Michael Patrick Lynch — How to see past your own perspective and find truth
“…to solve the problem of knowledge polarization, we’re going to need to reconnect with one fundamental, philosophical idea: that we live in a common reality.”
We face many challenges as a society in the modern world. With the Internet, we’ve gained a tool which allows us to communicate with a speed and on a scale that was never imagined in previous generations. Unfortunately, the Internet has also amplified some of humanities greatest flaws.
When we humans invented vaccines there were some who were more fearful of the vaccines than the diseases they prevented. When we discovered the earth was a sphere there were those who scoffed at the idea our world was not flat. When we learned that the earth was orbiting the sun and not the other way around, many found this concept outrageous.
Fortunately, science and fact have prevailed in many cases and we have progressed as a species in spite of these pockets of dissenters. Today, with the Internet and modern travel, these small groups of people now have the ability to grow their ranks to significant numbers. Conspiracy theorists are beginning to invade some fundamental areas of how society operates and this is threatening our collective understanding of how the world works.
Watching Michael Patrick Lynch’s TED Talk is an important first step in understanding the situation we face today with regards to our common understanding of the world. He argues we need to do three things — three challenging things — in order to learn to live in our common reality. Below is a summary of these three things for those who may be interested but don’t have time for the entire video (which is about 15 minutes long).
- Believe in Truth — We must agree that we inhabit a shared reality in the very first place.
Protagoras (a Greek philosopher) said that objective truth was an illusion because “man is the measure of all things.” — This idea of skepticism about truth itself was with us then and still exists today. If we can’t agree that we actually live in a shared reality, we will fail at inhabiting this shared reality.
Professor Lynch says:
“What was really striking to me about fake news, the phenomenon, is how quickly it itself became the subject of knowledge polarization; so much so, that the very term — the very term — “fake news” now just means: “news story I don’t like.”
If some among us are simply rejecting “the news” and presenting it as “fake” if it doesn’t adhere to their worldview, then we can’t even begin to have a dialogue and conversation about serious issues we collectively face. The fake news phenomenon is a prime example of how the Internet, combined with ignorance and large groups of people, is bending or breaking the truth in order to suit these false worldviews. If a group or an individual believes something they can now use the Internet to convince themselves they are right even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
To live in society together and work towards the same goals we must learn to inhabit the same reality.
2. Sapere Aude (Latin) — Dare to Know
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant used the phrase “Sapere Aude” which in English means “Dare to Know” or “Dare to know for yourself”. This may not be as simple as it sounds. In one interpretation one could argue that daring to know for yourself is part of the problem. That people decide (in their ignorance) that they know “their truth” and did “their research” on a topic and therefore know all they need to know (even if they are wrong).
But what Professor Lynch is talking about here is not merely deciding for yourself what you feel is true. He says:
“But daring to know, daring to understand, means risking the possibility that you could be wrong. It means risking the possibility that what you want and what’s true are different things.”
It’s easy to live in our little information bubbles. It’s easy to say to yourself, “well I don’t remember but I know I can find out by doing a Google search.” The fact is that daring to know, as Kant would have it, means that truly understanding something means — yes — you could be wrong and you would be accepting of being wrong.
Being wrong feels bad to most of us and being right feels good. But we should strive to change our perspective here and dare to know. Dare to be wrong.
3. Have some (epistemic) humility
Epistemology is (according to Webster): “the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.”
Having some epistemic humility is all about knowing you don’t know it all. In Plato’s account of Socrates he says Socrates claimed “I know that I know nothing.” Now, Socrates is one of the greatest philosophers of all time, but what he’s talking about here can be useful in at least two ways. First, knowing that you don’t know it all means you can have some humility it’s not possible to know everything and this is a good thing. Second, that being educated means you realize how much there is to know and thus how vast the chasm is between what we know and what we don’t know. That is, the more we know the more we know about what we don’t know.
What Professor Lynch talks about here is:
“Seeing your worldview as open to improvement by the evidence and experience of others.”
Since we can’t possibly know everything, it’s reasonable to think that other people, whether through their life experience or life’s work, might know a thing or two more about a topic than you do. It might just be that scientists who’ve spent their entire career studying virology know more about viruses and how they work than your average citizen.
Wrap it up
We do live in a shared reality and there are facts that are indisputable. Gravity exists. Bullets kill people. We can’t flap our arms and fly. The ocean is made of water. 2 + 2 = 4. But in order to live in this shared reality we have to believe in it, dare to understand, and have some humility.
