  All knowing is material. The challenge for Information Systems (IS) research
is to specify how knowing is material by drawing on theoretical
characterizations of the digital. Synthetic knowing is knowing informed by
theorizing digital materiality. We focus on two defining qualities:
liquefaction (unhinging digital representations from physical objects,
qualities, or processes) and open-endedness (extendable and generative). The
Internet of Things (IoT) is crucial because sensors are vehicles of
liquefaction. Their expanding scope for real-time seeing, hearing, tasting,
smelling, and touching increasingly mimics phenomenologically perceived
reality. Empirically, we present a longitudinal case study of IoT-rendered
marine environmental monitoring by an oil and gas company operating in the
politically contested Arctic. We characterize synthetic knowing into four
concepts, the former three tied to liquefaction and the latter to
open-endedness: (i) the objects of knowing are algorithmic phenomena; (ii) the
sensors increasingly conjure up phenomenological reality; (iii) knowing is
scoped (configurable); and (iv) open knowing/data is politically charged.
