The End of Truth?

I have been thinking a lot of about truth, credibility and the Internet recently. We are in the midst of an extreme shift in the creation and sharing of knowledge with the advent of the Internet. We are a click away from the most obscure information, and the most popular and the most drab of information.

But what, or better said who, filters this information and deems it credible and reliable?

According to the Cult of Wiki, we do. We become the keepers of our own knowledge, and can edit and correct others at a click. A fine and noble goal. But it is really only those who actively input and edit in Wiki that define the information as truthful. This is a dramatic shift in the gatekeeping of knowledge. Up to this point, we have relied on academic credentials and peer review to ensure our truths and our knowledge are as accurate as possible. Academic articles and books have to pass through an obstacle course of approvals and checks before they reach publication. Now, anyone with access to a computer can publish and be believed.

This can be dangerous. Truth becomes diffused, dispersed amongst an indescribable number of bytes. We can create our own truths and send this out to the billions of Internet citizens for approval at best, or at worst, complete and blind acceptance.

This can also be revolutionary. We have already seen this with Iraqi citizens blogging about realities - citizen journalism at its best. Knowledge freed and shared across the world.

In 20 or 30 years, what will knowledge and truth look like? We may not recognize our antiquated attempts at knowledge gatekeeping.

Or we may long for the day that we had such controls in place.

Comments

Being an optimist, I'm looking for the best outcome. As in a gradual widespread acceptance that there is no one truth (which gatekeepers would have us believe) but multiple nuances of truth depending on perspective. Values can be immutable, but interpretations varied and variable.

Which reminds me of the old story about blind men and the elephant ... we always interpret this story to mean that people only have a small window on reality, as if that were a bad thing. Why don't we celebrate it? And then there's the pop expression 'the elephant in the room'-- what nobody's talking about. We need the third stage in this series of metaphors, when all the people put their particular pieces of truth together to build one larger truth which, perforce, they share having co-created it.

Ah well, I was trying to think of a joke to lighten up here, but can't. Bottom line, I like the inherent anarchy of the 'net.

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