If there was exculpatory data that I was not remembering due to my own bias, there would be no way to prove it to myself; I would never know if I was wrong. To think I could out-think my own bias would be to deny my own humanity and some definitions of bias itself (identifiable vs non-identifiable, hence the amount of known identity of the bias.) I was so absolutely sure of myself and I am not one to believe in absolutes and also I could not know what I do not know.
Restated, I could not know I was wrong if I did not know I was wrong.
Well, more precisely, I don’t believe so much in pairs of absolutes. I think often times when we think of things that are polar opposites, we are actually looking at a single absolute from two different points of view, almost like the doppler affect. Almost any truth if it feels like it is ‘coming’ at you might be described in one way and to another person (or even the same person in a different situation) where that same truth is their ‘shield’ would describe it in another way.
The battle between two people pushing the same truth back and forth is as old as the ages. Usually one party insists the issue is not a Fact and merely the Faith, Feeling, or Fiction of the other. A person cannot logically deny the issue is their Faith and their Feeling, those both follow Fact. The three men on the wall always stay together if one goes down, they all fall.
So what is left? Fact or Fiction. A pair of absolutes? That can’t be right, let’s substitute and say Truth, just more or less. That is humanity, more or less. Each of us cannot alone know a truth that spites our biases (see the restated thought above,) only with the interaction of our species. Lacking that, our only choice? To use the only two things we have left! Our Faith and our Feelings! To think and to love.
“I love therefor I am” is just as equally true as “I think therefore I am.” These are the faculties by which we discern the truth and follow it with speed or aim, hopefully if we take the time to train and focus our abilities we hopefully follow both at once. To see a single Truth with all of your Faith and all of your Feelings.
This is great, except it also becomes the fallacy of logic; in this position, you may not be able to prove it is not fiction, as you may be blinded by the agreement of your Faith and Feelings and have no remaining independent faculty by which to verify- and if you did, what if it agreed to? How can you eliminate the possibility of a bias that you can not see?
Well, you may not prove it alone. To prove it, well you will need an audience to agree with you. A properly informed audience, aware of the evidence and aware of their role as fact finders, each voting with their two cents. Facts so found may then be taught as Facts and the opposition will be called Fiction. Another way to say all of that? Outside validation- I’m not crazy, right?
Short post, traffic is tapering off and then even dipped for the weekend and it feels quiet in here today. I have a ton of work to do, 219 images to finish processing. That will not fit into the books, there is no way. So now it will have to be three books and a photo book addendum of the twelve sets of colosseum screenshots, the very definition of public domain. I still need to find the best way to allow people to remove themselves, if that should even be an option… many already did delete their comments.
This was real, a momentary snapshot of Skydive Americana à la Facebook-style in 2023. A snapshot of humanity in the narrowest context of an online Facebook group in the media wave created by the release of a dissenting opinion. I presume each and every participant knows that “whatever you put on the Internet you can’t take back” or some variety of that basic Truth that is now universally taught. However did they know that the each and every time was ‘this’ time, whereas I did?
Hence, to anyone that would like to change their name in the screenshots and the published copies of the books (my blog and the media on it will likely remain unchanged,) and all other publicly dispersed media going forward, need only submit a question and let me know their request for their characters name in my ongoing story (if they’re even included going forward at all.)
For those that already used aliases, it was nice to see you all participating as well, you may also submit a request for a character name change and I may honor that request or not may, at my discretion only. Real names will be removed from all published media from that point forward, never past published media, obviously.
When sound of persons voice is unmistakeable, the name they use sometimes matters less. It’s the evolution of the story that interests me.
Time to go.
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