From: rhinoceros (rhinoceros@freemail.gr)
Date: Sat Apr 20 2002 - 16:35:14 MDT
[hinoceros 2] I have noticed that at the time I am writing this the \"Infection\" topic has alread spawned 3 threads. As I am no-good at netiquette, I would like to know: Should I have started a new thread instead of barging into a thread which was addressed to someone else?
Anyway, where I am getting at could possibly justify a different thread.
[rhinoceros 0] Ben, do you think we should read such ever-mutating anonymous spam seriously and check the facts to form an objective opinion about its content? And do you think we should remain unbiased in such matters, whatever that means?
[ben 1] I think it is near impossible to remain unbiased, although I do think that that is a desirable goal, and one that should be achieved to the greatest extent possible on an individual basis. I have my own biases, which I try to sublimate both internally and externally as part of the process of attaining an factual perspective.
I think that facts on the matter are in remarkably short supply - I have no trust on this issue for information obtained from or tainted by any representative of either side. This situation is awkward - if one is not there, one doesn\'t know what\'s happening and should not be trusted. If one is there, oen is involved and therefore biased and untrustworthy.
I don\'t have the answer to the question \"where can I obtain legitimate information to the events in the Middle East\" right now - a fact I find most troubling.
[hinoceros 2] Of course, there are some generally accepted facts to begin with. There are also some points of dispute regarding the true facts. But what I am talking about is not the truth of the facts but the truth of the situation.
They say that data is not information. To produce information from data, you have to provide a conceptual frame. We could take this notion to a higher level and say that true facts are not the truth. As Heraclitus sarcastically commented \"The learning of many things teacheth not understanding, else would it have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and again Xenophanes and Hecataeus.\" Of course, knowing the true facts to some degree is important, but usually it is not sufficient.
Now I am going to slide down to a kind of relativism. What is truth? The answer may depend on a series of additional questions: \"What do you mean by \'truth\'\" \"Who are you and why do you ask?\" \"Are you involved in this?\" \"Does it affect you? How? How much?\" \"Do you need to get involved? Why? How?\".
Some possible answers would be: \"I am a bedouin\" \"I am the USA government\" \"I need to survive.\" \"I don\'t want people to get killed.\" \"I want to be sure that international law is being enforced.\" \"I am writing a book which I am going to sell to this or that audience.\" \"I am selling some stuff they should be interested in.\"
What is my point? Knowining all the true facts will not help much in most of the above cases. And if something seems to be important enough, you may need to act in some way or another, depending on who you are and what you want, even if you cannot know all the true facts.
End line: I am almost always biased.
---- This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2002 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=51;action=display;threadid=25385>
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