by Flemming Funch
One subject I'm really interested in doing something with, but which I haven't really gotten around to, is the analysis of information in order to learn the truth. Hm, I guess it is a little hard to express what I mean, but I'm talking about the ability to track down what is true and false by studying clues in the information available. There is lots of information that will indirectly reveal whether something else is true or false. Somebody who's trying to deceive and hide the real truth will reveal that fact in an assorment of ways.
Now, the reason I'm so interested in this is that the majority of the population has no clue about what is true or false, and is easily deceived. Most all media is built around that fact. All legal institutions are based on the principle that whoever argues the best for their version of truth, wins, and doesn't have any technology for actually finding truth. Likewise, science is built on models that large numbers of scientists can agree on and demonstrate the validity of, and will happily ignore huge chunks of reality that don't fit the agreed-upon reality.
I am claiming that the reality we live in is to a large degree a fiction that is constructed by the data we're presented with, and by the ways we've been taught to interpret it. And that version of reality is at best very incomplete, and very often very misleading, and leaving unexamined large chunks of reality that exist outside the public awareness. What makes the manufactured reality so compelling is that, to the untrained eye, it is internally consistent. I.e. it all sort of fits together, and anything that doesn't fit can easily be discarded.
I'm also claiming that there are agencies in the world that are masters in this area, and that are very skilled both in analyzing the patterns of what is really going on for their own use, and in manufacturing patterns for the rest of us to see, which will paint a mutual consensus reality for us. These agencies can hide enormous secrets from the rest of us without much fear of them being discovered, because their secrets make little sense within our consensus reality.
And I'm saying that the antidote is to develop disciplines of investigation that cut through the concensus deceptions and that can reveal thruth in a fairly systematic way.
The components of this would be a mixture of different disciplines, some of which don't quite exist. That ranges from different kinds of data analysis, pattern matching, psychological tools, body language, intuitive skills.
It is not quite true that I haven't gotten around to this at all. I'm trained in some things that go in that direction. For example, I'm a master practitioner in neuro-linguistic programming, and I know a lot of about body language. I can tell loads by how somebody's moving their body, how they're breathing, how their eyes move, their voice pattern, etc. That is in part what inspires me to go further with it. It is often very obvious to me whether somebody who appears on TV is lying or speaking the truth. But I also notice that for most everybody else it is a matter of a lot of abstract, preconceived opinions that really have nothing to do with what they can directly perceive.
I also have some minimal training in an obscure system of data analysis which involves the examination of "out-points" and "plus-points" in any stream of information. By noticing little things that are wrong, or that work better than expected, and by tracking down where they come from, one can usually discover a bigger story that isn't directly revealed. That will often produce results that are somewhat counter-intuitive. That is, a truth might emerge that is counter to what the casual observer would conclude. For example, one might examine a company and get surprising results concerning who is screwing things up and who is making things go right. It will often be different people that either take the credit, or that get blamed, than what is really going on.
Yeah, this is a bit vague, but I just wanted to express that this is one of my interest areas, and something that is in need of being developed and integrated.
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