Sovereignty is for the government an unreachable and unattainable aim

However, we have seen that total control is impossible. Myriad processing operations are possible on any dataset (which remain finite in the analogue world, see, however, §01.00.16 on the digital world), and any attempt by any single Being to (consciously – therefore unlike the state, see §16.00.03) control them all is inconceivable. A Being, or a Thing, cannot be totally controlled by another. Consequently, if sovereignty is for the state an empty, meaningless word, for the government it is an (unreachable and unattainable) aim. Its control over the state can never be total. This does not, however, mean that the government will ever give up its efforts to achieve total control—on the contrary, it will increase its control over the state as much as possible. Accordingly, because the state is what it is, the government aims, but can never achieve, to control each and every processing operation by any Being on the information platform that is its state, with such control (as experienced by individuals and organisations, but also animals and artificial Beings) being the indirect result of its efforts above. In practice, sovereignty for the government materialises on the information platform that is its state because the government controls the majority of its state’s attributes, meaning the majority of the processing operations that take place on it (see §06.00.02). It is in this way that the government governs. Historically, every increase in the information processing capabilities of humans (i.e. citizens) has led to an analogous increase in the sovereignty exercised by the government on the information platform that was its state—at least, this was the case until the advent of the digital world.

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