In our glorious search for a better way to systematically seek Truth and better societal problem solving, it seems that it would be wise to look out into the world and see if anyone else has tried systems of their own. Now of course, America is the pinnacle of democracy, so I’m sure if there are any efforts going on it will be….oh, look there are lots of examples and virtually none of them are in America. How interesting. So where do we want to go, Spain, Austria, Mongolia, Taiwan? Let’s try Taiwan.

Sarcastic banter aside, there are numerous, varying efforts attempting to apply the “wisdom of the crowds” to solve large scale problems. Most of which have been relatively successful on the small scale, but virtually none of which seem to gain any traction in the United States (certainly not on any significant scale). Why? I have thoughts on that, and I’m interested in yours, but first let’s dive into an interesting example in Taiwan that I believe attempts to truly capitalize on the concept of Truth-seeking through the accumulation of many perspectives.

Also, to clarify, the concept of pulling on the wisdom and perspectives of “large” numbers of people to solve complex problems is not new. In fact, it has many names and flavors; deliberative/discursive/participatory democracy, wise democracy, advisory voting, wisdom councils, etc. etc. The purpose of this post is to look at an example of how these ideas can move beyond the conceptual, into the practical, and start a discussion on what roadblocks are holding it back in our current political and cultural system.

vTaiwan

vTaiwan is a participatory democracy system that was implemented in Taiwan in 2014. Ironically, as one of the more impressive examples of crowdsourcing legislation, it came into being after a large 3-week long Parliament occupation (known as the Sunflower Movement) protesting a secretive China trade agreement. In response to the occupation, the government decided to meet with the protest organizers (g0v “Gov-Zero”) and asked the activist if they could “create a platform for rational discussion and deliberation of policy issues that the entire nation could participate in.” (GovLab). Before I proceed, I have to ask: can anyone see the government responding this way in the U.S.? I think our first roadblock might be slapping us in the face here, but I’ll digress for the moment.

The framework of vTaiwan was born shortly after this meeting of minds, and- as their website describes it- they created “a decentralized open consultation process that combines online and offline interactions, bringing together Taiwan’s citizens and government to deliberate on national issues.” ( info.vtaiwan) Sounds nice, but does it work and how?

The short answer to the first question is “yes.” It works fairly well, although it is only applied to policy issues in “digital legislation,” and not across the board. Nevertheless, nearly 30 pieces of legislation have been implemented as a product of this system, including some spicy topics like regulating Uber, policies around Non-Consensual Intimate Images, and online Alcohol sales. And as far as I know, it is still kicking and legislating (albeit in a far more limited fashion than likely desirable).

The second question, “how?”, is a little more involved. There are actually numerous resources for getting a rundown of the vTaiwan process (including the front page of their website referenced earlier). Rather than re-hash what has already been done well elsewhere, I’m going to tease out the elements of their process that I think are particularly interesting, and perhaps pertinent to overcoming certain roadblocks we will discuss later. That being said, I highly recommend looking at the case study done by GovLab for a review of the mechanics, Tom Atlee’s 5-part blog series for a more philosophical analysis, and the MIT Technology Review for a more critical look at the success of the system.

Some things to consider

So here are highlights in the realms of strategy implemented, overall structure, and technology used:

Strategy: It relies on a 4-stage process using both digital and in-person discussions.

• Proposal: “The public” proposes an issue to address.
  - The public consists primarily of relevant experts, government officials, and stakeholders, but in general can include anyone interested.
  - Issues are not picked up if they do not have an assigned government “participation officer” and a vTaiwan facilitator (activist) agreeing to take charge of the process
• Opinion: The issue is put forth to the public through various methods over a relatively long period of time.
  - Relevant educational materials are also collected during this time and included in the various questionnaires and discussions.
  - Comments are fed through the Pol.is opinion mapping system to better facilitate the identification of disagreements and possible “rough consensus”. (see Technology section below for more on Pol.is)
• Reflection: In-person meetings to review opinion data and decide if more is needed.
  - If more is needed, it goes back to the Opinion Stage.
  - If the government representative and participants agree enough information is gathered, then in-person (but openly accessible via livestream) discussions take place involving key-stakeholders identified in the previous stages.
• Legislation: “Rough consensus” legislation recommendations are created based on all of the above.
  - The relevant government agency is required to respond to results in detail, but not necessarily adopt it as law.

Structure: Focused and (relatively) centralized communication with de-centralized control.

• Funding: Government Funded
• Operations: Run by volunteers and g0v (activist organization) administrators
• Transparency: All discussions and documents fully accessible to all throughout the process.
• Legal Requirements: None-ish. Government ministries are required to have a “Participation Officer” assigned to any relevant issues put forward by vTaiwan, however there are no direct requirements for the government to use the proposals/legislation that come from the process.

Technology: It leverages social networking, large scale communication platforms, and A.I analysis that have only just become available to us in the last few decades.

• Rolling Surveys: uses various existing social media platforms to gather information from interested parties, and gives them the ability to invite additional citizens, experts, and stakeholders that would have valuable input to the discussion.
  - Insights and relevant technical information are collected from the responding experts/stakeholders during this process. This information is then refined and made accessible to the general public as “educational materials” for consideration during future discussions/deliberations.
• Pol.is: “a digital platform for opinion collection, to facilitate large-scale conversations and consensus building.” ( info.vtaiwan)
  - Allows all participants to comment and agree/disagree with others’ comments, but no one can directly reply to comments (eliminates direct trolling).
  - Maps out and clusters comments based on consensus; thereby incentivizing people to draft statements that will garner agreement from as many participants as possible.
  - Eventually “rough consensus” statements are gathered that have extremely high, if not unanimous, agreement. (see MIT Tech Review for breakdown of specific results in the Uber legislation case).
  - “[It]… reduces a hundred identical responses to one dot in its cluster map, meaning that uniqueness is favored over mobilized masses in determining which differences and consensuses will be highlighted for further reflection. This reduces the importance of vast or “fairly representative” groups of participants in favor of getting clear on where diversity and consensus exist. In Pol.is even one person can easily have an impact if their statement has considerable wisdom-value.” Tom Atlee
• Various open discussion/document sharing technologies: Discourse, Gitbook, SlideShare, and HACKPAD are used.
  - Includes virtual participation abilities for all interested parties during in-person meetings dialogues.
  - Facilitates not only transparency in the process, but also participation on a mass scale if needed.

The USA is a Minefield

If all this sounds great to you, you’re probably right. In fact, a similar system might help resolve some of the most polarizing issues we have today and give U.S. citizens a far more direct way of effectively communicating with each other and the government. Also, like many great things, it is entirely useless if it can’t be implemented. And the USA is a virtual minefield of impediments.

So, to end this post on a sufficiently depressing note, I’m going to start what will probably be a months long series of discussions on what these impediments are. Why? Because we need to find these metaphorical mines and blow them the fuck up…. metaphorically? (that was a joke, calm down internet I’m not encouraging terrorism here…but seriously, explosions, just sayin’).

A not-remotely exhaustive list of mines to consider:

• Entrenched Power structure
  - We currently operate under an Oligarchy. Elected representatives are minimally accountable to the voters. They are very accountable to corporations, lobbyist, governments, media organizations, etc. (i.e. money/power)
  - Deliberative Democracy essentially creates a 4th branch of government, which challenges those currently wielding power.
  - How do we encourage buy-in from those in the current power structure?
• 2-Party systems inherently create and feed on black and white thinking
  - A 2-party system does not want “rough consensus” agreement on certain issues (i.e. abortion, guns, the border, etc.)
  - A 2-party system does not want “rough consensus” opposition to certain “uni-party” issues (i.e. war, corporate interests, government spending, etc.)
  - Again, this is a power issue. How do you convince those in power to share their favorite toy? (a key criticism of vTaiwan is that it is not binding on governments, and the current Taiwan government has taken advantage of that non-binding status).
• Manufactured Consent in the Media
  - While this phenomenon may be somewhat fracturing or changing, the collective “wisdom of the crowds” may be diminished if only certain narratives are allowed for public consumption (i.e. the key to gaining wisdom/insight from these processes is varied perspectives and respected/respectful dissent).
  - The collection and dissemination of educational materials typically involved in these kinds of deliberative or advisory democracy councils is key. Who vets this material? Are dissenting views allowed outside of accepted narratives?
  - How do we combat bought and paid for “experts?”
• Funding
  - How will it be funded in a way that the removal or elimination of any single funding source will not cripple the system? (Philanthropy? Tax Revenues? Government? Non-profits? All of the above?)
  - Diversification is essential for system resilience and to garner trust with the public, government, and market alike.
• Public Trust is needed
  - Trust in the security and neutrality of the technology used in the process.
  - Trust in the impact of the results (i.e. is their actual power? The current voting system has very little power for actual change, and everyone knows it, i.e. our piss-poor voter participation rates).
• Significant Participation is essential
  - The process will not be representative or trustworthy if it doesn’t have a very large number of individuals’ inputs (like our current polling system).
  - Thus, access to the process must be easy for the majority of the population (phone app?). The more time/effort required; the less ordinary folks will be able to contribute.
  - How and where should anonymity be used in the process?
• How do we structure the process to maximize the “wisdom” gained?
  - In the more intensive discussion parts of the process, how do we seek out and encourage holistic thinker/experts to participate?
  - How do we “enforce” or incentivize strategies for productive dialogue (i.e. not another social shitstorm like Twitter), while not suppressing speech?

As the political scientist Jane Mansbridge has said, “our structures of democracy, which basically evolved in the 18th century, are not sufficient to carry the load of the government coercion that we now need.” Or, in other words, our governmental operating system is old, corrupted, and laggy as hell. We need an upgrade. One way to do that is to just completely redesign the operating system and overwrite the old one. Warning, this process requires several system shutdowns/restarts and may not work correctly with your previously used programs. Just so we are clear, societal “shutdowns/restarts” are “bad.” They involve terror, starvation, and lots of violence and death.

OR, we can update the system by adding software that better identifies and corrects the corruption and streamlines the interface, making the system significantly more responsive to our inputs. Yes, I know it doesn’t sound as cool as a full-on re-boot, but I kind of like the idea of avoiding the starvation, violence, and death part. Also, we are not computers. We are living, thinking, constantly evolving organic life-forms. How about we start acting like it?

P.S. As always, I need your thoughts on this. This one more than most. How would you approach these roadblocks? What other impediments do you see? Have you seen a deliberative democracy style system implemented on scale elsewhere? Or, do you doubt that a citizen based “Fourth Branch of Government” would actually do any good? Let me know!

Originally published at https://thepathlesstruth.substack.com.

Note: All posts on The Pathless are meant to spur questions and promote discussion about the nature of Truth and how we can better find it. Please share your thoughts, and especially your disagreements. We need your point of view! Also, if you found this interesting, and would like to support this mission, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber over at The Pathless on Substack.

Truth through Democracy? was originally published in The Pathless on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In general, the purpose of this blog is to get at Truth, and to explore the path(s) that may lead us to it. But I would be remiss if I did not address the invisible elephant in the room first. And, because your powers of deductive reasoning are immense, I’m sure you guessed what elephant I am speaking of. The undeniable fact that Language Sucks.

An Elegant Treatise on Why Language Sucks

Many orators, writers, poets, etc. have expertly wielded the tool of language throughout the millennia that humans have existed. The precise and sophisticated use of language can not only communicate complicated ideas across space and time, but it can also literally modify our minds in real time. It can change our emotions, our thinking, and our entire perception of reality. Language has started and ended wars. It is used to both build up and destroy entire swaths of society time and time again. It can elucidate intent, and entirely disguise it. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, language is beautiful, creative, horrible, and destructive. Language can be nearly unbridled power.

Language is woefully inadequate for the task of Truth-seeking.

First, we all speak and write in absolutes to attempt to describe truths that we cannot actually know absolutely. I’m literally writing using absolute statements right now. Any agreement or counterargument that anyone might put forward will also use absolute language. This is here, that is there, this is why, etc. etc. All of it is nonsense baby babble in the grand scope of any actual absolute Truth.

The structure of the spoken and written word dictates that we communicate- and often think- in absolutes about ideas that we ourselves do not believe to be absolute! Everything I’m writing here is an attempt to communicate an idea, without really knowing whether it is even in the general direction of an absolute Truth. Yet, I’m constantly making declarative statements, citing specific examples, etc., all in a desperate attempt to translate the loose and ever-changing ideas in my head. To put it simply, language is a paradox: it is simultaneously our only real tool to seek clarity, and our primary source of constant confusion and misunderstanding.

Worse still, the language we use is often a very poor proxy for our actual thoughts. It is a translation at best, and many, many, MANY things are lost in that translation. Consider someone that you love dearly- a spouse, child, sibling, parent, grandparent, friend, you name it- and now consider the task of writing a book that completely describes how you feel about them. The full depth of your felt sense around this person. How long would it take? Would you even be able to begin, or would you spend years struggling to find the “right words?” Most importantly, even if you thought you were successful in finding the words, would a random person who reads that book ever actually understand the depth of emotion you’re trying to convey? Consider all the art, books, and poetry written on the topic of love; they might be able to evoke the feeling of love, but are they accurately describing it? Has any poem ever brought a person who has never experienced love to a full understanding of the depth and many shades of the emotion?

But emotion is complicated, right? We barely even understand it ourselves. Maybe we simply haven’t developed an adequate understanding to properly describe it. Okay then, rather than trying to translate your emotions, instead take this same person and this time just write a book describing them. All of their traits. Their physical attributes, their movements, facial tics, everything you know. We are talking about a person that may be able complete your sentences and you theirs. Do you think you could ever write anything that would allow another human to have the same understanding of that person as you do? Will they know how to interpret their micro expressions as you do? Are you even conscious of these expressions enough to accurately describe them in the first place?

Not to mention, we are only talking about your perception of this person in this specific moment. Next week it will likely be different, even if only slightly.

The point of all this is to say that there are aspects of our personal perspective truths- not even big absolute Truths- that are very poorly translated into words. Yet, we constantly take what people say to be an accurate depiction of what they actually think. Forget deception, misdirection, or “misinformation,” we are talking about a 100% honest and genuine person trying to communicate to you directly what’s inside their head and almost certainly failing at the task. Language is clumsy and incapable in the realms of complex perspective truths of which emotion, personality, and perception are a few of many. An actual absolute Truth is infinitely more complex. It is not just a complex problem; it is a complex problem, of complex problems, within complex problems.

Don’t Worry, Dragons Are the Answer

So, let’s explore the counterfactual. A world where thought and emotion are expressed, and fully understood. To do this we will need to step briefly into the world of fantasy. And no, we are not going to be delving into some great classical novel that explores the nature of truth. Instead, we’re going to the real source: children’s books. Why? Because it’s nostalgic for the author, and because quite frankly most profound truths come from humble places; we are all just too arrogant and ignorant to see it most of the time.

Thus enters the story of Eragon (the book series, not the movie. Don’t watch the movie, it will damage your soul). More specifically, we are looking at the final battle towards the end of the fourth book Inheritance. The scene is simple. Eragon and Co. show up to stop the super powerful dragon rider King (Galbatorix) who is hell bent on controlling everything and has tormented and enslaved thousands in the process- dragons, dwarves, elves, and humans. Unfortunately for Eragon, the King has a nasty trick up his sleeve. He has discovered the true name of the language of magic, and with this knowledge he casts a spell that strips everyone’s ability to use the language to cast magic. Everyone is suddenly powerless. Oh no…but wait! Eragon has a trick as well. He realizes that Galbatorix doesn’t seem to know that magic can be cast without language. Yes, the language is used to focus the thoughts and intent behind the magic, but focused thought alone is enough to cast a spell (although it is substantially more dangerous to oneself if you lose your focus while casting). Eragon knows that his magical strength is not enough to overpower the King, so with his mind he casts the most powerful spell of all…..Feelings.

Yes, feelings.

This is where, as a teenage boy, I said “Really, your secret attack is to express your feelings?” And then I found out three chapters later that he didn’t even get the hot elf girl in the end either, at which point I was like” Gah, this ending sucks, I’m going back to Harry Potter. At least he got laid at the end.”

But seriously, this is the actual excerpt from the casting of the spell:

“It was a spell without words…and no words could have described what Eragon wanted, nor what he felt. A library of books would have been insufficient to the task. His was a spell of instinct and emotion; language could not contain it. What he wanted was both simple and complex: he wanted Galbatorix to understand …The spell was not an attack; it was an attempt to communicate. If Eragon was going to spend the rest of his life as a slave to the king, then he wanted Galbatorix to comprehend what he had done, fully and completely.”

Then, his allies- dragons, elves, and humans alike- connected to the spell and poured their own experiences and emotions into it. The combined effort created a spell that would “compel [the King] to experience all the feelings, both good and bad, that he had aroused in others since the day he had been born.” Galbatorix struggled against the spell at first, then begged to be released from it. When they would not relent, he cast one last spell, “Waise neiat!….Be not,” and was disintegrated “in a flash of light brighter than the sun.”

So, what’s the moral here. First, make sure you complete all the lessons at elf magic school so you don’t get hit by a sneaky thought based magic spell right when you think you have everything under control. Second, when it comes to conveying an idea, to expressing an emotion, to communicating, language is actually an impediment. It was the absence of language- and an understanding of his personal weakness- that drove Eragon to find a more effective means of communication. It was only then that the king could fully comprehend why they were willing to die to stop him.

A Little Humility Goes a Long Way

Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to soul-bond with dragons, nor the ability to directly download our thoughts into another via mind magic. So, to summarize: we suck, language sucks, and we consistently fail at understanding language even when it doesn’t suck. The point of this tirade is to make a connection to the fact that we all need to take a massive humility pill if we are at all interested in pursuing the truth about anything. The most sophisticated tool we have for communication is, at best, incomplete, inaccurate, misinterpreted, misused, and abused. The more complex the context of the discussion, the more guarantee there is for errors. We can, of course, throw up our hands and have an impudent, nihilistic, pity party, OR we can simply recognize that we are flawed people using a flawed tool and find work arounds to better achieve our end goal (i.e. Truth). Afterall, humans are physically incapable of flying, but that didn’t exactly stop us, did it?

So, what are the tools and workarounds? How do we build the metaphorical airplane that allows us to bypass our physical and mental limitations for truly effective communication? How do we engage in the type of collective communication that allows us to move towards Truth. Do we just wait until technology like Neuralink is perfected and we have direct mind to mind communication? This seems a little far into the distant future, and my bet is on us bombing ourselves into oblivion first.

Technically, we already have various proven strategies for the effective mediation of ideas, debate, and critical inquiry; but how do we accomplish this at scale to help resolve larger societal and global issues? On an individual or small group level, a recursive back and forth form of communication often results in individuals coming to a better understanding of the ideas being communicated. Can we create systems that operate on recursive communication loops to better and better define and refine ideas? Can this system be expanded to include thousands, if not millions of people at a time? OR do we even want that level of consensus on what “is?”

For now, I’m interested in your thoughts on the limitations of language, and how we can design tools to get around them on the micro and macro scale. In the meantime, I think I’m going to explore other ways we are limited in the realm of truth seeking; politically, culturally, and from an evolutionary perspective. And, on a more positive note, I’ll be looking at movements and systems that are already being implemented to overcome some of these obstacles on a society wide level.

TLDR: language is woefully inadequate for the task at hand. Got it? Good. Now that we have elucidated the elephant in the room, let the incompetent operators (us) continue using the inadequate tool (language) to solve the impossible problem (finding Truth). Onward!

P.S. Also, side note, since the first guy to get a full direct dose of how people really feel decided to commit suicide by magic shortly thereafter, maybe we should be reconsidering going down the whole “Neuralink” path. Might not end well. Just a thought.

Originally published at https://thepathlesstruth.substack.com.

Note: All posts on The Pathless are meant to spur questions and promote discussion about the nature of Truth and how we can better find it. Please share your thoughts, and especially your disagreements. We need your point of view! Also, if you found this interesting, and would like to support this mission, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber over at The Pathless on Substack.

Language Sucks was originally published in The Pathless on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Truth with a capital “T.” Maybe all caps, and bold, and underlined, and like size 1 million font. Not your truth, my truth, our truth, and definitely not Truth Social; I’m talking about The Truth. If there is a God, then it would be the absolute TRUTH spoken only by that dude (dudette? It? They/Them??). What is it? How do we get it? Let’s do this.

What is Truth?

First, let’s face the fact that I will fail at the task of actually defining Truth. Quite possibly miserably so. But I don’t think the impossibility of the task, or the inevitability of failure, is necessarily a signal to avoid the task. We all just need to manage our expectations. Good? Great, let’s get on to failing.

I think the concept of God is actually a good foundation on which to build an understanding of Truth in the absolute sense of the word. (Note I said “concept” of God, and that it doesn’t really matter whether you believe God exist or not). It’s useful because in most monotheistic religions God knows and/or IS the Truth. The word of God is unquestionable and absolute. Sooo, how does he/she/it/they/them do that? How does God know what “Truth” is?

Well, it turns out our buddy God has 3 primary traits: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. The first one, omnipotence, is not particularly important for this thought experiment. While being all-powerful sounds cool, and technically gives one the ability to change Truth at a whim, it doesn’t necessarily explain why God would know the absolute Truth in the first place before it was changed.

So, omniscience is where we will start; which is defined as the knowledge of everything, all-knowing, or infinite knowledge. This is essentially the “what” of Truth. Absolute Truth, is everything there is to know about a thing. Let’s take a pencil for example. Not just any pencil mind you, but the specific pencil that you may or may not be holding in your hand and/or mind right now. The Truth about this pencil is every possible data point (past, present, and future) that can be known. Think about it’s entire life’s journey both as a final product, and of each component it’s made of. In fact, think about every aspect of everything it’s made of (material compositions, molecular structures, combustion temperatures, rates of decay, etc. etc. etc.). This is the Truth about this pencil. God, apparently, knows this level of truth about all things; i.e. everything about everything.

Side note, I think the time aspect of Truth is the part that most people get hung up on or completely overlook. In order to actually know a thing, you need to know it from beginning to end. A singular human perspective is simply not enough.

The second important Godly trait is omnipresence, which is defined as a presence in all places simultaneously or an unbound/universal presence. This is essentially the “how” of Truth. By that I mean: if God knows everything about everything, then how? Omnipresence. Inherently, something that is present in all places, at all times, would actually find it easy to know all things. As I just mentioned, I think the part that gets overlooked is “at all times”- past, present, and future. In other words, Truth is known by existing outside of the dimension of time, or having an “unbound” presence. One must know the entire scope of existence of a thing to know the absolute Truth about a thing.

Or, to put it more depressingly, Truth with a capital “T” is impossible for any human to know. We simply don’t have the bandwith in space, time, or in raw processing power.

Truth vs. truth

At this point I imagine you’re rolling your eyes, or moving on to something else, because all this BS about capital “T” Truth is abundantly obvious. Of course we aren’t “God,” and of course we don’t have magical powers that allow us to transcend time and expand our minds into infinite perception. Obviously…But are you sure? Have you listened to or read the news recently? Have you tuned-in to any of the talking heads on the radio, podcasts, and YouTube these days? I’m not sure about you, but I see an awful lot of “just telling it how it is,” and referring to “the facts, and nothing but the facts,” and “fact-based reporting,” blah, blah, blah. I mean, despite the fact that it should be obvious that none of us are capable of knowing the absolute Truth about anything, there seems to be a lot of people selling it regardless. All the while all the “facts” floating out there seem to be in a state of constant contradiction.

Why is that?

Maybe because we are all dealing in something else entirely, and it just happens to have a name that sounds the same and looks very similar. We are talking about little “t” truth (differentiated as “absolute Truth” and “perspective truth” from here on out). If absolute Truth is everything about everything, then perspective truth is some things about some things. A perspective truth is not wrong or false, it is simply a massively restricted view of the whole. In our pencil example, it would be the “truth” about the pencil from my singular perspective (i.e. my personal limited understanding about “everything” there is to know about the pencil). Unfortunately, I could spend the rest of my life documenting and researching the nature of this pencil and I would still land woefully short of the absolute Truth. The absolute Truth would escape me, as it would us all.

So, here’s the rub; perspective truths are technically the best we can do individually. The problem with this is twofold. First, we are more often than not completely unaware that we are constantly confusing perspective truths or “facts” (whether it be ours or someone else’s) for absolute Truths. Second, our beliefs and daily decisions are all produced in this state of confusion. This, in turn, creates an immense amount of cognitive dissonance when the actual absolute Truth comes along and punches us in the face. Worse still, back in the day, disseminating your perspective truth to a wide audience took a lot of effort and time, so we had far fewer perspective truths to get confused by. Now, thanks to the glory of the interwebs, it is not only extremely easy to spread your perspective truth, but you can also consume millions of other’s truths simultaneously. You can even tailor your information stream (consciously or unconsciously) to only get the perspective truths you want to hear.

But wait, if the absolute Truth is everything about everything, then logically easy access to millions of perspective truths at least should get us closer to the absolute Truth, right?

No…maybe…or at least not yet, and definitely never in our current system.

The Power of We

Let’s recap. The absolute Truth about anything can only be known by an entity capable of omniscience and omnipresence (infinite knowledge of all things throughout space and time). Omnipresence is required because there are simply too many variables throughout space and time for any one perspective to see or fully comprehend. In other words; humans are not capable of omnipresence or omniscience, therefore they are not capable of knowing the absolute Truth…about anything…ever.

So, the natural question- and the one that I’m seeking the answer to- is how close can we get? If we are doomed to forever walk around in the dark, then can we at least bring a flashlight? And how many? Can we bring a few extra sets of eyes as well, so we can look in multiple directions? If the fundamental problem is a lack of infinite perspective, then logically I need to gather more perspectives, right? In other words, if I alone am limited in what I can see, how limited are We?

I ask about “We,” because if we accept the fact that omnipresence is necessary to truly know absolute Truths- then I think the computational and perceptual powers of “we” are the only thing we can work with to get us even remotely moving in the right direction. We have yet to discover how to transcend time, or expand our minds to hold “infinite knowledge,” so that’s out of the picture. And I personally can’t experience more than one place at one time. But technically “we” can. We can be in a lot of places at a lot of times. Every year there are more of us, in more places, at more times. We cannot be infinite, but how close can we get? Can we get 10% of the way there? 20%?

To be clear, 20% of infinite is kind of an ambitious and possibly impossible goal. But it’s a nice even number and it allows me to segue into a discussion on the concept of the 80/20 rule, so that’s what I’m going with. As you may know, the 80/20 rule (aka Pareto Principle, law of the vital few, etc.) is a general observation that explains the correlation between effort and outcome, namely that roughly 80% of the “outcomes” come from 20% of the “efforts”. You see this in business, relationships, even exercise and health ( i.e. you don’t need to be a marathon runner, powerlifter, or insane like David Goggins; you just need to do some exercise regularly to achieve the vast majority of the health impacts of exercise). I would argue that this applies to the pursuit of absolute Truths as well. While having absolute certainty about the absolute Truth would be nice, for humans it isn’t possible and, more importantly, probably isn’t necessary. What IS possible (especially now), is the accumulation of a large number of differing perspectives with the intent of triangulating towards common truths that move us in the direction of absolute Truths. This is “The Power of We.”

The Glorious Internet…

Here is where you say “yeah, we have a place where a large number of perspectives are gathered, it’s called the internet, and it’s a shitshow.” And you would be correct. In fact, it’s fairly obvious that the internet is not only a great pile of feces, but also seems to be pulling us farther from absolute Truths, not closer. To which I would argue that’s because neither the internet, nor any service on it, was built with the “intent” aspect of the equation. Instead, the current internet is more like the result of man’s constant push for ever more powerful technology and then just dumping it on society and saying “hey, isn’t this cool? Have fun and try not to kill yourself!” (To be fair we have a long history of this: fire, automobiles, atom bombs, smart phones, you name it). The point being that the internet is indeed a powerful tool, but we have yet to figure out how to use it effectively or in a way that consistently provides a net benefit to society as a whole (yes I’m aware of all kinds of great things that have been facilitated by a more connected world, but in this post I’m focusing on the overall big picture, and in particular the pursuit of absolute Truths). In reality, no significant part of the internet is focused on truth gathering. But I think it can be.

While I’m not sure exactly how it can be facilitated on a large scale, I think the first step is to discover and define what criteria need to be met in order to move us towards absolute Truths, or at least what will more consistently get us 20% of the way there. What are your thoughts? How do we become better truth-seekers on a personal level? How do we better accumulate perspective truths and analyze them effectively? How do we do this on a mass scale to invoke “the wisdom of crowds?” Would A.I. be useful here? Are there downsides to an organized system of perspective harvesting? These are some of the questions I’ll be tackling over the next few days; I’m sure I’ll have it wrapped up by next week, and then promptly solve all the world’s problems…but then what am I going to write about?

Note: All posts on The Pathless are meant to spur questions and promote discussion about the nature of Truth and how we can better find it. Please share your thoughts, and especially your disagreements. We need your point of view! Also, if you found this interesting, and would like to support this mission, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber over at The Pathless on Substack.

Truth vs. truth was originally published in The Pathless on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Purpose and Ground Rules

This is a place for ideas, discussions, and strategies for destroying dichotomies, breaking binary thinking, and facilitating actual problem solving for social, cultural, economic, and political issues. This is not meant to be another blog or newsletter where you come to perform your weekly bobble-head exercises. This is also not an independent journalism site working tirelessly to fit everything that happens in the world into a singular narrative or perspective. While well-defined and examined narratives are useful, we must triangulate many to get closer to “Truth.”

To facilitate the early demise of dichotomous thinking and fracture the systems in place that encourage it, we must build systems of our own. Furthermore, in order to design and build these systems, we must stand upon a foundation that will allow us to combat or bypass our evolutionary tribal nature (i.e. our need to incessantly dig-in, scream at each other, and accomplish exactly nothing). As a starting point, we will explore both the concept of Truth and how to practically seek it as an individual, culture, and species. To enable this process, we will build upon the framework explored by Shane Snow in Dream Teams, encouraging cognitive diversity, productive conflict, and (above all else) intellectual humility in our discussions.

It is my belief that in order to solve global and society wide problems, we must have global and society wide “Dream Teams”. But how? This is a much taller order to fill than just creating effective teams within a corporation or sports league. How do we systematically facilitate, collect, sort, and triangulate thousands and millions of perspectives in order to make better decisions based on better truths? This “system” is what we will be exploring here in addition to testing it on specific false binary societal breaking points. To accomplish this, dissenters are not just welcome, they are required. In fact, we need a legion of dissenters, devil’s advocates, critics, and creatives all working towards a singular purpose: designing a better system and a better way of collaborating in mass to consistently solve the complex society wide problems that are holding our species back.

To be frank, this is possibly an impossible task. However, I don’t think the perceived impossibility of the task, or the probability of failure, is necessarily a signal to avoid the task. We all just need to manage our expectations. This will be a slow and arduous process. To hopefully smooth the progress of the grind we are going implement the following ground rules for effective debate and discussion.

1. Curiosity is king. If you don’t understand someone’s view, ask questions instead of just making opposing declarations.
2. No personal attacks. Attack the idea not the person.
3. No taking things personal. Your ideas are not you; they are ideas.
4. Identify logical fallacies when you see them and accept that everyone uses them, even you.
5. Try to keep the discussion to “facts” and logic, rather than interpretations and extrapolations.
6. Be intellectually humble. Concede as often as possible.
7. Be rhetorically honest. “Debate Bro” tactics are not welcome here.
8. Recognize at times we will all fail miserably to follow all of the above. We are Human.

In summary, you can either be right, or we can solve the problem; both cannot be true. If you are only interested in proving your point to be “right,” then you are not welcome here. Together we must learn to question all narratives- especially our own. In the end our individual perspectives are but one small grain of sand on an infinite beach. Alone, we are an infinitesimally small portion of the whole, just waiting to be washed into the abyss by the waves of time. Together, we are the beach that weathers the waves for eternity.

Welcome to The Pathless.

The Pathless was originally published in The Pathless on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.