> Communications between nations must promote understanding: So went another dream. But the machines of communication can be channeled or choked. What is communicated can be truth or lie. Communication is a strong force also, but for either good or bad.
The change of this sort since 1955 that most comes to mind, for me, is that we have more information hazards analogous to "blueprints for a working A-bomb": now we have "genome of smallpox" and (maybe soonish) "algorithm for superhuman intelligence". But it's not like Feynman had no personal acquaintance with that category of hazards; and the current drive for censorship is way way broader. I think his case against it is just as good now, and more needed.
To doubt means to test every proposition with intellectual integrity. And with a knowledge of established fact.
This is dependent on one inhabiting a social group where successful education has improved discourse and general thinking ability.
In the social context, it isn't as bad everywhere else as in the US. Propaganda has become lucrative, that's all.
An idea is a static description, immutable, zero variables. It can exist in one of the following three states:
- belief, zero supporting evidence - fact, only non-contradictatory supporting evidence - paradox, supporting and disproving evidence exists
All states are valid, but only an idea classified as a fact should be relied upon as evidence for another idea.
Every idea starts as a belief.
A fact can change to a belief if the evidence brought to bear on it is proven to not be classified as a fact. Equally it can become a paradox if new evidence contradicts existing evidence.
Resolution of a paradox would require at least two new, more precise ideas to be created, likely with a clause defining the demarcation of the paradox boundary. The paradox entity remains unchanged.
Reliance on a belief to support an argument I consider ‘agnostic ignorance’, and reliance on a paradox is ‘wilful ignorance’.
I used to emphatically applaud this statement, but in this era of fake news and disinformation, now I tend to think differently. Of course the freedom to doubt is still important, but not all doubts are created equally. You have to beware of someone feeding you a suspicious doubt.