NOTE-096: Karpenko — Defending informational structural realism

Contribution

It adds little that was not already in the literature. The new element is a proposed extension of Floridi’s ISR, “ISR with alternative descriptions”: empirically equivalent models that differ in their picture of the fundamental (e.g. in spatial dimension) are equally real, and what is fundamental is the family of descriptions (information) rather than a substantival spacetime. Along the way it criticises Terekhovich’s non-eliminative OSR and gives a short survey of Russian-language and Anglophone ISR reception (Bynum 2014, Beni 2016, Long 2020, B. Wheeler 2022).

Key insight

The move is to treat underdetermination as plurality rather than ignorance. If dual theories are “equivalent and therefore represent one and the same reality” (p. 199), and yet disagree about spacetime dimension, then no single configuration of reality stands behind them. So the descriptions themselves are what is fundamental. On this reading, what anti-realists (Fursov 2022) count as underdetermination becomes evidence for an informational realism.

Assumptions

• ISR is accepted “in general”; the choice of digital versus non-digital ontology is declared “not a matter of principle for the present study” (p. 197).
• Empirical and mathematical equivalence (duality) implies “they represent one and the same reality” (p. 199).
• Only descriptions (models) are accessible for the unobservable (abstract; p. 202). What is accessible only through descriptions is identified with the descriptions.
• Existence claims can only be made “through theoretical objects”, so theoretical objects exist (p. 194). This is a premise against Terekhovich, not argued further.
• Wheeler’s “it from bit” and digital physics (Fredkin, Zuse, Wolfram, Lloyd, Schmidhuber) are admissible support.
• Mamchur’s reading of Wheeler as “immaterialist” rather than anti-realist is accepted, and generalised to ISR (p. 198).

Key results

What it argues, since there are no formal results:

• Survey (pp. 191–194): ESR runs from Poincaré through Maxwell (Ramsey sentences, after Russell) and Worrall. Newman’s objection (1928; Demopoulos & Friedman 1985) is said to lead Ramsey-sentence ESR to empiricism; a solution is promised “below”. OSR gives structures ontological status (Ladyman 2017; Schaffer 2003; Wallace 2022 on mathematics-first). French’s eliminative OSR faces Chakravartty’s “how can there be relations without relata?” (1998, p. 399) and Psillos’s causation worry. Karpenko notes, via Golovko & Ertel 2020 and Ladyman 2008, that OSR may not need causation.
• Against Terekhovich (pp. 194–195): (i) we can speak of existence and agency only through theoretical objects, so they exist and act; (ii) Terekhovich’s position looks like a return to pre-Poincaré standard realism with structures added; (iii) if “whatever acts is an entity”, structures also act and the entity/structure distinction dissolves; (iv) his modal interpretation of QM resembles van Fraassen’s antirealism. The verdict is an interesting modification of realism and antirealism, but unsatisfactory as OSR (p. 195).
• ISR presentation (pp. 195–197): Floridi’s semantic information (truthful data) against Bar-Hillel–Carnap. Informational objects are, in Karpenko’s reading, abstract and at the highest LoA, and Floridi rejects digital ontology (2009). Reception: Bynum extends ISR to quantum phenomena; Beni argues ISR extends ESR; B. Wheeler proposes an algorithmic-information version; Long argues ISR is still digital. Karpenko accepts digital ontology as “second-order” ontology.
• Equivalences (pp. 198–202): wave, particle and field descriptions are equivalent descriptions of one reality. Fields, particles and waves are “theoretical (mathematical) objects”, best read as informational objects that are themselves fundamental. Five superstring theories are linked by dualities as limits of 11-d M-theory. Holography runs from Bekenstein–Hawking through ‘t Hooft and Susskind to Maldacena. Analogy: program code (1-d) and its screen rendering (2-d) are “dually connected”. Digital physics: one phenomenon can be encoded by different equivalent programs.
• Conclusion (pp. 202–203): equivalent models have equal ontological status. Spacetime properties “become derivative of the modes of description”, so descriptions (information) are ontologically primary. On the objection that false models would then be equally real: yes, any model can be built from information and its bits still exist, and a wrong model may describe “one of many possible worlds”, though that reading is “optional”. Karpenko explicitly disowns relativism about truth. ISR-with-alternatives is the best candidate for the fundamental level, and theoretical objects, along with structures, which “are also informational objects”, are the one thing we can be sure exists.

Claims

id	claim	strength	support
C1	Terekhovich’s “objects do not exist” is the main error of his non-eliminative OSR	weak	informal argument (pp. 194–195), resting on the premise that existence is only speakable via theoretical objects
C2	Empirically equivalent dual theories represent one and the same reality	assertion	stated (p. 199) with citations to string-theory textbooks and Seiberg; the philosophical duality literature on interpretive vs motivational readings is not engaged
C3	Dualities support ISR rather than antirealism (against Fursov 2022)	weak	reinterpretation of underdetermination as plurality of equally true models (pp. 199–200), leaning on a Mamchur quotation
C4	Holography shows spacetime dimension is description-relative, so descriptions are fundamental	weak	physics summarised with errors (see corrections). The inference from “no privileged configuration” to “descriptions are fundamental” is asserted (p. 201)
C5	Information “is real and fundamental” — “it is proven” (abstract)	assertion	no proof; the conclusion restates C2–C4 (p. 202)
C6	Equal ontological status of all models does not entail relativism about truth	weak	reply in the conclusion (pp. 202–203): false models still exist as information or describe other possible worlds. Existence and truth are separated by stipulation
C7	Alternative equally-true models answer the Newman problem	assertion	a parenthetical remark (p. 199)

Method

A philosophical essay. It surveys positions, criticises one (Terekhovich), and supports its own view by selected examples from physics and computing, read interpretively. No formal apparatus is introduced.

Concepts

• ИСР / ISR (informational structural realism): as Karpenko reads Floridi, a realism on which informational objects, abstract and at the highest LoA, are fundamental reality. Floridi’s own ISR differs (see x2).
• ИСР с альтернативными описаниями (“ISR with alternative descriptions”): ISR plus the thesis that mutually equivalent models are equally real and that no model-independent configuration stands behind them.
• Theoretical objects (“теоретические объекты”): fields, particles, waves, i.e. the mathematical posits of theories. For Karpenko they are informational objects existing as ontological primitives; for Terekhovich they are constructs that do not exist.
• Entity vs object (“сущность” vs “объект”): Terekhovich’s distinction, where an entity is what can act and an object is a theoretical construct.
• Duality: equivalence of theories that look like descriptions of different worlds (the five superstring theories; AdS/CFT, called “holographic duality”).
• Second-order ontology: Karpenko’s status for digital ontology. Bits are acceptable as a representation layer, with higher abstractions primary.

Connections

It explicitly extends Floridi (LIT-152) but misreports him on abstraction, equivalence and unobservables (see corrections). It cites the SEP Structural Realism entry through its Spring 2024 archive, which carries the 2023 substantive revision; LIT-045 is that entry, read in its 2023 revision (NOTE-038), and Karpenko’s eliminative-OSR and Chakravartty material matches it, and Wallace’s mathematics-first SR (LIT-151). Its duality argument is the subject of LIT-113 (Le Bihan & Read, “Duality and ontology”) and LIT-199 (De Haro & Butterfield, The Philosophy and Physics of Duality), neither of which it cites. Those works distinguish interpretations of dualities (common core, equivalence as one world vs underdetermination) that Karpenko’s C2 simply assumes. Fn. 3 cites I.E. Pris (2024), “Effective ontic structural realism and contextual realism”, a Russian response to the effective-OSR programme of Ladyman & Lorenzetti (LIT-184). Its reliance on Wheeler’s “it from bit” and on Mamchur’s information interpretation touches the quantum-information-interpretation material held elsewhere in the record, e.g. LIT-177 (Rovelli, relational QM, not cited).

Metaphysics: the work defends informational immaterialism (information is the fundamental reality; theoretical objects exist as primitives; spacetime is derivative of modes of description). The tag is justified, and philosophy-of-science correctly leads.

Bearing on the record

It carries nothing for ML practice. Within the record it should not be used as a source for Floridi’s ISR, which it misstates, or for the physics of holography. At most it is evidence that the “dualities as equal-status descriptions” reading has been proposed in the Russian-language literature, and a pointer to that literature (Terekhovich, Mamchur, Fursov, Pris, Golovko & Ertel).

Limitations

• No argument connects “no privileged configuration behind the descriptions” to “the descriptions are fundamental”. An equally available reading is that the common core, or the structure the duals share, is fundamental, which is the standard structural-realist reading of dualities. Karpenko does not consider it.
• The physics summaries contain errors (the dimension of the AdS/CFT boundary theory, the field-operator dynamics, the scope of the area law) and present conjecture as established.
• Wave/particle/field “equivalence” is treated as the same kind of thing as mathematical duality. It is not: wave and particle are not alternative complete theories.
• The equal-status thesis makes false models exist as information. The reply separates existence from truth but leaves “fundamental reality” including every describable model, which the paper does not reconcile with realism about this world.
• The Newman problem is promised a solution “below” (p. 193) and receives only a one-clause remark (p. 199).

Open questions

• If duals are equally real, what individuates “one reality” they both represent, other than the common structure? That is the question the duality literature (LIT-113, LIT-199) addresses and Karpenko does not.
• Can ISR accommodate dualities without conflating informational objects with mathematical representations? Floridi’s concrete-differences reading suggests an answer different from Karpenko’s.

Corrections to the seeded skim

• The dossier and LIT-215 frame the target as “a non-eliminative OSR” generally. The critique is aimed specifically at V.E. Terekhovich (Epistemology & Philosophy of Science 2022, 59(3); 2023, 60(1)), whose version distinguishes entities (things able to act), objects (theoretical constructs) and structures, and holds that “objects do not exist” (pp. 194–195). Karpenko locates “the main error” in that claim (p. 195). Neither the dossier nor the LIT names Terekhovich.
• Karpenko aligns his own view with eliminative OSR. ISR “(similarly to eliminative OSR) sees scientific knowledge of reality as knowledge of structures, rejecting unobservable entities” (p. 195). The conclusion calls his position “in general the position of eliminative OSR”, with the “important addition” of equal ontological status (p. 202). The dossier’s framing, ISR against non-eliminative OSR, is right but misses this self-placement.
• Karpenko misreports Floridi (LIT-152, read as x2), and the dossier repeats the misreport without flagging it. (a) He says information for Floridi is “what possesses the highest level of abstraction”, and informational objects are “abstract objects”, “highest ideas” in a Platonic parallel (pp. 195–196). Floridi 2007 says data are concrete differentiae de re and rebuts the reading of them as abstract (reply 6.9). LoAs are modelling interfaces, not grades of being. (b) He says Floridi shows ESR and OSR “can be considered equivalent” at the highest LoA (p. 196). Floridi argues they are compatible because they sit at different LoAs. (c) He says ISR “rejects unobservable entities” (p. 195). Floridi’s ISR is committed to sub-observable informational objects.
• Several physics statements are wrong or overstated. Maldacena’s duality is presented as between “a two-dimensional theory of elementary particles and a multidimensional theory of gravity” (p. 201). The canonical case is 4-d N=4 super-Yang–Mills and type IIB string theory on AdS₅×S⁵; the boundary theory is not two-dimensional. AdS/CFT is stated as “shown” to be one theory; it is a conjecture with strong evidence, and Karpenko notes only its citation count (fn. 9). The QFT field operator is said to satisfy “the Schrödinger equation” (p. 198). He says “four-dimensional spacetime turns out to be a consequence of the oscillations of a two-dimensional black-hole horizon” (p. 201), which the cited physics does not state. Holographic entropy is said to be proportional to area “for any massive object” (p. 200); the area bound concerns regions and is saturated by black holes.
• The abstract says “it is shown” / “it is proven” (English abstract: “It is shown …”, “Thus, it is proven that information itself is real and fundamental”). The body contains no proof or derivation, only examples and interpretive assertion. The dossier suspected this, and the full text confirms it.
• Karpenko claims that equally true alternative models are “also an argument against the Newman problem” (p. 199). That is asserted in a parenthesis; accepting that all structurally equivalent theories are equally true is closer to embracing Newman’s conclusion than answering it.
• The dossier’s section map is right in outline. Correction: digital ontology is pp. 201–202 (fn. 10), not p. 201 notes 8–10; notes 8–9 are about AdS/CFT.
• metaphysics tag: justified. The work states a metaphysical thesis (“information is fundamental reality”; theoretical objects exist as ontological primitives; an “immaterialism”, p. 198). The information-theory tag is weak: apart from Bekenstein entropy “understood as a measure of hidden information” and Wheeler’s bits, no information-theoretic content is used.