digital turn" in philosophical inquiry.

First, digital philosophy constitutes a direction within philosophy and cosmology that has emerged from digital physics (both terms introduced by Edward Fredkin). The first fundamental assumption of this concept posits that the Universe is a gigantic Turing cellular automaton. The second assumption suggests that there are variations in the understanding of digital philosophy, which considers reality and acts of thought as processes of information processing within the context of an innovative-digital development paradigm.

Second, "digital philosophy" serves as a marker denoting software programs for teaching, analyzing, or modeling classical philosophical problems. The term "Digital Philosophy" encapsulates a conflict of worldview frameworks associated with the classical problem of "the love of wisdom," which can only be felt by humans, not machines. Yet, considering that the very author of the term "philosophy," Pythagoras, was a mathematician who proposed understanding the world as a "world of numbers," it becomes evident that there exists no ideological contradiction or severance from tradition in the concept of "digital philosophy."

Third, a pivotal role in the establishment of digital philosophy has been played by the Committee on Philosophy and Computers of the American Philosophical Association (APA), which supported the creation of the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP). According to the Committee on Philosophy and Computers, John Barwise exemplified the scientific-philosophical correlation of computers and philosophy concerning the so-called "computational turn" in philosophy. Regarding the broader questions of the convergence of computers and philosophy, this idea was initially laid out by Leibniz in his remarks about the "calculating machine."

In 1950, A. Turing, in an article titled "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," published in the philosophical journal Mind, posited that there cannot be a definitive answer to the question "Can a machine think?" However, despite this, if a person considers a machine to also be a person, it may be termed "thinking." Turing's name is mentioned not by chance, as his discoveries hold fundamental significance for modeling both artificial intelligence and the teaching of philosophy. It is worth noting the contributions of the American philosopher H. Dreyfus, who in 1965 authored a work titled "Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence," which later transformed into the monograph "What Computers Can't Do."

The first and rather fruitful steps towards the development of artificial intelligence in this domain were made in the United States. The first generation of philosophers oriented towards the "digital turn" began to emerge in the U.S. at regional and national conferences discussing issues of "automated learning" and its role in teaching philosophy. The first materials on this subject were published following the Fifth International Seminar/Conference on Teaching Philosophy (University of Toledo, 1984). This seminar, sponsored by the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT), included sessions on "Computers and Philosophy Teaching."

On March 22-23, 1986, a conference dedicated to philosophy and computers titled "Workshop for Developers of CAI in Philosophy" was held at Cleveland State University. Subsequently, as computers became increasingly integrated into teaching and research activities and as the "digital turn" expanded, philosophers began to utilize computers more frequently in their professional endeavors. Conferences on this theme were held at Michigan State (1987), Dartmouth (1988), Carnegie Mellon (1989), Stanford (1990), Southern Connecticut State University (1991), and the University of Central Florida (Orlando, 1992). In 2004, the Constitution of IACAP (The International Association for Computing and Philosophy) was ratified.

Currently, its branches exist both in the United States and in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. The International Association for Computing and Philosophy serves to foster scientific dialogue and research on all aspects of the digital and informational turn, as well as regarding the use of information and communication technologies in the service of philosophy.

The research domains of digital philosophy have included: artificial intelligence / cognitive sciences; artificial life / computer modeling in biology; information and computer ethics; computer-mediated communication; culture and society; distance education and electronic pedagogy; electronic publishing; logic; metaphysics (distributed processing, emergent properties, formal ontology, network structures, etc.); internet resources in philosophy; philosophy of information; philosophy of information technology; robotics; and virtual reality, all of which impact the world and can transform it.

The role of IACAP (The International Association for Computing and Philosophy) has been to facilitate the creation of a global communication network for those interested in computers and philosophy. To this end, a series of international conferences have been conducted, and developing websites have been expanded. Regarding the emergence of the issues surrounding the digital and informational turn in philosophy, at least since the 1950s, philosophy has begun to address questions that pertain directly to information and computation at both theoretical and technological levels.

A broad array of questions related to these issues has been framed through thematic vectors such as computer ethics, computer aesthetics, artificial life, internet ethics, artificial intelligence ethics, Mind Uploading—the hypothetical process of transferring mental content (particularly long-term memory) from a specific substrate, the brain, to computational devices; machine ethics; cyborgs and robots; the Frame Problem, which poses the question of how to describe a changing world; and technological singularity—the theory of certain hypothetical events that would follow the creation of machines with greater intelligence than humans. The hypothesis posits that intelligent machines will excel at designing other machines that can transform the world, exemplified by the development of IT giants.

The unifying concept that encompasses all the aforementioned research within the Western philosophical discourse is the so-called pancomputationalism, a term denoting a "computational turn," stemming from the awareness that all surrounding reality can be successfully explained through computable computer models. In other words, pancomputationalism suggests viewing the universe as a grand computer program.

Next to A. Turing, perhaps one of the most renowned and intriguing figures in philosophical discourse is the experiment conducted by the American scientist R. Axelrod, who, through computer modeling of ethical strategies in 1984, demonstrated the effectiveness of one such strategy. The Turing Test, established in 1950, was designed to ascertain a machine's ability to exhibit behavior indistinguishable from that of a human, a behavior governed by intellect. This idea was proposed by A. Turing in his paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," published in 1950 in the philosophical journal Mind. Turing had been engaged with the problem of artificial intelligence since 1941, and one of his earliest references to "computer intelligence" dates back to 1947. In his paper "Intelligent Machines," Turing explored the question of whether a machine can exhibit intelligent behavior and proposed what can be considered a precursor to his later digital investigations.

Turing invited colleagues from around the world to write a computer strategy program capable of winning in the dilemma, given that players must remember all previous moves. The programs varied in algorithmic complexity, but victory was claimed by the strategy created by A. Rapaport, which consisted of merely four lines of code written in BASIC. BASIC, an acronym for Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, was developed in 1964 by professors Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny at Dartmouth College.

Interesting ideas regarding the evolution of the "digital turn" were presented by J. Searle, who proclaimed in 1991 the existence of what he termed weak and strong AI (Artificial Intelligence). The new value of the computer in studying consciousness lies in its function as a powerful mechanism. According to strong AI, a computer is not merely a tool for exploring consciousness but, when programmed appropriately, actually embodies a form of consciousness.

In 2012, Simon Rapaport, a British statistician specializing in automated learning, modeling, and visualization, utilized Wikipedia databases and the Gephi program to construct a graph that visually conveyed the comprehensive network of philosophical traditions. The phenomenon of digital philosophy emerged as a trend within the development of digital humanities, linked to a global transformation known as the "computational turn."

Philosophical concepts translated into the language of programming and computer modeling can yield intriguing theoretical and practical results, both in the process of philosophical inquiry and in the teaching of philosophy (as illustrated by R. Axelrod, J. Searle, and S. Rapaport). The overarching issue of reducing philosophy to computer programs is that the resulting intellectual products, at this stage of software development, tend to be quite rigorous, formalistic, straightforward, and rigid.

Digital technologies in philosophy signify a quantitative shift in philosophical discourse. The "digital turn" in the humanities serves as a means to more swiftly respond to the increasingly pressing demands of digital civilization and digitalization as a dynamic system regarding the philosophical worldview. Whereas "analog" static philosophical worldviews were historically crafted by the great masters of philosophy through their own conceptual frameworks, they now require enhancement by dynamic digital representations.

Thus, digital philosophy, which encompasses digital ontology and digital axiology, has matured within the realm of digital humanities and is currently represented not only by philosophers but also by mathematicians, computer scientists, and theoretical physicists such as Edward Fredkin, Konrad Zuse, Stephen Wolfram, Rudy Rucker, Gregory Chaitin, and Konrad Zuse. Digital philosophy has emerged distinct from digital physics (both terms were introduced by Edward Fredkin).

Digital philosophy constitutes a contemporary reimagining of "monistic metaphysics" as conceived by G. Leibniz, who posited that the mind could be subjected to computational processing, while digital philosophy endeavors to address the very issues of philosophy of mind. The digital approach to contemporary philosophy seeks to engage with indeterministic quantum theory, which posits that all information must have finite and discrete means, where the evolution of physical states is governed by local and deterministic rules. Computation represents the singular substance of monistic metaphysics, from which subjectivity arises through computational universality. Numerous variants of digital philosophy exist, most of which are theories of digital data that examine physical reality, fostering education, management, and economics within the framework of digital science theory.

Therefore, it is worth noting that Edward Fredkin articulated fundamental laws of physical information that carry essential implications for digital philosophy:

1. All information must possess digital means of representation;
2. The informational process must have a digital representation of the existing state of reality. The most fundamental characteristic of reality is the propagation of signals instigated by an update parameter affecting network nodes.

As a result of this analysis, the multiverse is envisioned as a model comprising an informational substrate, an update parameter, a method for deriving quantum field theory, and a general theory of relativity. In his book Mind Tools (1987), mathematician/philosopher Rudy Rucker articulated this concept with the following conclusions regarding the interrelation between mathematics and the universe, within which any entity is perceived as a globe within the space of facts. The world comprises a collection of all thoughts and objects, an ideal spread across the space of facts.

Digital philosophy is characterized within the context of the space of facts:

1. The world can be partitioned into digital bits, each consisting of smaller bits;
2. These bits form a fractal pattern in the space of facts;
3. The pattern behaves like a cellular automaton;
4. The computation of the world can be achieved through digital technologies aimed at developing models for ecologically balanced and socially-oriented economic growth.