Above the Sea of Fog
The Philosophy Comes of Age with Information Technology
Only by incorporating the computer can one philosophize about the world and the mind
The dethronement of humankind (4th Copernicanization, see below).
Image: Walter Hehl/Google Gemini AI
Abstract
As early as the end of the 19th century, humanity believed it knew everything and had risen above the fog of ignorance. This was a fundamental error that persists in many ways even today. The entire field of computer science was either absent or not understood in its philosophical significance. Even the greatest philosophers could think only within the sea of fog. This article aims to show that the development of information technology (IT) represents one of the most significant turning points in the history of ideas and, consequently, in the history of humanity.
The essay uses Caspar David Friedrich’s painting “The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” as illustrative material.
Enlightenment Above (and Below) the Sea of Fog
Based on physics (mechanics and electromechanics mainly) and practical understanding (empiricism and rationalism), humanity at the end of the 19th century was, in fact, proud and confident: The world is understood, and where it is not, it will be soon understood. The painting by Caspar David Friedrich in Fig. 2 illustrates this achievement: a wanderer stands above the Sea of Fog.
Image: Caspar David Friedrich — Wanderer above the sea of fog, 1818. Wikimedia Commons.
A specific quote reflecting this mindset — “Everything has essentially been understood or explored” — can be found here, for example, from physicist Albert Michelson in 1894:
„The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered, and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is exceedingly remote…. Our future discoveries must be looked for in the sixth place of decimals.“
That was wrong; there were already dark clouds on the horizon in physics that foreshadowed the theory of relativity and quantum theory.
For thoughtful people, there were fundamental problems of understanding concerning entire realms — namely, the mental and the emotional. The physiologist Emil du Bois identified the problem clearly in 1872:
“What conceivable connection exists between, on the one hand, the specific movements of certain atoms in my brain and, on the other hand, the facts that are, for me, fundamental, indefinable, and undeniable: ‘I feel pain, I feel pleasure; I taste sweetness, I smell the scent of roses, I hear the sound of an organ, I see the color red,’ and the certainty that flows just as directly from them: ‘Therefore, I am’?”
Du Bois thinks this is unbelievable: “Ignoramus et ignorabimus” — we do not know, and we will never know!
At this point, the entire aspect of the mind is missing from Descartes’ dualism of matter and mind. The mind is regarded as inexplicable. A sign of this lack of understanding is a philosophical concept that emerged around 1929: “qualia”. This refers to the perceived philosophical problem of the transition from the material world to the spiritual, as expressed in Du Bois’s quote: “How does the perceived ‘red’ arise?” The overarching materialist problem is the transition to consciousness — the so-called “hard problem.”
The seed of the solution already lies there, unrecognized and scorned: programmable computing machines. The pioneer of calculating machines predicts the capabilities of future machines:
“The whole of the developments and operations of analysis are now capable of being executed by machinery. … As soon as an Analytical Engine exists, it will necessarily guide the future course of science.”
Charles Babbage, mathematician and inventor, 1864.
He is more than right in his prediction. But he does not foresee that future computers will virtually take over mathematics on their own.
At and beyond the big milestone
The status of science and philosophy at the turn of the 19th century is once again illustrated by a painting by David Caspar Friedrich (Fig. 3), here “the Wanderer at the Milestone”.
An illustrative image before the great transition to the modern era through IT.
Image: Caspar David Friedrich — Wanderer am Meilenstein, 1802. Wikimedia Commons.
Behind the imposing milestone, something new and unexpected awaited the hiker. To use the image of a sea of fog — what do you think sits above the fog? The new science and the new technology will completely transform the way people think about reality and time, about life and the mind:
• the new physics with the theories of Relativity and Quantum. It has now occupied and confused scientists and philosophers for more than a hundred years,
and
• the technologies of computer science — “the computer” — with computer biology and artificial intelligence, whose philosophical significance remains controversial.
Classical philosophy and the general public failed to recognize the significance of computers; computers were merely calculating tools that worked strictly according to human specifications. There were, however, early premonitions — but also rejections. The English philosopher and mathematician Thomas Hobbes thus regarded mental activities as computational operations involving symbols. In particular, for him, thinking is calculation. He wrote in his “Elements of Philosophy” in 1656:
“Reason is nothing but reckoning”.
He was likely inspired by the first mechanical calculating machines, such as Blaise Pascal’s from 1642. Calculation could be mechanized!
In contrast, the German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz rejects any possibility of mechanical thinking. In his famous “mill analogy” from 1714, he explains:
“And if one were to imagine a machine whose construction enabled thinking, feeling, and perceiving, one could conceive of it as enlarged — while maintaining the same proportions — so that one could enter it as one would a mill. But if we were to do so, upon inspecting it from the inside, we would find nothing but parts colliding with one another, and never anything that could explain perception.”
He is wrong. The hypothetical machine exists today, albeit implemented in miniature form as electrical circuits — indeed, in nanotechnology. Various fallacies surrounding computers have persisted to this day. Among those that remain misunderstood are
the Law of Emergence: New properties can arise from simple structures,
the Law of Scaling: In very large systems, arbitrarily complex phenomena arise despite the simplicity — indeed, the triviality — of the building blocks,
the Indeterminacy: Large IT systems are not mechanical timepieces; rather, they can be unpredictable and creative.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is particularly wrong — even offensive — in this regard. In 1819, he considered mathematics to be
“the lowest of all intellectual activities, because it is the only one that can also be performed by a machine” — and is therefore trivial and unspiritual.
The complexity built from the elementary and the formal gives rise to thought, understanding, and ultimately consciousness. All of these can be produced by the technical Information Technology machine, for they, too, are IT phenomena.
The philosophical problem of qualia resolves itself for the human “machine,” since sensing, processing, and storage all take place within the same basic electrochemical technology: computer technology and communications technology are one and the same. The “hard” problem of consciousness is fictitious and merely a matter of perspective:
We are not looking at the machine — we are the machine, looking out from within it!
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The Fourth Copernican Revolution and the Horror of Being a Machine
It is widely accepted that our body is a physicochemical machine. But what about the mind? Many people perceive this as an affront — the fourth great affront, or the “fourth Copernican revolution”:
First Insult: The Earth is not at the center of the solar system,
Second Insult: Humans are animals,
Third Insult: We are controlled by a subconscious mind.
And now
Fourth Insult: We are integrated computer-body machines
We are computers in the generalized sense. Technical computers are our equals. Fig. 1 illustrates the situation: We humans do not stand alone at the summit of intellectual abilities. Machines — “our” machines — also stand at the mountain peaks.
What is likely to be humanity’s final dethronement (the fourth Copernican revolution).
Image: Walter Hehl/Google Gemini AI
To put it bluntly, there are generally two kinds of capable “agents”: on the one hand, biological ones (us), and on the other, technical ones. We are, to put it simply, “computers,” and we are and remain at the same time animals of the great ape family and the suborder of dry-nosed primates. The technical forms known as “computers” are growing at an indefinite rate, connected to everything, and becoming almost limitlessly more powerful — whatever “power” may mean. Anyone who hadn’t been closing the eyes could have seen it coming a long time ago:
“Everything a normal person can learn [in terms of skills], a computer [robot] can or could do as well. And ultimately, it can do this better, more versatilely, and in conjunction with things that we humans cannot do.”
Walter Hehl, 2012.
Religion and self-esteem have always sought to assert that “human beings are special, possess something unique, something that cannot be replicated” — something no animal, and certainly no machine, has. We humans have liked to hear that. And conversely, we’ve also liked to hear the disparaging claim that “a machine can only do what a human programs it to do”: This so-called “Lady Lovelace Objection” is nonsense and represents a mechanical, clockwork way of thinking of computers that has now been refuted for all to see.
Conversely, it’s astonishing just how well we — the biological machines — function: compact, with low energy consumption, and made of “slime and flesh.” A wonderful short story by science fiction author Terry Bisson from 1991 sums up the absurdity — our absurdity — perfectly. Aliens visit Earth and discover:
“They’re made out of meat.” “Meat?”
“Meat. They’re made out of meat. There’s no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.”
In the story, the aliens decide to ignore this strange life form and, horrified, leave Earth.
Most people have already largely lost their human arrogance. Even so for many, irrational belief in an afterlife is a last remnant.
It is obvious that the continued intellectual growth of machines threatens biological humanity; Fig. 4 is intended to convey this sense of threat.
Humans remain the same species, while computers continue to evolve.
Image: Walter Hehl/Google Gemini AI. Oct 2026.
The Great Break
The development of computers is so significant that we can divide human history into two periods: the time without computers — or with only “dumb” computers — and the era of computers that equal or surpass us. We are currently experiencing this transition. Economy is changing, art has changed, and mathematics, too, will never be the same again. This transition is a fundamental turning point for religion and philosophy.
Fig. 5 symbolizes the arduous ascent from “pagan” supernaturalism in the lowlands to the sober and enlightened highlands. Scientists, too, struggled with this ascent, but the practical development of computer applications — particularly AI in our decade — has helped, demonstrated the power of computers, and clarified our situation. The rocky slope corresponds to the phase of the development of computers — just about one century in the perhaps hundred thousand years of Homo sapiens’ history.
The difficult climb toward understanding: We are machines that combine physics and computer science.
Image: Walter Hehl/ChatGPT Nov 2026.
For the Abrahamic religions in particular, the normalization of human beings represents a major shift. The loss of humanity’s supernatural nature and the realization that we are physical-informational machines need to be digested first. But there’s no shame in it — it’s reality! We are highly complex machines that are not deterministic like mechanical machines with wheels, rollers, and levers. We are privileged to experience love and even the illusion of free will! Perhaps we are even the only machines of this complexity in the universe. However, this means — if one is willing to accept it — that there can be no life after death, because the machinery decays.
Concluding Remarks
For the philosopher — and for all of us, in general — here are some simple test questions regarding our position in the Sea of Fog or the two-level landscape:
Do you see a philosophical problem in the fact that you perceive colors?
In other words,
do you understand the principle of the transition from physics to perception?
And in particular:
Do you understand that you are a running computer?
Before about 1950, it was difficult to have the right answers here; the genius Alan Turing pondered this very question in that very year and, in his seminal work, cautiously asked: Can machines think?
Many of the 20th century’s best-known philosophers remained stuck at the lower level and failed to make the leap; their philosophies and thought experiments are now history, however ingenious they may have been,
such as
Thomas Nagel (“What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”, 1974)
John Searle (“The Chinese Room,” 1980)
Frank Jackson (“Mary’s Room,” 1982)
David Chalmers (“The Hard Problem of Consciousness,” 1994).
They are all inhabitants of the philosophical lowlands depicted in Fig. 5 — or, in the painter Friedrich’s image, still lost in the sea of fog!
Philosophers who denied that humans occupy their special position due to “something inexplicable” were likely in the minority until the end of the 20th century; in particular, the following deserve mention:
Paul and Patricia Churchland (“Neurophilosophy” from 1984 onward)
Keith Frankish (“Qualia and Consciousness are evolutionary useful illusions,”
ca. 2005 and later),
and above all Daniel Dennett as the leading proponent beginning in 1988, with “Quining Qualia”. For the sake of credit, we mention here also the “converted” Frank Jackson, who retracted his publicly successful “Mary’s Room” in 1998 and advocated physicalism.
Physics alone is not enough to describe the world: Everything living and mental is more than that; it is information technology in action, based on the corresponding physical foundations — and technical computers certainly and definitely are.
Our worldview is one of dualism: Physics and computer science together explain the world. Information is not physics; it merely requires a physical foundation! And various physical foundations are possible.
Please note that physics here includes chemistry and other non-living sciences.
We call this an emergent dualism, because the mental realm arises alongside increasingly complex structures. This is not merely an arbitrary philosophical idea. The author regards it simply as a concise factual description of the world. It is the modern embodiment of René Descartes’ idea of body-mind dualism from nearly 400 years ago. The subtle etheric substance he posited as the mind is information.
Even today, many people still find it difficult to make the leap from the objectivity of the computer to human subjectivity. But it is happening right now to all of humanity: we are moving from the pagan lowlands to the enlightened highlands alongside our technological companions. The techbros are even accelerating this ascent. Will there be a fifth very final insult to mankind? Perhaps that we humans would lose our power to non-biological agents or to mixed bio-machine posthumans? No one knows what lies ahead.
Literature
Bisson, Terry, 1991. They are made out of meat. Short Story.
https://web.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html
Hehl, Walter, 2012. Die unheimliche Beschleunigung des Wissens, vdf ETH Verlag Zürich.
Hehl, Walter, 2025. Physics and Computers explain the World … for Humanities Scholars. Medium.com. https://medium.com/@walter.h.hehl/physics-and-computers-explain-the-world-for-humanities-scholars-e62b9e65f63e
Hehl, Walter, 2025. STEM for humanities scholars. Palgrave-Macmillan-Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-658-49032-4
Hehl, Walter, 2026. Descartes is right: The world is a form of dualism, albeit an emergent one. Medium.com. https://medium.com/@walter.h.hehl/descartes-is-right-the-world-is-a-form-of-dualism-albeit-an-emergent-one-f119db893cd1
Turing, Alan, 1950. Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind, Vol. LIX, Oct. 1950. https://turingarchive.kings.cam.ac.uk/computing-machinery-and-intelligence
