I have said a few times before that we are the curators of our own universal memory library. Everything we see field touch smell or think gets placed into our library as we believe it should be. This is a system that has worked for us since probably the beginning of humanity.
There can always be debate over what is right and wrong or true and fake but ultimately we make that decision as we store our version of reality away in memory. This concept is currently in a timeline that is presenting us with new reality at an amazing pace. My daily surf through the Instagram posts or the Facebook posts are constantly greeted by snippets of information presented as truth for me to decide on. For me to make the judgment as to whether or not this is true or AI generated fakery or propaganda.
It can be hard and the want to get it right is strong. This is changed the way we retell a little. I just watched a video now that made a statement and it was a significant statement that I enjoyed and might like to share with friends and followers but I am hesitant because the chances of it being true are about the same as the chances of it being fake and so if I believe it and I put it into my memory and I retell it then I am part of the problem. But if I don’t retail it then I’m depriving my friends of a pretty neat random fact.
The point that made me decide to start blogging about it is that I’m not sure it matters. The truth isn’t really relevant anymore. What wins is the story with the most believers the best storytellers control history simply by telling a better story that we choose to believe. People will happily believe a good story even if they have an eyewitness account of the opposite.
But if you step back and consider the whole concept of each of us already having our own version of the universe as saved by us and our bias does it really matter what actually happened.
The answer is sometimes. But sometimes can be absolute or vague that’s a different decision than is it true or not. If I store it into my memory banks as Canon and considered a true fact until proven otherwise does it matter? I’m open to change if a better story comes along but for now that story will hold the placeholder considered truth unless I’m given a reason to change it.
This has always been the case as I am free to believe or disbelieve anything I hear or see it’s just that now it’s a lot harder to tell and the more you want a story to be free because of its ridiculousness or absurdity the less likely it is to be trustworthy while simultaneously being the kind of story that compels you to share. We’re no longer in the age of clickbait. We have entered the next phase click sharing. Stories so good that we need to share them and the amount of energy required to take the extra step just to see if there are other sources might spoil the fun. I don’t really need to or want to know whether the following fact is real. It’s believable so I choose to believe it and it is stored in my memory as such.
You are now free to observe it and make your own judgments.