Edge recently asked some of the world’s leading scientists, authors and thinkers the following question: “How has the internet changed the way you think?”
One of my favorite answers came from the one and only, Kevin Kelly. And yes, I’m a huge fan of Kevin Kelly’s work. Here’s what he has to say in response to the question.
… my knowledge is now more fragile. For every accepted piece of knowledge I find, there is within easy reach someone who challenges the fact. Every fact has its anti-fact. The Internet’s extreme hyperlinking highlights those anti-facts as brightly as the facts. Some anti-facts are silly, some borderline, and some valid. You can’t rely on experts to sort them out because for every expert there is an equal and countervailing anti-expert. Thus anything I learn is subject to erosion by these ubiquitous anti-factors.
I can so relate to this. Think about the above and then just imagine the impact the web will have on religion in the long-term.
… My certainty about anything has decreased. Rather than importing authority, I am reduced to creating my own certainty — not just about things I care about — but about anything I touch, including areas about which I can’t possibly have any direct knowledge . That means that in general I assume more and more that what I know is wrong. We might consider this state perfect for science but it also means that I am more likely to have my mind changed for incorrect reasons. Nonetheless, the embrace of uncertainty is one way my thinking has changed.
Uncertainty is a kind of liquidity. I think my thinking has become more liquid. It is less fixed, as text in a book might be, and more fluid, as say text in Wikipedia might be. My opinions shift more. My interests rise and fall more quickly. I am less interested in Truth, with a capital T, and more interested in truths, plural. I feel the subjective has an important role in assembling the objective from many data points. The incremental plodding progress of imperfect science seems the only way to know anything.
Brilliant. Read the rest here.
I’m in love with the fact that “truth” is no longer what the guy sitting on the throne and a bunch of bearded men want it to be. Like inter-continental satellite television before it, the internet is now causing disturbances in the epistemologies of Muslim countries worldwide.
But, unlike the push medium of conventional media, the internet is a pull medium and the epistemic consequences of this massive property are as fascinating as they are exciting.
Me loves.
One the negative side, say hello to postmodernism on steroids!
Solution? What Carter Phipps said:
Rehabilitating confidence in truth and reason will undoubtedly be one of the tasks of the twenty-first century. As a culture, we must begin to recognize that while truth and objectivity may not be absolutes that exist perfectly free of time and history, neither are they hopelessly embedded in personal perspectives. Simply because truth is always subject to revision does not and could never mean that all truth claims deserve equal space at the table of cultural discourse. Let’s not put reason and science on the pedestal of perfection, but let’s also not confuse leaps of faith with rational inquiry. If the twenty-first century is being defined by an ongoing clash of traditional, modern, and postmodern worldviews both in individuals and in societies around the world, then escaping that clash with minimal harm and maximal development will mean finding a fourth way. It will mean learning to steer our ship of culture away from the overconfident certainties of theology and science but also away from the overwrought uncertainties of contemporary philosophy.
Right on.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
