I’m advancing the idea that humility is an essential state in which the human mind can exist allowing it to detect and correct errors of the process of perception and construction of the reality.
I believe that the words ‘humble’ and ‘humility’ are some of the most misunderstood words and concepts. In this article, I’m trying to analyze and show the strength hidden underneath the surface for humble minds.
I think that the confusion comes from current definitions focusing on describing how a humble person behaves or looks instead of how it thinks or even more important how the pipeline of sensing and making sense of reality works (check images below or simply search the internet).
The humble view of the world is usually an integrative and balanced one where each individual is respected, protected, and cherished at the same level as any mind group all forming a strong knitted social fabric.
In this context the opposite of humble behavior is hubris or narcissistic behavior.
A narcissistic mind believes that it is (statistically speaking) correct all the time. As a consequence, it needs no error correction process since in its view there are no errors to correct.
A narcissistic view of reality is usually one detached from reality that only intersects with the actual reality from time to time in the same way a broken (analog) clock is right twice a day.
For a narcissistic mind, facts are just annoying events that they usually blame to the actions of other minds that are “up to get me” or to destroy my “well-groomed” view of the world.
In a narcissistic mind the “I” is imperative as this “I” and only it has all the answers to all questions (or most of them anyway) and everyone else like other “I”s and groups must obey its power and awe.
In a nutshell, extreme narcissistic personalities are malignant states in which minds can exist and if given power over others can and will most likely destroy the social fabric of any group unless are kept under control.
The mistake many of us make when trying to understand humility is to confuse humble with weak. We may think that if someone answers a question by starting with “I’m not totally sure but here is what I know…” instead of “This is how it is” or “This is how it works”, the usual “know it all” answer, we consider them weak, unsure of themselves and sometimes simply stupid.
Once someone uttered “This is how it is” suggesting that they are in the possession of the full information set describing how reality works with zero mistakes they will put themselves in a biassed state that will make it hard if not impossible to come back later with new insights correcting previews insights in how things work around us.
If a powerful person, a leader is not humble enough its biased views will transmit and bias further minds that took the information provided by the leader “as is”, with no verification of their own. This process stands at the core of building all non-democratic societies and can lead to straight tyrannies that lead to the unimaginable suffering of all life.
In a few words: A chronic lack of humility can lead to “Hell on Earth”.
In any human society, the natural process of generating minds will tend to generate a diverse set. Nature will generate both natively inclined humble as well as narcissistic inclined minds and in the middle minds that can slide towards one end of the other of the humble-narcissistic axis.
This process is somewhat equivalent to how multicellular living entities work (humans, animals etc), cells are continuously created from the information stored in the DNA and RNA strands and each new cell is slightly different from the ones before it.
Sometimes the mutations are large and unruly cells are born. Those cells if left unchecked are in certain cases at the base of structures we call cancerous and if they get their way to combine in larger groups will lead to the destruction of the host organism and themselves.
The life span of any cellular group depends directly on its ability to detect those unruly cells and deny them the ability to destroy the larger group. The immune system is such a subsystem that in healthy organisms detect and fix or eliminate unruly individuals.
An yet the same immune system can become “unruly” itself when is unable to tell when a mutation can lead to a healthy evolution or lead to cancer and start to overreact and destroy the very organism it seeks to protect.
Autoimmune diseases are now better understood and it may just turn out that the deaths from Corona Virus 2019 (or #COVID19) may just be another example of the immune system going astray. I assume that an untrained immune system is probably more likely to make mistakes than a trained one.
What I’m trying to outline here is that there is no “silver bullet” and the key to our survival as individuals and as a group depends on our ability to find and correct errors in our process of navigating the Exoverse. In the diagram below the humble minds are more “anchored” in reality (Universe) with a healthy process of exploring the imaginary (Extraverse) whereas narcissistic ones are located more in the imagination (the imaginary space) than reality.
In conclusion, I believe that this is more about nurture than nature, and nurturing has to happen early in the process of mind formation. Unfortunately, we seem to be biassed there too as we willingly introduce errors in the young minds by presenting distorted versions of reality. We have a well-known expression for that, “lying to children” and it usually happens when older minds are not capable to find ways to train younger minds in how to deal with the real-imaginary process or simply put to explain how the Exoverse works.
This is not a pure criticism of parenthood or the social education systems. To be a parent is a difficult task (I’ve been one myself) when one’s time is burdened by the physical needs first. A parent must put food on the table a roof over the head and clothes on their children first. For some, even those can’t be achieved properly and the parents must spend most of their time in endless (sometimes meaningless) low-paid jobs in order to meet a minimal living standard for their children and themselves.
However, the Exoverse is an unforgiving place, full of wonders but also full of dangers. It does not care if you live or die and the only way to safely navigate it is to be able to master the art of telling fact from fiction, real form imaginary, or simply put to be Humble.
I hope this article will give you the power to make the first step out of the continuous confusion we all live on the internet and in our lives by showing you what factual information is and how we can get to it with the help of computers.
RealFact
Reading time: essentials 10 minutes; ~30 minutes reading to 1 hour on collateral and understanding
You’ll find a precise definition of the notion of Fact and some of the technologies we can use to produce them. I’m using the term “Real Fact” to distinguish between the current notion of Fact as you can find in a dictionary and the notion I’m defining in this article. Though they are mostly the same as our general idea of Fact, they differ fundamentally in how are defined and created. In this article, each time (other than this text block) ‘Fact’ is the same as ‘Real Fact’.
WARNING! The technology and applications necessary to make this available to everyone is not yet built. The components (like Lego pieces) exist and are already in use but are not put together in the right way. This article aims to show you what can be done so that you’ll know what to look for and ask the industry to build for you. Yes if there is profit to be made the industry will build it. You simply need to show you want to pay for it.
In the context of this article, and hopefully in general if most of us will agree, the definition of factual information or simply ‘Fact‘ is as follows:
A fact is any packet of information that a receiver, human or machine, can inquiry and verify the following additional information components also called meta-information (or metadata). The information packet and its associated meta-information represent a factual packet of information and they must be used together at all times.
The factual meta-information
The complete description of the method (process, algorithms) used to produce the substantive information packet by measuring it directly from the real world
The proof that the information and metadata was not changed or tampered with This is,a piece of information used as a verifiable proof of the measured information integrity against any type of tampering or change in both its temporal (packet chain integrity) and a-temporal structure by any individual or machine at any moment in the future
The spatio-directional-temporal coordinates of the sensor device producing the information packets
The digital identity of the sensor that produced the information (not the owner, only the device)
The above definition enables the creation of very precise (mathematical level) models, algorithms, and devices able to produce factual information validated and trusted by both individuals and groups of individuals. The main condition (both important and challenging) is to ensure that the individuals receiving the factual information understand how was produced and protected in order to establish its level of trust. This requires training and it is the future notion of “literacy”.
Level of Trust for information
# Level
Measurement Method
Measurement Integrity
Data Integrity
0
unknown
unverifiable
unverifiable
1
known
unverifiable
unverifiable
2
unknown
verifiable
unverifiable
3
known
verifiable
unverifiable
4
unknown
unverifiable
verifiable
5
known
unverifiable
verifiable
6
unknown
verifiable
verifiable
7
known
verifiable
verifiable
Trust levels for information, only the level 7 is considered factual
Social Penetration Level
Individual When the fact-metadata is accessible and can be verified by a single individual usually the owner of the sensorial system (example: the pictures and video on your own phone)
Group When the fact-metadata is accessible and can be verified by all members of a group (human or machines). This include also the group’s members participation in creating data integrity metadata (example: sharing pictures and data from your phone in a Face-Book group)
Global When the fact-metadata is accessible and can be verified by anyone (public information). The anonymous public swarm will also provide redundant data integrity metadata (example: tweeting your pictures or video from your phone to the public)
A proposed symbolic representation of information trust and penetration levels
Based on the Trust level and social penetration level we can classify information and use a short notation such as ‘I’ (information) followed by one digit as its trust level then followed by the social penetration level as one digit.
For example, I01 is basically, with some exception, all the information one individual posse today. an I7x would be any factual information packet and in this case, we can simply use ‘F’+its social penetration level so F1 will be any factual information an individual has. So finally the F3 information piece can be simply called ‘Fact‘.
Some of the existing technologies that when combined can be used to produce factual information (though some are optional or interchangeable)
Questions you will need to ask and get answer to in order verify if a piece of information is factual or not
Do I know how this information was produced (measurement method)?
Can I verify if the measurement method was accurately followed?
What is the error margin of the measurement process (calibration)?
How do I verify if the information produced by the sensor is what I received? (was it changed?)
Let’s get practical
A combination of the technologies listed above can be used to produce both trusted sensor systems as well as applications/libraries that a receiver can use to classify the information trust level. Basically to obtain an Fx (string representation of the information trust level).
Example 1 Social media: A smartphone able to produce factual information (video for example) that you can upload on YouTube and anyone else can verify its trust level. More, if the image or video was edited or filtered you should be able to ask the computer to show you what parts (pixels, etc) of the picture or video are factual and the ones transformed and be able to obtain the original raw sensed information.
Example 2 news: You read an article or watch a video on the net or TV, if this technology is available you should be able to ask the computer to tell you what is factual and what is not.
Factual implementation difficulty levels depends on their social penetration level
F1 – or “Personal Facts” is the entry level and most accessible
The F1 fact level is information that you are in full control of how you sense it (measure/capture) and ensure its integrity. You may ask yourself why should you protect your own data? From whom? Well, other people may have access to your data directly (you trust them) and change it by mistake or with malicious intent or your machines can break or bugs in your code act on and change your data. Intruders can also change pictures, video,s etc files you own. How can you be sure this did not happen for data you did not access for months or years?
The difference between F1 and the other levels is only in how large is the group that needs to have a shared trust in that data is and for F1 it is only you. Obviously, once you try to share your info with others you’ll need an F2 or F3 fact level so the others can also trust it.
The good part with F1 is that if you know enough about computers and programming you can create your F1 level information almost immediately. However, without an HSM to protect the sensing process, you’ll never be able to elevate the level of that information to an F2 or F3 level.
F2 – or closed group factual information — Group relative facts
F2 level will be used mostly by businesses that are big enough to afford to create their own sensing platforms with HSM-protected sensors and data integrity ensured by rules accepted by that group. The issue with F2 is that without full transparency and verification in how the sensors are built and data integrity is ensured F2 can’t be upgraded to F3 (full factual).
F3 – or ‘full factual’/’public fact’ information
F3 is the most challenging type of factual information though in time with global collaboration will be possible to create. To create F3 we need full open-source sensors design and codding and open, fully automated (full hands-off) build process that can be verified by the public at large (everyone on Earth). Additionally, anonymous crowd-based and redundant processes must be used for data validation. Machines participating in the “witnessing” process must also be built in the same open transparent way as the sensors.
You can probably call this the fishbowl strategy. We can only get out of our current confusion by helping each other.
The special case of news and established media and arts
The written word always had a “weight” in trust compared to the “spoken” word. Before Gutenberg built and used its first presses to lower the cost of producing copies of information on paper, writing a book was a very expensive and highly custom and artistic endeavor. Since the support of the information (the book) was so expensive, strong due diligence was done in verifying the information put in those books.
The price of the books also created an “investment/sunk cost bias” in both scribes and owners of the books leading to higher levels of trust. One may say that those books can be trusted better than today’s information which is mainly effortless to produce and disseminate. I would caution you to check on that trust. Check the old and expensive books that say Earth is flat and let me know if you still trust them without a hitch. The problem is that due to all those biases the old books were in fact a higher risk to disseminate falsehood exactly because most people had no intention to check their content.
Consequences? Well, just look at the “Witch hunts” that hurt and destroyed so many innocent lives in our past. They were all fueled by a few of those expensive books that no one dared to oppose until the higher-ups started to get hurt.
So, if the price of the book is not a guarantee of its “factuality”, what can we expect of the current cheap, click-driven article writing? Well, you can check for yourself at any time out there on the “open wild” net.
By the way, this does not mean all news out there is unreliable or fake, it simply means that you have no real way to verify if a piece of information is factual or not. It is just darn hard to do it and that means that for regular people it is impossible to tell fact from non-fact.
The proposal in this article can rebuild the trust and raise it to levels never found before once you will be able to verify every word, sentence, image, or video in the same effortless way you can produce your own factual information.
This can truly change from the ground up the news business battered currently by confusion among readers. In this business model news companies will not produce the news themselves but simply work as hubs for aggregation, analytics, and interpretation of factual event streams produced by sensors owned by all people on Earth. At that point, it may even be a “conflict of interest” for news businesses to produce their own input data, a huge difference from how they currently work.
On the other hand, arts and fiction storytelling can thrive like never before because the readers will be able to verify what is art and fiction in any end product. The artist or writer can be free of BS dissemination once the recipients of their work will be able to tell what is fact and what is imagination.
Science
In the human quest for a better life, the knowledge about how this reality really works is one of the main pillars holding us from slipping into the dark abyss of nothingness. Science is the process of finding the elusive causal relationships we can trust from the pile of correlation-driven events the reality throws at us.
It is a tricky and difficult process that uses imagination (fiction) to try to find the causality then pin it down with models backed by measurements. The measurements done in scientific experiments differ from the non-scientific ones by the way scientists keep a clear description of the measurement methods and by peer review other scientists can validate the integrity of the method of measurement and the data. In a few words, scientists are aiming to produce factual information.
Scientists can benefit from being able to produce factual information with ease, as they will not need to fight to prove that their experimental information is factual. Peer reviews and experiment reproduction still need to be done however since the initial measurement method is clearly defined it makes it easier for more people to review or retry various experiments.
Science experiments can cost billions of dollars if we are talking about CERN-like setups or no cost at all if the test is to check the theory that a slice of bread falls more frequently on the buttered side. They all can benefit from this method and technology of factual sensorial devices.
DNA sequencing healthcare and pandemics
Just imagine how much better our entire civilization would have responded to the #COVID19 pandemic or any other pandemics if each of us would be able to record facts about ourselves and securely and anonymously share this info with everyone else. The pandemic would have been quashed in weeks if not days and so many lives would have been saved and basically, none of the businesses would have been impacted.
Since we are talking about digital sensors and pandemics please take a look at the Nanoporetech technology as it holds the key for a completely new way to deal with microscopic life such as viruses and bacteria. Their sensors are not yet backed by HSMs and do not produce factual DNA data streams (as described in this article) but they can in the future.
When that will be possible and the cost of a scan will drop to less than a lunch we will be able to use it to keep an eye to the micro-world at a daily basis without lifting a finger. This means that the notion of healthcare will be forever changed. The difference between what we have now and that potential future is same or more than between the current healthcare and the one Galileo had on his time.
The justice system, the law and law enforcement
If the scientific method is fully dependent on factual information the Justice Systems should see the factual information as a must-have if innocents are to be spared from wrong charges and convictions.
In this domain, factual information is as important as oxygen for life. All the mojo of any trial is to reveal the facts first then based on them and only on them make decisions that are aimed to fix what was broken. Yet now we know that since facts are scarce or even nonexistent the Justice System is unable to get it right in too many cases.
When the Justice Systems (even the democratic ones) make mistakes and punish the innocents there is a double whammy, we hurt people that are innocent and prove to the criminals they can get away with it and continue to do what they did before.
I hope you can see how factual information produced as described in this article can help improve the inner workings of any Justice system and help the innocents.
Measurements and Information (WARNING! this is just hypothetical)
When talking about factual information we also need to understand the information that is not factual. One example is the information that can’t be precisely measured and we call imagination. What is imagination? How does it relate to factual information?
Though the following hypothesis its just that a hypothesis it can be used to define the factual (real) information or the domain of extra-factual or imagination.
When we the people started to dig down in the domain of microcosm we found something that suggests that there are things we call real, that we can “feel” and measure (the feeling is a form of measuring) and something else that exists before measuring process that can’t be called “real”. We modeled these behaviors under a mathematical framework called Quantum Mechanics (QM).
For me personally, the space-of-states outside of “the real” are part of an entity “larger” than the real (or realized) space-of-states (our universe) from where the real states are created via a process we call “measurement”. I’ve labeled this Extra Outer Universe the “Exoverse”.
Without going into more detail in this article (more later) I hypothesize the existence of an additional field to the fields already postulated by the quantum field theory that could be called “consciousness”. It is (in my opinion) the one responsible for “exploring” the Exoverse by the same process we taped-in in our Quantum Computers, the superposition. The process of creating real states from potential states is a phenomenon our selves perceive as time.
The superposition is used (by the consciousness) to explore a chunk of the Exoverse testing various outcomes in many possible “futures” and creating real states once this process is done. This process also generates what we call time. I’m labeling this explored domain inside of Exoverse, the “Extraverse” and I believe it is an integral part of the process we perceive as “imagination”.
In this context, the Universal states are all connected in a DAG (Direct Acyclic Graph), and the Extraverse is made of a very large (but finite) number of loops (superposition internal behavior).
Hypothesis on how our reality is created at universal level
Based on the diagram above and this hypothetical structure of the Exoverse we can clearly define the Real (measurable and factual) from Imaginary (fictional, non-measurable) domains.
Obviously, people can communicate via speaking, writing, and art the information present in their minds describing states that do not exist in our reality and the act of communication itself can be considered as factual as it can be measured.
This issue can lead to confusion as one can “wrap” an imaginary piece of information in a factual “shell” and present it as a fact. That is why we need the method by which the measurement was done to be known and verifiable.
Is Truth the same thing as Fact? What is the difference between Fiction and Lie?
In the post “Fact Fiction and BS” I’ve looked at the notion of Fact. In this post, I will focus on the notion of Truth and its relation to the Fact.
You can check the classic definitions of truth, fact, and fiction in dictionaries or lately online dictionaries. I’ve included some links at the end of the article.
I will try (below) a definition of my own aiming at the core of the concept.
The “Truth” is the mental projection of a Fact
Also, the Truth is the attempt of the human mind to capture and recall a Fact.
Let me present the definition of Fact and Fiction from the “Fact Fiction and BS” article:
Fact: A fact is any piece of information, created by a sensor of any kind measuring one or more parameters, from a well-defined position in space-time and whose content can undoubtedly be authenticated by a quorum of “witnesses” at any moment in time and space, after the measurement, upon request.
Facts are the bricks of what we call “reality”.
Fiction: Any information which is not fact is fiction!
Based on the above definitions of Fact and Fiction you can see that the Truth resides somewhere between Fact and Fiction. For a short time, a Truth can “match” perfectly a Fact but will never be a Fact, it is simply our mental image of a Fact.
So, the human mind alone can only produce Fiction or Lies and in certain cases (at random or not) match a Fact.
One important corollary of the above sentence is that any attempt to find “facts” by probing human memory is futile. For example, using a machine such as a classic lie detector may at best only probe if an individual lies intentionally. If your intention is to get to a fact by using any device to probe the brain’s memory content then you are simply leading yourself on a wrong path.
The most accurate dictionary definition I found so far is in “The Devil’s Dictionary (1881-1906)” stating “TRUTH, n. An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance.“. I’m not sure why the devil seems to be closer to defining a term than the holy. That says a lot about how our psyche works.
So, how and why the brain is such an unreliable machine to produce factual information? Let’s explore some of the most important causes of error.
Errors in how the information is acquired by the brain via natural sensorial processes
Errors induced by the “malleability of the mind” as our memories change continuously for many reasons
Let’s explore those error-inducing reasons.
1. The information acquisition errors.
We all know that our visual and auditive acuity is different from person to person as well as at different moments of one’s life. Our “reality” is constructed by our brain exclusively out of sensorial information. If the information produced by our natural sensors differs from person to person and even for the same person in time, then how can we think we can produce factual information out of it? Additionally, sensorial errors induced by external conditions further undermine the accuracy of the raw basic information our brains use to construct our reality.
An excellent case study, put in a movie is (obviously) The Matrix scene where Morpheus explains to Neo what Matrix is. Interestingly enough our reality may be an even more complex and convoluted case of The Matrix where each individual tends to live in their own Matrix and our reality is only an overlap of many individual Matrix-like realities.
2. Memory storage inaccuracies.
The fact that the information in a human mind matches a Fact does not necessarily makes it a Fact. To be a Fact the information must be able to be verified by other entities (minds or machines) and we have no way, yet, to precisely extract mind states and test them against other minds or machines. The problem is, even if we can probe and examine a mental state, the mental state will change almost immediately (that is how minds work) hence rendering the mind state non-factual. Yet for the mind, there will be no way to sense that without an external reference. So, the Truth (the representation of a fact) will drift away from the Fact. This is a complex relationship and if we are not aware of it we can end up confusing Truths and Facts with disastrous consequences for us and the society.
My definition of the Truth is based on analyzing how the human mind works. To perceive anything, our mind needs to rely on memory. Simply put there is no way for the human mind to make the distinction between any entities outside of the mind itself without prior information about the external world. To use this prior information the mind needs to store it in the physical support, the neurons in the brain.
An interesting book explaining how our memory works and how reliable is (or not) The Memory Illusion by the researcher Dr. Julia Shaw. The book cites many research projects including her own trying to understand how reliable the human memory is, including how the memory can be manipulated. YES! your memory can be manipulated by what you hear in ways you can barely believe. Many other researchers such as Elizabeth Loftus have studied how human memory works and provided sufficient proof for us to understand our own weaknesses and our inability to gather and use factual information by only using our own natural bodies.
So, we are bad at probing our reality with our natural sensors and we easily mess up what we acquired by mixing it with fictional constructs of our own information induced by other minds and yes we do forget things.
Knowing all this, how anyone can hope to get to and be able to work with Facts? Luckily for us, we invented ways to precisely sense and measure reality and also accurately store and recall information. Our digital computers, if used correctly, have the potential to do exactly that.
My solution to these limitations of the human mind is to pair human beings with digital machines in a fully symbiotic way in order to use the machine as a scaffolding for the mind. This new living entity will be able to accurately acquire and use factual information as well as unleash human creativity in the realm of fiction.
I’m coining a new concept called “Self Reliance” for Self Reliant Individuals as the base unit for a society of the future. Self Reliant is NOT equal or equivalent to Selfish, but exactly the opposite. A society made up of self-reliant living entities has the best shot to endure until the end of time and enjoy life together with all humanity. “Live and let live” kind of society. This society is also built on shared facts and will lead to a microbalance of abilities. However this is not a given, we have to fight for this type of society. Unfortunately, our current society seems to head directly towards auto-destruction instead. Yet there is hope….
Obviously, this is what I believe and I’m presenting here the base on that belief. I’m happy to get any feedback that may lead to a better understanding of this essential issue deeply affecting the lives of all of us. I also believe that most of the atrocities humans committed against other living things including other humans during our short history under the sun are rooted in this confusion between the Truth and Fact.
I have intentionally not analyzed the concept of Lie in this article. A lie is an intentional distortion of truth by a human mind when communicating with other human minds. This is all for now on the subject of lies. If time permits I’ll come back to this subject in a different article.
Added on Oct 28, 2018: If you are still skeptical about how easy is those days to change digital information without the ability to detect the change just take a look at the excellent abilities of the InPixio suite of editors (https://www.inpixio.com). Those tools are exquisite and have a lot of use in creating fictional constructs by mixing and altering real data. The edited info is good and can add value as much time as we can detect that it is fiction. Without detection, it is just beautiful BS… Below is a small example of what inpixio erase can do. The following images are before and after the removal of an object from the image:
and, after removal…
End add Oct 28, 2018
Links to other people’s opinions in this matter
Dr. Julia Shaw on human memory imperfections
Elizabeth Loftus: Powerful case of human memory issues
Anil Seth: Excellent talk about the mind and reality
Blowing your mind, we live in “A Matrix” like reality, Nick Mercer:
The heads in the sand: Next, how and why we run towards our own demise… (gullibility and ignorance) Forget for a while this is a commercial, just turn off the sound and see the brilliant way it points out a human weakness of all of us (more or less but always there).
