Hylomorphic Information and Post‐Digitality in Alfred North Whitehead: Rethinking Cybernetics and AI

This short paper delineates an understudied theoretical development of information. Whitehead, a pre‐cybernetic philosopher and mathematician, provided a conceptual schematic for hylomorphic information: information that does not dissect the mind from the body. His information suggests connections in ontology, phenomenology, epistemology, and ethics. Contemporary Whiteheadian literature theorizes connections between philosophy, science, and morality through hylomorphic approaches to organization, science and technology studies, and critical data research, suggesting extensions to cybernetic theory and artificial intelligence. This short paper provides a first interpretation of these relations and forwards directions information studies might find more immediate applications.