Trust, but verify!
Russian proverb,
“adopted as a signature phrase”
by Ronald Reagan

“Suzanne Massie, an American scholar, met with Ronald Reagan many times between 1984 and 1987 while he was President of the United States.[1][2] She taught him the Russian proverb doveryai, no proveryai (доверяй, но проверяй) meaning ‘trust, but verify’. She advised him that “The Russians like to talk in proverbs. It would be nice of you to know a few.”

I posited yesterday that “languaging is how things work in the living world”.
That a constant flow of information is piece and parcel of any living organism.
I will add today that the information flow mediating the life of those organisms has to be reliable.
To be true. To its stated purpose.

That an organism needs a dependable flow of information in order to remain alive. In order to be able to perform the feats which differentiate a living organism from a clump of inanimate matter. Maintaining its structural integrity and a controlled exchange of specific substances between the inside of the organism and its environment.

Well, the same principle ‘animates’ the meta-organisms we call ‘human communities’.
With a single, but very important, difference!

We lie!
On purpose…

There are many living species which use deceit in their quest to make a living.
Carnivorous plants which trap their prey.
Animals which use camouflage to pretend various things.
Even birds which emit false signals in order to fool other animals.

Yet we, humans, are mastering this on the rim of disaster!
We have not only invented the concept of lying but also mastered it to perfection.

How much sense does it make and how wise is it to harness the power of AI to a chariot full of deceit?

And when are we going to cut the crap?
To adapt our languaging to the new reality?

“It will take more than this, however, to restore our faith in the photographic image.“

‘Faith in the photographic image’… really?!?
OK, human language cannot be as precise as the kind of information flowing to keep our organisms alive.
Human language has to be more flexible than that. For evolutionary reasons to be mentioned at a later date.
But let’s be reasonable. And keep it from ‘jumping the shark’.

By transforming artifacts into objects of faith we actually let the ‘makers’ walk scot-free. Allow deceivers to shed all shrouds of responsibility…
What happened to ‘do not make idols’?
OK, I don’t believe in ‘God’ either but it would be wrong for us to discard time sanctioned wisdom in the process of setting ourselves free from organized religion.

‘Faith’ should be reserved for people, not for objects.
Faith, the word, stretches only as far as we pull it.
It’s up to us to do that sparingly!
Human language is far laxer than the ‘natural’ one. Which makes it less reliable.
It’s up to us to keep it dependable.

Or else…