Reputation in the Cyberworld

Abstract

The article explores the socio-ontological foundations of the phenomenon of reputation in the context of today’s ever-encroaching cyberworld. The categories of whoness and value are essential for understanding reputation ontologically. The cyberworld itself has only become historically possible through the Cartesian mathematical cast of being and its digital refinement in the Universal Turing Machine. From one perspective, the cyberworld is an endless concatenation of Turing machines. It is, however, also a matrix in which bit-strings circulate that have a decisive impact on who anybody is held to be by others, i.e. on their reputation. The game of striving to be esteemed as who you are thus assumes a new complexion in the digital era.