Thomas:
Information - we are told is power, in this the new information age. But
where do we get information? How does it get inside our heads? The obvious
answers, education, reading, experience all seem to be true ways to get
information from out there into in here. But then we have the quality
problem, garbage in - garbage out, the old computer insight calls it. How
do we evaluate all this information to determine what has value?
Bandler and Grinder of NLP fame had an aprohism: Effectiveness is the
measure of truth. Which I have spend many delightful hours trying to
unpack. Is the quality of information that has made it into our heads only
to be evaluated by it's effectiveness? But that seems a little
contradictory as much information has no reality test bed. For example,
arguing historical "facts" or interpretations are difficult to ascribe to
effectiveness in the here and now.
In a recent discussion on economics, my antagonist made the statement:
"This may not be true as I took my training 25 years ago." What an
interesting statement. Was it true 25 years ago but as the world changes
the "truth" of information changes? Was it false then but accepted as true?
How can we have discussions of value when "truth" is a moving target?
And then there is the question of memory. Of all the information that
passes through the ol brain, how much of it is retrievable and of that which
is retrievable, how much of it is distorted? Well, scholars, when they
write, quote their sources, often other books or statements that have been
recorded, as if by being recorded, they are in someway true-er than if
someone just thought them up or made an unpremeditated statement. Does
quoting sources actually improve the quality of information? What if the
original guy was wrong? Or what if what he said is not what you thought he
said. I have heard ( a piece of information) that authors are often
perplexed at the way individuals paraphrase what they have said and what
meaning they were trying to convey into something that the author himself
was not aware of saying.
Of course, there is information, which we tend to think of as neutral and
there is meaning which is subjective according to each individual. If this
statement has some truth in it, then what value is information if meaning is
so variable? One of the books suggested on my Internet forays was a book of
essays by Bertrand Russell - very interesting. He was discussing
rationality, which of course, we know comes from using information
logically. (Begs the question of a definable process, logic and a variable
source, information combined with a subjective meaning to arrive at an
effective conclusion as being a reliable source for decision making - or
not.)
Anyway, I wander. Bertrand talked about why we do things. Impulse and
desire were his conclusions. I can identify with desire, I have read a lot
of Buddism and I know that the Budda's analysis of the human condition was
that we are all screwed up because of desire and that the only way to
unscrewed was to eliminate desire. But impluse - now that was new
information. Bertrand spent some time describing his meaning of impulse as
an activity that arises not from desire or from being a rational actor but
as something that all humans just seem to do. Stimulus - response - maybe.
So then my dog looked at me with that look that said, "I need to pee and if
you don't take me for a walk, the ol rugs going to get it." So, I had the
impulse to take her for a walk. Now, normally, when I take her out for a
pee walk, it is out the back yard, into the park and let's get this pee over
with. But this time, for no logical reason, or any identifiable desire, I
found myself wandering over the soccer field to a small set of bleachers -
impulse? And there, lo and behold, leaning up against the bleachers was an
aluminum lawn chair! So, I acted on impulse and took that lawn chair out
into the middle of the soccer field and sat down on it and watched the stars
for awhile. Of course, Peter Mansfield at CBC would not approve that I
missed his news cast, but I was enjoying the results of my impulse. Now,
sad to say, logic kicked in and I had to decide whether to take the lawn
chair back, leave it there, or cart it home as a gift from the gods and then
desire kicked in because that lawn chair was truly comfortable and I had
enjoyed watching the stars, so I rationalized it as a gift from the gods and
took the lawn chair home - now we had morality in the picture - was it theft
or garbage removal but that is another set of ruminations.
So, around this big circle. Is there a muse out there that tricks us into
responding to information, for example, deciding to take the effort to read
Bertrand's book which led me to contemplate impulses to having an experience
of the results of effortlessly responding to a series of impulses which led
to my acquistion of a lawn chair and this small and inconclusive essay. In
fact, I would guess that if you were to examine some of your activities, you
would find that impulse is quite a big player in the type and quality of
information you get and a very serious generator of experiences that you
live through. Is this the "invisible hand" of human experience?
Respectfully,
Thomas Lunde
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