The Search for Truth - Perspectives - an old website idea

in philosophy •  8 years ago  (edited)

Not sure I'll ever get around to it. I had an idea years ago for a different approach to forums and social media. My working title for the concept was PERSPECTIVES. Something like this could be done on top of the steem blockchain if any of you web developers want to do a little experiment.

The search for truth


The seeds of the idea came about when I was considering wars, and things that I was taught by the education system in terms of history. I had a chance to chat with some people in other countries to find out that their knowledge and perspective on the same subject could be VERY different.

I am not a fan of indoctrination, propaganda, and controlling us by censoring truth.

Source: ncac.org

I started wondering if perhaps there was a way to fight this. So first I began to consider what was happening.

What is the truth?


If you do not have all of the information can you truly claim to know the truth? I believe the answer to that is no. This does however bring on the likelihood that most of the time we will not know the entire truth simply because we will never know every single detail related to that truth. This comes with my idea that perfection is not attainable. It is a form of infinity. It is the goal to strive to get as close as possible. The truth it turns out may also be a form of infinity. This makes the truth as some definitive thing very difficult to pin down. Though a lie, or untruth is something easier to look at and identify.

Source: stevecha.net

What is an untruth or a lie?


All it takes for something to be untrue is for part of it to be proven as false. This does not mean their may not have been elements of the truth hidden in the untruth. In fact, the most successful untruths are those that clothe themselves in as many aspects of the truth as they can.

Source: sandiegofreepress.org

If a blonde white guy wearing a red jacket robs a bank. If the news reports that a guy wearing a red jacket robbed a bank, is that the truth? In reality, yes that is the truth yet it is missing critical information.

The Lie by Omission


The lie by omission to manipulate people is an entirely common practice. It is what has occurred when you hear someone say "you're taking that out of context". By leaving out critical information the person making a statement can paint a very different picture from the TRUTH.

Source: criminalthinking.net

So how is this different from what the governments of the world do to their SUBJECTS/SLAVES?
They tell the history that paints them in the best light, even when it is not true.

How can we stop this?


I actually thought up a different way to do a forum, reddit, etc social media type chat site. I referred to it as PERSPECTIVES.


Source: metothepowerofwe.com

The idea was that any topic started would have its initial TAB for the original perspective. It could be for example the history of England from a Christian perspective. They start writing about the perspective and give the history of england.

Someone else comes along and thinks "that is not right" and they click + and create a new perspective. This might be the Catholic perspective which might be similar to the Christian perspective but in a different way.

Someone else comes along and clicks + and writes it from the Druidic/"pagan" perspective.


Source: www.linkedin.com

These things could be up voted, yet only offensive, spam, and plagiaristic posts would need be down voted. The site would not be about censoring perspectives. If you disagree with a perspective then create a new one and explain yourself.

So what is the benefit?


Imagine if you will that you are somewhere in the future and you are suddenly interested in a topic. Such as the "French Indian War" and you go to this website and type in French Indian War (or other names it may have) and it brings you to a perspectives page. On that page you see tabs from United States, Native American Tribes, French, and potentially even more people.


Source: martinesyms.com

In one place you might have the closest thing to the truth we've ever had since all the perspectives that are contributed would be available in a single place. It would not be about going to a biased site with an agenda. You'd see all the different biases in one place and the outright false information would likely stand out like a red thumb.

Making it happen


Obviously there would need to be some form of moderation. Perhaps people who have contributed to a particular perspectives tab and had their posts positively up voted could be viewed as a moderator for that tab. They could indicate that something needed it's own perspective, needed to be moved to a different perspective, etc.


Source: cashflowdiary.com

Anyway this was an idea that spread like a fire through my mind over the span of a few months.

I can see it being useful for:

  • Wars - what actually happened
  • Political campaigns
  • Ideologies
  • Theoretical Science
  • Policies and events such as the War on Drugs, War on Terror, etc
  • Racism
  • All forms of bigotry
  • History
  • Product Reviews

If some crazy web designer wants to tackle this... go for it. I have far too many project to add yet another.

Source: www.hotcoffeydesign.com

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

+1
Good post, thank you !
Wikipedia ?
"We need to Aggressively, Pugnaciously, Assertively be a people who are dedicated to the arts of KNOWING"

This is such an important mindset, especially when you are swimming in an ocean of often-conflicting points of view. Areas of overlap should be made evident, where expressions enter shared-territory, rather than amplifying only where they differ. Opposition causes us to become static, inside our fortifications - when we leave the safety of our belief systems, and roam fearlessly we give ourselves an opportunity to learn, and to teach.

Great idea, let the flame of knowledge burn brighter the truth can only be censored for so long. Unfortunately there is no need to censor if the media controls people's attention. Economic incentive holds most people's attention sufficiently. The truth is there is no such thing as freedom, there only exists money which we have accepted freedom (in the conventional sense) be allocated to.

To me, it comes down to improving our epistemology. The mechanisms we use for justified belief have to be trustworthy. Truth exists in math and can be hard to find elsewhere. Those who have solid, reproducible, and well justified belief systems (i.e. epistemology) are the closest to a description which fits reality. To get there personally, I work towards reason, logic, empirical evidence, skepticism, and the scientific method, mixed in with humility. As soon as we "know" something, we can close ourselves off to learning. As soon as we build on a fallacy, we can create structures for untruths to remain.

I discovered an old idea of mine from 2009 about math and truth. It turns out even that can sometimes be not true depending upon perspective.

I totally forgot I wrote than then stumbled upon it a week or so ago. You may have missed that one. I think there were some interesting ideas in there. Even quite a few examples where what seems true with math is not always so. :)

I do believe math is the path to truth, yet the perspective you view the problem and results from can make for the difference of whether it is true or not.

A couple examples:
2+2=4
Unless I am fusing 2 Hydrogen with 2 Hydrogen then I get 2 Helium :) 2+2=2

Or we can go with the idea that unfused uranium 2 Uranium + 2 Uranium = 4 Uranium unless part of that perspective is time and ultimately 2 Uranium + 2 Uranium = 4 Lead (might not resolve to 4)

So perspective can change the truth of a lot of things. Even math. There are some aspects of math though that likely remain the same with perspective, but I don't know all perspectives so I can't say that absolutely.

I think you're making a categorical error. When adding elemental particles, a different set of mathematical operations must be used within that category. Math only falls down when you start getting into theoretical math which is why it has the "theoretical" label. I'll check out your post though.

Yes I actually mentioned that in the article though not in those words. ;) I kind of expected that response when I wrote it. :)

The uranium example is flawed though as it only assumes time on one side of the equation. When time would have to be applied to both sides of the equation so 2+2=4 would still be true.

Replied to your other post. Whenever we change categories, we change the constraints. We change the rules. For consistency, we have to define our terms and our contraints when supporting our claims and when desiring consistent truth.