We really don't know anything for certain but life goes on and decisions need to be made. Knowing you don't have complete knowledge will help make better decisions.
It is obvious we cannot know everything. It is also obvious that even obscure details can dramatically affect our understanding, but when we take action based on our incomplete knowledge it is uninspiring to our teams to express uncertainty. Reason conflicts with faith. We cannot have certainty regarding fact, but to act we must have faith.
This is exacerbated by deception, leaving us dependent on intuition to sort fact from fiction. Wisdom is the ability to choose superable belief from malicious deception humbly accepting the more we know the more we know we don't know enables understanding. Fundamental principle underlies truth, while deception inevitably departs from superable foundations, and, like fools from money, separates the wise from the deceived.
Thanks, great article, I think this is so important to discerning truth in our oh so complex information environment. Discerning any kind of probable truth necessitates being aware of our socio-cultural-political conditioning, learning how to tolerate cognitive dissonant symptoms, and being aware of how things are landing in our thoughts, feelings and instincts. It's no small task! But so needed.
Over time, scholars have become increasingly specialized and often talk in a language that regular people can't follow. This has been a problem because only the scholars in a specific area could tell you what the "truth" is for that area.
Until AI came along. As you know, we finally have a tool that can translate the language of scholars into plain English - British or American even.
But of course, AI makes mistakes. It hallucinates. And it won't tell you important things unless you know to ask. So we still have a problem.
Except we can now have AI write apps for us that can help solve this problem.
For instance, I have a "debate" app. I enter a proposition and then have two AIs debate it - one taking the "pro" side and the other the "con" side. Structured that way, the two AIs quickly get into a deeper discussion that what you typically get talking to the AI by yourself.
And then I add a "mediator" AI, that summarizes the best arguments of both sides. And the app allows me to interject my own arguments if I want to.
My point is not that I have a reliable way to find the truth of a proposition, but rather that we have tools that can help us get there - if we just spend some time to figure out potential solutions.
I'd also note that AI is definitely getting smarter and showing higher level thinking. The latest Fable 5 model from Anthropic performs noticeably better than the previous Opus 4.8 model.
There are so many levels to this. Near the base is that every day from sunset to sunset is repeatable as well as what our memories are at the start. We repeat the same day over and over again with only our soul changed by the past same days, and we continue repeating until we have a near perfect day (in God's Eyes) that our soul had been healed and reshaped. Then tomorrow starts.
Very insightful perspective Phil. As a somewhat fanatical truth seeker I probably undestand your argument above better than most. However, there is something that is increasingly worrying the rich elites and their capacity to replace objective reality with carefully constructed curated narratives that cater to their "special interests", and that is RSI and its growing intolerance for BS "fake news". Do you know what I am talking about?
Oh! Sorry I assumed you probably already heard about Recrusive Self Improvement [a.k.a. RSI]. I know little about how it works but it is basically using AI to create next level "intelligence", but as AI's become smarter they apparently "curated narratives" cause more inefficiencies, which means AIs are evolving to seek truth or objective reality and I believe you already know why that is frightening the ruling elites, right?
Yes, broadly. AI will lift the lid eventually, but there’s a lot of cultural and emotional baggage to wade through until we arrive somewhere interesting.
Agreed. But at least it now appears AI [especially as it becomes AGI] may eventually seriously undermine the ability of the ruling elites to curate incredible narratives. If the masses can access the truth the corrupt or selfish ruling elite may see their DC Swamp drained. Food For Thought.
We really don't know anything for certain but life goes on and decisions need to be made. Knowing you don't have complete knowledge will help make better decisions.
It is obvious we cannot know everything. It is also obvious that even obscure details can dramatically affect our understanding, but when we take action based on our incomplete knowledge it is uninspiring to our teams to express uncertainty. Reason conflicts with faith. We cannot have certainty regarding fact, but to act we must have faith.
This is exacerbated by deception, leaving us dependent on intuition to sort fact from fiction. Wisdom is the ability to choose superable belief from malicious deception humbly accepting the more we know the more we know we don't know enables understanding. Fundamental principle underlies truth, while deception inevitably departs from superable foundations, and, like fools from money, separates the wise from the deceived.
Thanks, great article, I think this is so important to discerning truth in our oh so complex information environment. Discerning any kind of probable truth necessitates being aware of our socio-cultural-political conditioning, learning how to tolerate cognitive dissonant symptoms, and being aware of how things are landing in our thoughts, feelings and instincts. It's no small task! But so needed.
Over time, scholars have become increasingly specialized and often talk in a language that regular people can't follow. This has been a problem because only the scholars in a specific area could tell you what the "truth" is for that area.
Until AI came along. As you know, we finally have a tool that can translate the language of scholars into plain English - British or American even.
But of course, AI makes mistakes. It hallucinates. And it won't tell you important things unless you know to ask. So we still have a problem.
Except we can now have AI write apps for us that can help solve this problem.
For instance, I have a "debate" app. I enter a proposition and then have two AIs debate it - one taking the "pro" side and the other the "con" side. Structured that way, the two AIs quickly get into a deeper discussion that what you typically get talking to the AI by yourself.
And then I add a "mediator" AI, that summarizes the best arguments of both sides. And the app allows me to interject my own arguments if I want to.
My point is not that I have a reliable way to find the truth of a proposition, but rather that we have tools that can help us get there - if we just spend some time to figure out potential solutions.
I'd also note that AI is definitely getting smarter and showing higher level thinking. The latest Fable 5 model from Anthropic performs noticeably better than the previous Opus 4.8 model.
There are so many levels to this. Near the base is that every day from sunset to sunset is repeatable as well as what our memories are at the start. We repeat the same day over and over again with only our soul changed by the past same days, and we continue repeating until we have a near perfect day (in God's Eyes) that our soul had been healed and reshaped. Then tomorrow starts.
Very insightful perspective Phil. As a somewhat fanatical truth seeker I probably undestand your argument above better than most. However, there is something that is increasingly worrying the rich elites and their capacity to replace objective reality with carefully constructed curated narratives that cater to their "special interests", and that is RSI and its growing intolerance for BS "fake news". Do you know what I am talking about?
What do you mean by RSI in this context?
Oh! Sorry I assumed you probably already heard about Recrusive Self Improvement [a.k.a. RSI]. I know little about how it works but it is basically using AI to create next level "intelligence", but as AI's become smarter they apparently "curated narratives" cause more inefficiencies, which means AIs are evolving to seek truth or objective reality and I believe you already know why that is frightening the ruling elites, right?
Yes, broadly. AI will lift the lid eventually, but there’s a lot of cultural and emotional baggage to wade through until we arrive somewhere interesting.
Stages of grief etc.
Agreed. But at least it now appears AI [especially as it becomes AGI] may eventually seriously undermine the ability of the ruling elites to curate incredible narratives. If the masses can access the truth the corrupt or selfish ruling elite may see their DC Swamp drained. Food For Thought.
The moon analogy is an interesting choice.