I don’t know how many of you watch The Steven Colbert Report on Comedy Central, but last night, Mr. Colbert made a very interesting critique of epistemology.
Wikipedia has become a widly used source of information for millions, perhaps billions of people. No BSed high school paper is complete without a bibliography listing at least 5 wikipedia articles. It is very common, especially among my generation, to reference wikipedia in a verbal argument about a fact. And wikipedia often turns out to be the final word in these disputes. It’s becoming the standard of knowledge.
But this poses a problem. Anyone with internet access can change the content of wikipedia. The only people to ensure the correctness of wikipedia are other wikipedia users.
Which brings us to Mr. Colbert’s comment. If enough people agree that the content of wikipedia is correct, no one will cross-reference it with reality to make sure the information on wikipedia accurately describes the way things really are. Wikipedia is definitely language, but it’s theorectically possible that the language on wikipedia (or elsewhere on the internet) could loose its reference to reality if enough people begin to treat its articles as “the truth”. A kind of “wikiality” will develop. In this wikiality, people will not base the veracity of their statements on how well they describe experience (or if they descirbe reality at all), and more on the consensus of all other language (or specifically, wikipedia) users.
I’m not much of an expert on post-modernism, but I did read the wikipedia article on it. It talked about the development of “hyper-reality”, or a system where language had no reference to reality. It seems like this “wikiality” Steven Colbert spoke of is like a postmodern hyper-reality.
But then again… I only read the wikipedia article on postmodernism…
That’s an articulation of the fundamental complaint against postmodernist epistemolgy. Richard Rorty is, by consensus (what more could a postmodernist ask for?), the guru of philosophical postmodernism. In his words
“…objectivity is not a matter of corresponding to objects but a matter of getting together with other subjects—that there is nothing to objectivity except intersubjectivity.”
In other words, truth is ultimately a matter of social agreement.
I think as Colbert usually does, he’s illustrated an interesting point…
The thing is… i feel like this could apply to any encyclopedia, internet or non. After all… if you have an ever smaller group of individuals who are writing for
‘good old uncle sam’s encyclopedia’ the chance for bias seems to be raised even more.
Wiki actually has a fairly tight system. Any stupid edit will be removed instantly and most articles are constantly reviewed for accuracy and bias. So in this way I would argue that is the encyclopedia which is actually one of the best in terms of it’s divorce from the objective truth, a truth that is erroneous by its very own social consensus.
I did not see the show myself, but I would argue the world is already in a 'Wikiality"; as truth, scientific or not, is, and will remain to be a patchwork of social influences and opinions.
As usual, I suspect Colbert was delivering a certain point through the use of satire. IE if enough people buy into a term like ‘Terrorism’ meaning ‘The bad muslim fucks overseas’ then it becomes ‘truth’ over it’s actual definition, "Actions intended to induce fear into a specific group of people’.
This is basically the problem with any kind of information. The difference with Wikipedia compared to, say, the US Constitution is that it changes faster as a result of other people’s perception of and interaction with it. So if we were to suppose that Wiki had billions of active readers and editors (which it doesn’t–around half a billion people have internet access), we’d have to assume that people were generally irrational in order to reach the conclusion that Wiki would ultimately become separate from reality. You could assume that, but if that were the case there’d be little to stop the rest of society from becoming separate from society eventually as well.
That’s my take as well. This whole ‘wikipedia is not to be trusted’ rhetoric that seems to be quite popular is a little thin in my view. The fact ‘anyone’ can post and edit doesn’t imply ‘anyone’ is in fact posting and editing. Who the hell would read it if that were truly the case?
I grant the observation that one should treat its articles with a skeptic eye, but no more so than I think most everything ought be read with a skeptic eye.
As for Colbert’s observation, I think he’s onto something. The world is changing fast, my friends. Grab hold of something.
I would go further, and point out that television is losing more and more younger viewers daily. As access to high-speed internet spreads, kids are switching off their TV’s in droves and going online.
I mean it seems obvious to me, at times, that TV is staging an anti-internet propaganda war, albeit it, in this case, a light-hearted one… It’s all about lost advertising revenue.
" Myspace will get your kids raped."
" Terrorists using the net for ‘secret’ communications."
" Wikipedia is 90% lies."
etc… etc.
" Tune in to our nightly show [ laced with adverts ] for the REAL truth."
I’ve read one Rorty book “Consequences of Pragmatism” and a few of his articles and it’s hard to discern what it is that he truly believes. How far do you take this idea that ‘truth’ is ultimately a matter of social agreement?
Let’s take the fact that Italy won the world cup this year. Now suppose 300 years from now a wikipedia type information medium pops up and some moron wrote down that Germany won the world cup in the year 2006. It becomes social agreement that this is the case. Is this the truth, did Germany win the world cup in 2006 just because a bunch of people agreed on it? Is that what Rorty really thinks? I have a hard time believing that. Perhaps he means, what we concieve of as ‘true’ is just social agreement. For example maybe it’s the case that in reality Socrates died in the year 400 and not in the year 399 B.C.E, but some historian fucked it up along the way. We hold the idea that Socrates died in the year 399 as true, but this is just social agreement?
Is Rorty’s claim an epistemological one, or is it a metaphysical one? Or am I way off on everything I just wrote?
I’m not sure about Rorty (never spent that long on him) but this is certainly what I think. The term ‘truth’ relates to standards (i.e. other terms) that changes over time. How do you know that Italy won? Via images, which are no more reliable than words.
Well, do we really know? Are we even sure that once you get into the BCs a year is still a year? No, we rely on terms and images to ‘prove’ to ourselves that these things are the case.
No, you’re certainly in the right ballpark and asking the right questions, as far as I can see.
I’m still not sure if you and Rorty are making an epistemological claim or a metaphysical claim
Epistemological- There is truth, but we can’t know it. What we say is true is just social agreement
Metaphysical- There is no truth
What of those people that were there during the game and played in the game?
I don’t truly think you really believe that truth is relative. Or relates to standards that change over time or however you want to phrase it. You could not live your life if you were that skeptical.
Example: If you jump in front of a speeding car will you get hurt? Is it true only because we agree that it is true or because you actually get hurt? Do you believe that it is only a social agreement that if you stood in front of a speeding jeep cherokee rushing towards you at 90 miles per hour that you will get hurt or is it more of an objective fact about the world?
Whether your claim is metaphysical or epistemological I don’t see how the relativist position holds up.
If your claim is epistemological than you are saying we can’t really know if a person hit by a speeding jeep cherokee at 90 miles per hour will get hurt or not. I’m sure you wouldn’t be willing to stand in front of a speeding Cherokee to find out. Then again, I guess if you are of the ‘we can’t know for sure’ mindset then you don’t believe in the scientific method and therefore don’t believe in experimentation. Meaning you don’t believe that if we put someone in front of a speeding car and saw them get run over that we could know if they were hurt/killed/or ended up alright. After all it’s just images right?
If you truly believed that we can’t know whether or not a plane could fly, would you ever get on one? Do you eat food just because you think it’s a social agreement that we must eat food to live or do you eat food because you believe that it actually is needed for you to live. Not just that its some quirky social agreement.
If your claim is metaphysical- that there is no truth- well the same scenario would apply. Is it then NOT true that you would get hurt by a speeding car? Willing to test it out?
You only know from what you have experienced and what your instincts tell you. Are these things perfect enough to allow you to predict the future without a doubt?
Do you know whether a meteor will strike the Cherokee before it hits you? Or whether you’ll suddenly shift planes and the Cherokee will pass through you? You only understand that, if the universe makes enough sense for your experience to hold up in application to predicting things, the Cherokee will hit you.
in both of your scenarios the cherokee does not hit the person. In my scenario the Cherokee DOES hit the person and I asked would happen. I didn’t ask what would happen if a meteor hit the cherokee before it hits you. You just changed the scenario so that the cherokee doesn’t hit the person., and avoiding answering my question completely.
Sorry, although I’m afraid you’ve missed my point.
How do you know you won’t suddenly become superman-esque and survive the Cherokee impact unscathed? How do you know you won’t die and be reborn as an ant? How do you know you won’t spontaneously be transformed into a metal slab?
The only way you can know these things is from what you’ve learned already; given how limited your perspective is, it is possible that there are forces in play of which you are unaware. This is the nature of having a viewpoint: all truth that you can ever know will revolve around yourself.
Once again you are just changing the scenario. I didn’t ask what would happen if Superman got hit by a speeding car or a metal slab. I asked you if you right now got hit by a speeding car what would happen. The very fact that you have to change the scenario means that you agree with me. If you didn’t believe that you would get hurt by a speeding car why the need to turn into Superman or have a meteor hit the jeep before it gets to you? Obviously because you believe that unless something crazy like that happens you are going to get hurt.
