Information has no essential link to truth
Information has no essential link to truth
As the internet came into being, it was widely believed that it would lead to truth dominating everything. If people have access to all the world’s information, it was thought, then the truth should naturally surface to the top. As you’ve probably noticed, that’s not been the case.
For example, I found myself fascinated by the comments about this article that I shared. There were many cases in there where someone would comment and explain the timing of the study and how that particular rise in cancer simply can’t be connected with the covid vaccine, and invariably someone would reply with something like:
“Look at all of the people in here that say it was caused by the vax. You’re clearly wrong.”
Volume doesn’t equal truth.
In Yuval Noah Harari’s book “Nexus“, he shares these thoughts about that:
“Contrary to what the naive view of information says, information has no essential link to truth, and its role in history isn’t to represent a preexisting reality. Rather, what information does is to create new realities by tying together disparate things-whether couples or empires.
When we look at the history of information from the Stone Age to the Silicon Age, we therefore see a constant rise in connectivity, without a concomitant rise in truthfulness or wisdom.”
Having more information is almost always a good thing, but more information doesn’t have a direct link to the truth. As AI continues to grow, the amount of information available to us will balloon to unimaginable sizes, yet the truth found within it will grow smaller by comparison. Always seek it out.