Wednesday 20 February 2013

Concise resolution of truth


In general I believe no one can go far when looking for the truth. At some point we don't even know what we're looking for. It's rather a belief, some fancy idea that would be great to be true. On the other hand our most precise tool is experience and deduction.
I'm a technologist. I love facts, axiom sets and closed systems. I don't believe magic, not even a single bit. But I'm not an expert - probably not even on a single field. And I'm not yet talking about singularity. That's just way over the line. I'm talking about current and limited systems. Like health. Or physics, chemistry. Segments where layers of complexity are generally too high is really hard to discover and explain. And that raise me very important question: why we represent facts, truth and other ideologies? How should I know evolution is true? How should I know string theory is right. Or eating carrot is healthier than diesel oil.

I think it's a mixture a little bit of many things. We like not to struggle with decisions and find mental piece. We need to believe in something in order to use and live by their statements.

We need some kind of rationalism in our map of world. To maintain a consistence life our belief has to origin from a homogen base. Even is some looks a bit irrational - their system is clear, it's just different from what we think is a set of similar rules.

We need to survive. Imagine you're at the savanna and hungry for fresh meat. There are two antilop corpses in front of you. One is eaten by a bunch of lions, the other one is clean. Even if you could get more meat you chose the one that is occupied already. Why? It's safer to assume that the popular pray has less risk. Inevitably you think there has to be a reason why some things are less popular. Of course it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Partially evolution made it this way.

And then it comes to a conclusion which was pretty much clear in me for a long time. Most times when we're encountered by an influence the numbers make one above the other one. I wouldn't believe a single genius or academic professor what s/he is saying. I don't believe any Drupal core committer alone. Or to a strategist, economist. Anybody basically. I only believe when I hear the same thing over and over again. When I go to conferences I care less about the presentations, but about the people when having conversations. You can here technologies, coding practices and tools. And yes, maybe they don't know the other supercool stuff that would be uber popular otherwise, but they clearly have decision over many other one. And following them makes you more compatible with the collective mind, if you like. I guess it's without exception on the path of continuous development you better to be in it. It acts as an almost closed ecosystem and no matter how better to be outside you will suffer the lack of support, help and driving force.

And finally the internet. What would bring a better contribution and voting system than the organic network of everything. You might not realized but the internet is making tons of decisions instead of you every day. It decides what news are true and relevant, decides what technology has chance to survive and what diet you should follow. You should listen to it.

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Peter

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