Sour Grapes or Fine Wine ?

(***)I think of the M$M and some on the fringes as the aggregator of facts & the descriptive data about what goes on in & events in the World today with a bias for headlines & sensationalism & what sells the best. Other biases exist that are purely political.

I think of the blogosphere as the aggregator of opinion in the gross & the verbose while polls are the fine tuning & aggegation of opinion. Someone once said that "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one" (sometimes several!)

That being said, is there anything positive in this future of an Internet 5th estate? A tower of Babel or a speedy revolution toward the sublime realization of humanity's best possibility of attainment? While expressing opinions may be therapeutic I'm not sure they contribute value in the form of truth or innovation & creativity.

I think of books as the divine afflatus or perhaps merely afflatus humanus.

Comments

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-10-30 09:55:05 10749

Well if Gutenberg and his books did not change the human social predicament, then neither did the Internet. They both went in the same direction, more information, to more people, faster. If you expect that increased information flow to entail "Truth", as if "Truth" were some kind of commodity, then me thinks that you do not know what "Truth" actually is.

Why the ad hominem stuff? The point about books is that a person who writes a book puts a lot more energy & thought into his material. A good writer spends some energy choosing the exact words that express what he wants to say. As we used to say in the military the priority of information is Reliability, Security & Speed. You can cross out security except for those who like to write about national secrets in public.

Seth says

M 2008-10-30 11:49:07 10749

seth 2008-10-30 10:49:07 10749

M 2008-10-30 10:32:56 10749

seth 2008-10-30 09:55:05 10749

Mark what i said was not ad hominen, please don't miss my point and take it personally. My point is: you don't get closer to the Truth by increasing the information flow. You do, however, get more access to the Truth. You still need to peruse it if you in fact care about it.

I guess then that I overlooked your entire misstatement of my expectations of which there were none. Increased information flow can lead to more lies or more truth with no particular bias for either given a lack of facts. You don't get more accedss to truth unless it is a statistical percentage of the flow; our current electioneering cycle proves that.

More access to more information implies that you have more of the "raw material" that is necessary to persue truth. But outside of that i think we pretty much agree.

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-10-30 10:49:07 10749

M 2008-10-30 10:32:56 10749

seth 2008-10-30 09:55:05 10749

Mark de LA says

If the new information is bogus, just because you have more of it or even raw data does not mean you are any closer to the truth.

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-10-30 14:47:21 10749

M 2008-10-30 14:27:23 10749

seth 2008-10-30 14:11:30 10749

M 2008-10-30 13:55:16 10749

If the new information is bogus, just because you have more of it or even raw data does not mean you are any closer to the truth.

Yep obviously. It is a process: gather, verify, confirm, etc. Note there is no step in there where you deny and reject based upon preconceived notions.

Without something preconceived you can't cognize any meaning to the data or the perceptions. Try it!

Right i agree. However when the facts on the ground do not align with your preconceptions, then to get at the truth you need to revise that conception.

You are somewhat getting abstract & intangible. Facts on the ground is political speak. All we have really, or ontologically, are distinctions & contexts.

Mark de LA says

Great! We all love the scientific method. Now how does that contribute to this item?

Seth says

M 2008-10-30 17:44:05 10749

Great! We all love the scientific method. Now how does that contribute to this item?

It's a tool that an Internet 5th estate can use in its pursuit of truth, were that estate to actually choose truth over the RWG.

Seth says

M 2008-10-30 15:37:32 10749

seth 2008-10-30 14:47:21 10749

M 2008-10-30 14:27:23 10749

seth 2008-10-30 14:11:30 10749

M 2008-10-30 13:55:16 10749

If the new information is bogus, just because you have more of it or even raw data does not mean you are any closer to the truth.

Yep obviously. It is a process: gather, verify, confirm, etc. Note there is no step in there where you deny and reject based upon preconceived notions.

Without something preconceived you can't cognize any meaning to the data or the perceptions. Try it!

Right i agree. However when the facts on the ground do not align with your preconceptions, then to get at the truth you need to revise that conception.

You are somewhat getting abstract & intangible. Facts on the ground is political speak. All we have really, or ontologically, are distinctions & contexts.

What i am saying is straight forward scientific method ... (1) come up with a theory, (2) test it against the facts, (3) revise the theory accordingly ... nothing abstract or intangible.

Mark de LA says

... & what could the scientific method do to bring light to this story? which is also related to this item?

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-10-31 13:03:25 10749

M 2008-10-31 12:57:30 10749

seth 2008-10-31 09:32:32 10749

M 2008-10-31 06:38:28 10749

... & what could the scientific method do to bring light to this story? which is also related to this item?

Form a theory about whatever, and test it against the facts.

Sorry, the media & those associated with Obama hide the facts & in some cases lie. The point is that the scientific method doesn't work for news stories. The scientific method works in a lab where the experiment is controlled by the scientist.

You can't get at the truth by single sourcing your news. You need to search out multiple sources, so if one channel hides and lies, find the information elsewhere. That is the strength of a free press and active citizen journalists.

Yep, & it is nothing that the scientific method is good at.

Mark de LA says

I think that the scientific method & the 5th estate are far separate domains. In the case of climate change their mixture has produced a lot of mischief due to a blending of content with politics & partisan observers or at least observers with agendas. It's hard to find the truth in such a case, particularly on the Internet. When the lab is the whole World, & the observers (scientists?) are everyone we get more opinion than truth. The M$M should act like detectives forever curious about the circumstances & evidence of an event or situation of interest - free of bias. I still like the notion of fair witness in Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land as the ultimate unbiased observer. Perhaps what is left out of Heinlein's fair witness makeup is curiosity which keeps the pursuit penetrating to the depth of a matter.

Seth says

I think in the case of climate change, people, lead by the 5th Estate, should be learning that it is not as simple as temperature will go up as CO2 goes up. Earth is much more complex than that.

Mark de LA says

seth 2008-11-25 08:47:56 10749

I think in the case of climate change, people, lead by the 5th Estate, should be learning that it is not as simple as temperature will go up as CO2 goes up. Earth is much more complex than that.

... & people might find out that by reducing CO2 we might bring on a new Ice Age.

Sour Grapes or Fine Wine ?

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