Reading Groups To Read For A Better Truth

It is not news that modern times have brought an explosion of information. The Internet now makes all of that information available indexed and searchable at the click of a mouse. We now have enough reported events and commentary on those alleged events to satisfy the most avid curiosity. Yet in all this new glut of information no new methodologies have emerged to ascertain what is true and factual and what is the best interpretation of events.

We do have forms for dialogue which stretch over the Internet as far as the eye cares to look. Yet, for the most part, the substance flowing in those forms does not converge. These forms have become a repository of the ruts that the thinking in our culture have dredged.   There must be a better way!    There must be a social mechanism, which would allow a person to determine the best truth in any given situation. There must be a way that would leverage the collective wisdom to extend a person's ability beyond the limited resources that reside behind a single person's eyeballs.

Let's briefly examine what currently exists in our culture that address this problem. One way is to choose a political party (or trade, or labor, or professional, or religious group). One then learns to trust that group and one allows the leaders of the group to prescribe the truth. But that does not seem to be working ... rather these groups just become the problem ... they act to maintain the statusquo rut thinking of a self selected audience.   Another mechanism is the independent commission. These commissions are instituted from time to time and their members are selected to represent a cross section of divergent views. They are given a specific topic and all members of the commission agree to converge on findings. Sometimes these actually do work to a measured degree. Yet there are very few of them, they are expensive, are slow to be convened, slow to converge, and are still prone to manipulation by partisan interests.

The solution that i am groping for would leverage our social experience with independent commissions, but would target their weaknesses. A commission need not take an act of Congress to convene. It should be possible to convene a commission automatically by anyone simply framing a question for inquiry. The members of the commission, ( i prefer the term "reading group"), would be other concerned citizens. The only requirement for joining the goup would be that each member agree to converge on a finding about the subject of inquiry and to follow the rules of the inquiry. These rules are setup to avoid the non-convergent behavior that we see in Internet forms today.

The rules of the reading group could be agreed by the consensus of those actively participating in the inquiry. I have proposed a starting set of rules below. These are by no means perfect, but they are a start proposed to have something to improve upon.

The inquiry must start with a framing of the question. Once the participants agree upon the framing of the inquiry, then that exact wording defines the scope and extent of what must be considered. Obviously it should be as narrow as possible. It should not contain any contradictions or assumptions that cannot be accepted by a consensus of the participants.   Once this question is framed, then it should be easy to determine where some communication of the group is off topic or not.

There are specific kinds of communications that are strictly disallowed

disallow all adhominem comments
disallow all disrespectful comments
disallow "talking down" to others in the inquiry
disallow all comments that were off the topic of inquiry
disallow usage of "propaganda" language in analysis

I will be following these rules on every node that i label "inquiry node". I will delete comments, perhaps without warning, on my blog in inquiry node which do not follow these rules.

Comments

Mark de LA says

M 2006-10-22 11:38:12 4727

I should have said vague specs (your specialty) is just an invitation to play a game without knowing the rules of the game, or the substance of the game.

Actually it is more like the glass bead game.

Mark de LA says

Mark 2006-10-21 15:14:40 4727

IMHO, it seems as if you have proposed to do research by committee to arrive at the answers (or even the truth) to some question (with a few restrictions) without any structure as to the output or how to arrive at something coherent.
May I propose that you look at something like what you are doing which is similar and has an output format - see the pdf. I like in particular their Can Computers Think scenario as to structuring the arguments.

Seth says

Mark 2006-10-21 18:11:31 4727

Anything that leads to a mentograph of some kind would do.

A single person is limited by their own biases. But several people can agree upon a common goal to find a truth better than their own biases. The only structure needed is provided by rules which keep the social process on goal and prevent the normal rwg loop. Truth does not come from information structures, because those structures can accommodate anything, they do not provide an interpretation, they are merely mechanisms of expression. The truth must come from a people process.

Seth says

Mark 2006-10-22 10:25:19 4727

What you end up with on any question of some depth will be a big pile of opinions - like googling a subject on the web.

Well, yes of course ... you have just pointed to the monumental problem that i introduced in the first paragraph with this understatement "We now have enough reported events and commentary on those alleged events to satisfy the most avid curiosity". The social methods and diciplines proposed in this node are designed to whittle away at that mountain. Should the process begin, then more effective techniques will, i am certain, emerge. I do not claim to have all the solutions; however i am convinced that if the right people take solving this problem as a common goal, that what i have scoped here would be a good starting point.

Mark de LA says
I should have said vague specs (your specialty) is just an invitation to play a game without knowing the rules of the game.

Mark de LA says
I am trying my damndest to get out of you a clear picture so that I can see what will make it work or in any way will make something useful come out of it. Vague specs, (your specialty), is just an invitation to play while you develop some idea of what you want. You may be right. Should a real sample show up maybe I will get what works. OTOH, maybe I should just play in my own sandbox.

Seth says

Mark 2006-10-22 11:10:45 4727

BTW, I really don't see any specific & definitive people process here yet.

i have bolded those definitive elements of the people process :

The only requirement for joining the goup would be that each member agree to converge on a finding about the subject of inquiry and to follow the rules of the inquiry. These rules are setup to avoid the non-convergent behavior that we see in Internet forms today.

The rules of the reading group could be agreed by the consensus of those actively participating in the inquiry. I have proposed a starting set of rules below. These are by no means perfect, but they are a start proposed to have something to improve upon.

The inquiry must start with a framing of the question. Once the participants agree upon the framing of the inquiry, then that exact wording defines the scope and extent of what must be considered. Obviously it should be as narrow as possible. It should not contain any contradictions or assumptions that cannot be accepted by a consensus of the participants. Once this question is framed, then it should be easy to determine where some communication of the group is off topic or not.

There are specific kinds of communications that are strictly disallowed

disallow all adhominem comments
disallow all disrespectful comments
disallow "talking down" to others in the inquiry
disallow all comments that were off the topic of inquiry
disallow usage of "propaganda" language in analysis

The inquiry would first consist of collecting a context of facts and opinions. Then the finding document would start to be written. This document would progress similar to how articles at edited at Wikipedia.

All of those bolded passages refer to specific definitions of how the group of people function.

Seth says

M 2006-10-22 11:18:05 4727

What forces besides "the right people" are going to make something converge ?

That the members of the group follow the rules.

Also that the members have a common goal of converging.

Note that we have no such common goal in this dialogue here. Nore do i believe that it is converging. If you do have a common goal of converging, then every statement you make is carefully crafted to further that goal. Me thinks that quite the opposite is happening here.

Seth says
This question this node asks is whether a group of people with diverse opinions and a common goal to find the truth can cooperate to find it by following rules which are designed to eliminate known pitfalls of dialogue. The assumption is that any person who joins in the inquiry has their head screwn on straight and does not have an adgenda to just push through their viewpoint. Why? Well because they want to actually find a better truth ...they woull need to be truly curious. Can people with divergent views join in such a common goal? Can they put that goal above their own biases ? I actually don't know if it is possible or not. I cannot say from my own experience that it would work. Certainly my experience with you here at fbi is contra indicative. But should this be impossible across the board, well then man as a collective animal is flawed, perhaps fatally. However there are more hopeful examples of group success. Wikipedia is perhaps the most glaring. This proposal is not all that different than the successful Wilipedia project.

Seth says

M 2006-10-22 11:38:12 4727

is just an invitation to play a game without knowing the rules of the game.

That is just not true. I specified a set of starting rules. That the group can change and imporve the rules does not extrapolate to "an invitation to play a game without knowing the rules of the game". How did you come up with that misinterpertation ? Why did you come up with that misinterpertation? Do you understand that is not my intended meansing?

Mark de LA says

OK - so ?

Seth says

M 2006-10-22 11:44:39 4727

M 2006-10-22 11:38:12 4727

I should have said vague specs (your specialty) is just an invitation to play a game without knowing the rules of the game, or the substance of the game.

Actually it is more like the glass bead game.

Nope nothing like a glass bead game. Is a Congressional Comission like say the Warren Commission a glass bead game ... was the 911 commission a glass bead game? It's like your not even reading what i wrote above. I dont get it ... if your not going to read what i write with some comprehension, then please do go away and do something else.

Seth says
There might be one way to get my point across here. Have you ever been curious about what really was whappening? Then tried to investigate it and still could not figure out what really was happening? You have to come from that space to understand this idea. You have to come from that space of curiosity. You have to really want to know. You have to be frustrated with your ability to find out. You have to feel the information glut failing. Then you accept the problem and say ... ok ok i can't figure it out alone ... how can i get help? Go ask your priest? Go ask your Aytollah? Ask your congressman? Ask the green revolutionary guard? Sorry, nobody to ask ... everybody has their ax to grind.

Mark de LA says

M 2006-10-22 12:05:57 4727

OK - so ?

. . .

You consistently violate rules 2 or 3 (mostly 3) & expect me play, eh ? I am very curious about what you are expecting, wanting , trying to do. I ask questions & make statements which you can disagree with & comment on. Instead, you continue to shout your original stuff as if it will clear things up. If that is the template of what you want to do then the matter is hopeless.

Let me suggest that you start an open group devoted to the type of inquiry you want. That will insure that all rights of censorship & tagging are equal (not just a Seth thing). If you want to make it more interesting invite some of your cabal to join the inquiry. Then (in the motto of the olympics) - "Let the games begin!"

Seth says

M 2006-10-22 12:56:32 4727

expect me play, eh ?

Actually i don't.

Seth says

Mark 2006-10-27 07:48:54 4727

It seems to me that the phrase a better truth is just as useful as the phrase a nicer piece of snow !

It is an oxymoron without the contradiction.

Some day perhaps we will discuss that under nodes in the room A Better Truth.

Si says
LOL … if those rules were inacted at the FBI, Mark would never be able to say anything! He would only be able to post memes.

Of course, I would never converse at a site with rules … why even bother? Gaming yes, rules no. Rules are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.

Seth says
an interesting #year2006 thought that may well still #RingsTrue today

Reading Groups To Read For A Better Truth

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