In the past year or so, we’ve seen the rise of phrases like post-truth, alternative facts, and fake news. Many point the finger at the internet – a place where just about anyone can post just about anything they want, and where it’s easy to find information supporting your preconceived notions, no matter what those notions are.
In a new TED talk, writer and philosopher Michael Patrick Lynch shares his take on why we need to get out of our information bubbles and start finding common reality. While most people would already say "sure, we live in a common reality," Lynch says actually putting that into practice relies on three things that many in the U.S. aren't doing:
- Belief in truth. This is the easy one. Most people believe truth is important, they just dispute who knows the truth ... which leads to the next two steps:
- Encouraging the pursuit of more active ways of knowing about the world. This is about curiosity and skepticism, questioning and searching for answers, and not just by blindly accepting what pops up in your Facebook feed or the top hit in a Google search.
- Intellectual humility - seeing your worldview as open to improvement by the evidence and experience of other people. This is the final, and most lacking, piece of the puzzle. Most Americans prefer to think they have the answers they need.
Clearly, we, as a society, have a lot of work to do.
Michael Patrick Lynch is a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, where he directs the Humanities Institute. He is the author or editor of seven books, including, "The Internet of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data," and "In Praise of Reason: Why Rationality Matters for Democracy."