Archives for posts with tag: Aletheia

Reverse engineering

July 10, 2023 //
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‘Exploring the consequences of our limited consciences‘

A truth is, first and foremost, an expression.
A message, formulated by an observer, describing a portion of what the person expressing themselves considers to be a ‘portion’ of ‘reality’. Being a message, any truth is formulated by means of a language.

Does anybody know everything about any subject? About anything, actually?
No, nobody knows everything about anything. Hence there is no such thing as a complete truth.

Furthermore, being expressed by means of a language, a truth – any expression, actually – will never be able to convey to the person receiving the message everything the transmitter intended to say. The transmitter is never able to cram ‘everything’ inside an inherently limited message, no language is absolutely ‘precise’ and no receiver will ever interpret any message the way the transmitter intended it to mean. Hence even if anybody will ever learn everything about anything, that person will never be able to convey that knowledge to anybody else. Let alone to everybody else…

What next?
‘Never ever believe anything? Anymore?!?’

Is it possible for us, humans living in concert, to cooperate in this manner?
Knowing that nothing which is being said, one way or another, is ‘true’? Completely true?

Well, we did get this far, didn’t we?
We’ve been expressing ourselves, in the imperfect manner I described above, since we’ve learned to use language. Since we’ve learned to speak…

70 000 years ago, give or take a few millennia, is when some scientists believe we’ve started to communicate more or less like we do now. The people living then had the same genes we have now and the bones they have left us to dig up and stare at are similar to ours. Hence the only thing which differentiates us from our ancestors is our culture. A treasure of knowledge which has been noticed – bit by bit, formulated using language – message by message, and remembered, one way or another. Hence the only difference between us and our ancestors is a collection of incomplete – and imperfectly interpreted – pieces of truth.

Then again, is it possible for us – humans living in concert – to cooperate by means of incomplete and ‘misinterpreted’ pieces of truth?
Well, we came this far going (up?) this way, didn’t we?
It seems that as long as we do it ‘in good faith’ things will, eventually, ‘mesh up’ just fine!

Which leads us to ‘the truth’. ‘The’ as different from ‘A’ truth.

While a truth is a message, the truth is a state of mind.
The understanding of the fact that what we call ‘reality’ can be learned only ‘in concert’.
Only as long as we help each-other along the process. Only as long as each time we formulate ‘a message’ we do our best to ‘speak the truth’.

https://www.ontology.co/heidegger-aletheia.htm

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Categories 1989, alternative ways of acquring knowledge, awareness, Bounded rationality, Choices we make, collective identity, effective communication, In English, Intent, man as a measure for all things, Mutual Respect, religion, skin in the game, teleology

People lie

May 17, 2020 //
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Messages which are knowingly incomplete, false or both at the same time.

Why?

Because they have no alternative, want to achieve something or need to survive.

As soon as a person achieves a certain level of self-awareness – read consciousness, they realize that no ‘communication event’ will ever be complete. That nobody will ever be able to communicate everything they know, about the most insignificant subject, to anybody else.

Then what? Stop talking?
Or assume personal responsibility for everything that leaves your lips?

As soon as a person achieves a certain level of self-awareness, they realize there’s more in life than mere survival.
As soon as their consciences bloom – in concert with the accrued influence exercised by the ‘environment’, individuals set goals for themselves. Which goals become integral part of the ‘ongoing project’. Of the self-actualizing conscience. Achieving, or failing, each of those goals leaves an indelible mark on the conscience itself. On the manner in which each individual relates to their environment.
Since achieving is far more ‘satisfying’ than failing, conscience is naturally biased towards ‘achieving’. If the ‘environment’ ‘allows’ it, the bias becomes more and more ‘slanted’.
The messages used by the individuals – by their conscience, to be more precise, will increasingly serve the purpose of achieving goals rather than the purpose of ‘honest communication’.

As soon as a person achieves a certain level of self-awareness, that conscience wants to survive.
Mind you, not the person but the conscience.

‘?!?
Conscience cannot exist without the mind/body which supports it….’

OK, tell that to people who believe their souls are going places after their mortal bodies expire. Then try to demonstrate to yourself, honestly, that those people are wrong. That there’s no chance for their belief to be ‘true’.

But metaphysics are hard.
Let me give you a far lighter example.
Smoking. Or drinking. Driving fast. Eating that extra piece of chocolate…
Don’t tell me you never did anything ‘foolish’. That you never lied to yourself: ‘This cannot happen to me. Chances are so small that … Only this time….’

‘But otherwise nobody would ever be able to ‘leave their houses’. We’d be all completely paralyzed with fear…’

Yeap! That’s exactly what I mean. Conscience needs to lie to herself in order to remain functional. Otherwise she would not allow the physical body who sustains her to assume any risk.
They would both suffocate.

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Categories altruism, awareness, biology, Bounded rationality, Chance, Choices we make, collective identity, complementary ways of attending knowlege, cooperation, effective communication, evolution, Frames of mind, freedom, In English, Intent, limited rationality, man as a measure for all things, manipulation, Mindset, Mutual Respect, Psychology, religion, skin in the game, The kind of world we are building for our children, Trust