The fallacious belief that only that which can be quantified, digitally encoded, or formally computed is "real" or constitutes valid knowledge. It dismisses qualitative experiences, subjective consciousness, moral intuitions, and analog phenomena as "illusions" or "epiphenomena" because they cannot be fully captured in a discrete, measurable data stream. It's a form of extreme reductionism that mistakes the map (the informational model) for the territory (lived reality).
Example: "Love is just a biochemical algorithm for gene propagation. If you can't model it in a neural network or measure it in serotonin levels, it's not a real phenomenon, just a story we tell." This statement commits the Informational Fallacy by asserting that the computable aspect is the only reality, reducing a rich human experience to mere data processing.
by Dumuabzu February 3, 2026
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