Why are you so sure you know what you think you know?
I was just pondering the idea of History being written/edited by the victor, as I wrote a post here not long ago talking about how I think the blockchain could potentially put and end to that. I was also thinking about Ben Swann and how if he HAD come to steemit when I was asking him before he vanished and IF we had a working video decentralization service like they are attempting to bring to steem in the form of @furion's project View.LY then all of his works would still exist in the world. Instead many of them are no longer out there. I and others can tell you they were brilliant. We can describe them, but we cannot do them justice.
They are a part of history that is simply GONE. Why? Those in power did not like what he was telling the public.
This then lead me to think more about history and censorship. That History is written/edited by the victor is a huge one. If you truly look into that then you realize that most things you THINK you know are based upon accounts that you read, watch, etc but they are after the fact.
The only things you truly can know are those things which you experienced first hand with your own senses.
So when we start talking about history and being so sure of our knowledge on any subject how do we truly know?
I was watching a video on lost civilizations last night with my wife as we both fell asleep. There were some aspects of that which tied into this thought I am having now. All of them interwoven to form this idea of KNOWING.
Do we truly know, or are we simply afraid to not know?
A lot of DIFFERENT ideas on the past often are proposed based upon new evidence. The status quo will typically do everything they can to protect the model as it has been up to that point. "Ignore the new evidence... why don't you let us take it and put it in the museum archives?"
That is not at all about truth. It is about protecting legacy, and remaining comfortable. It is a fear reaction.
So the part I found interesting in this video I watched(I didn't actually finish it before we were both asleep) was about maps, that are pre-Ptolemaic, and those also by Ptolemy.
They show Antarctica, the coasts of South America and many other parts of the world that were supposedly not discovered yet. In fact some of them have the entire coast line of Antarctica. Yet our maps in the early 1800s still didn't have Antarctica on them as technically we had not "discovered" it (1818 by the Russians). Where did this information come from?
Ptolemy claimed he was building his maps from a lot of earlier reference maps he had.
Oronteus Finaeus Map of 1532
Source: Genesis Veracity Foundation
This quickly tells us that our history is not what we are trying to force the narrative to be. It cannot be and have these things exist. Now if these things can be destroyed, or stuck in a box in an archive then the narrative is protected as there is no longer evidence out there in the public that doesn't fit the "official" narrative.
Let's talk about those Ptolemy maps again. You see the information most of this was based upon supposedly came from maps saved from the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. To me that was one of the single largest knowledge catastrophes of our history. It is also a good example of why centralization can be bad, and decentralization might be better. :) Viva La Blockchain!
We know a vast amount of knowledge was lost in Alexandria. We speak of Plato's works and people reference them frequently, yet these are based upon the few works that survived the destruction of Alexandria. It is known from historical accounts that there were many other documents by Plato that did not survive that destruction.
So my title question comes into play here "Why are you so sure you know what you think you know?" Are you perhaps basing this upon Appeals to Authority, Appeals to Tradition, or Bandwagon fallacies?
All of history comes into doubt when trying to verify truth. We can't. We can only believe and have trust, loyalty and faith int he accounts of others. In science repeatability demonstrates the accuracy of a conclusion. The more sources the better. The same with third part information. The more accounts we have from different sources, the more reliable it is to be accurate of the reality at the time. But history often doesn't have that.
I have looked into revised chronology years ago, it's very interesting at how our history is largely "made up". The British empire created "British Israelism" only a few hundred years ago when they tried to tie the royal bloodline back to King David.
Rulers in the past did this often. Scribes were few, and illiteracy rampant. The rulers hire the scribes to create stories of their past lineage and "right to rule". Priests have done similar, with "divine rights" to rule. These are the ancient orators of false rhetoric and sophistry that manipulate consciousness into creating behavioral output they want, just like the new orators are politicans.
Maps also had south as north indication in many cases, as the sun was towards the south, and maps oriented based on the "sun god/son of god" giver of life.
I do find it a very fascinating thing to explore. It is much like a scavenger hunt. :) Find the hidden object!
Yeah there's a lot of history that fades away, well not fades, more like buried. I've read about the Smithsonian covering up archeological finds to push a specific narrative or position. I take my own country where the general population only looks back about 100 years as anything before that is not really taught in school any more. Thanks for sharing!
Me too. It's happened quite a few times. That'd be an interesting archive to explore. That and the Vatican.
Well, the only solace is that I believe in a Creator of the universe. I also believe that although we may be tiny in his/her mind "it" controls what we suffer, and what we perceive to be the truth. There is so much evidence of past civilizations; but they are not there for a reason. However cognitive dissidence never helped anyone. For instance, Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. What history leaves out is that they were isolated and had many protectionist measures brought against them. Does that mean they should have entered the war in such an abusive fashion? Well unfortunately they suffered the price either way. There are two sides to any story, but what survives after the fallout is left for us to piece together. Perhaps our nature is to destroy the past as we unknowingly always seem to make the same mistakes in the future. Even if we evolved and knew the past (as history has shown), many times we ignore it. Just human nature I guess.
AT LEAST two sides... potentially more than that. :)
I see this continuing even when using a block chain model. Contrary to what some believe, records can be lost or destroyed on the block chain. There are several methods available to do this. There is also a concern that false information can be listed as this brings its own problems if it can't be properly corrected and the false records totally expunged. At the end of the day, most knowledge is subjective. Our truth is in our heart and personal experience.
It also depends on the blockchain itself and how it is implemented since there is not just one MODEL for how they can be setup.
Whereas an "open" or "permissionless" model of the blockchain is indeed preferrable for this purpose, any blockchain has a specified algorithm for scoring different versions of the history. I'm thinking that a record with a higher "score" would take precedence over one with a lower one. Is the record with the higher score "more accurate"? Not necessarily. My other concern is that those supporting the database don't have exactly the same version of the history at all times which may lead to variations of the historic narrative. I would hope that all versions would be kept to show different perspectives but that depends on the "human factor" of those managing the blockchain. I personally would love to see documents not currently available from the Vatican or the Smithsonian. I guess we will have to see how it plays out.
LOA was the worst disaster of the world IMHO! Sharing for future discussions!
His story is Definitely broken. and one sided, seriously censored by authority authors of control!
What is the true story without her story and what physical evidence shows.
"Nothing to see here" as they bag it up and hide it from public view.
The lies are plainly in view by the light that shine's through the gaps ,if you look at the big picture instead of the distorted minimalist governed view.
There is a reason why you can not ask your Q.s! Truth does not fear the light!
Only those who are in control, fear the light and your response to there manipulations...
Not that I think I know it all,just enough to know that I am being lied to.
Thanks for the chance to share.
I enjoy your post. keep up the great work (?) ;-)
namaste!
Me too.
Yep, it is pretty much impossible to know for sure if historical events are true/false or mostly true/false... I just use my best judgement whenever I read/study anything and sometimes you just have to hope that whoever documented the information told mostly the truth.
And keep your mind open to consider alternatives if the information/evidence is compelling enough.
That's pretty much what I do.
@dwinblood I noticed you've made the statement a few times recently that "history is written by the winners".
I had been thinking about that statement recently as well, I remember first hearing the line in the movie Braveheart ( I think ).
Imagine my surprise to find that it may very well be attributable to none other than George Orwell.
http://alexpeak.com/twr/hiwbtw/
Yeah, I've seen it many times. My personal version is "History is edited by the victors". Since they like to rewrite stuff that was already written each time they put out a new history textbook.
Too bad they seem to like burning the old history textbooks or maybe we could learn from past mistakes.
So much knowledge and history lost from human pride and stupidity.
You trust your senses?
I don't trust my senses completely, but they are the only tools I have. I then apply my mind. Yet, yes I always am skeptical of my thoughts. I perceive things with my senses and try to make sense of what I see, yet unlike most of society I do treat my speculations as just that. Speculating. So it may not be true, and is certainly based upon my senses and whatever limited knowledge I have to apply to interpreting them.
excellent I was trying to think of a quote(socrates I think) about the first step of knowledge being that you can't know anything with certainty.
which of course doesn't mean you should stop learning but just to view your knowledge with humbleness. My favourite challenge to orthodox thought is the "Electric Universe"
Our belief about what is informs our perceptions. I have spent a great deal of time in utterly dark forests, immersed in fear. As I frantically considered the things I was fearing, I realized that the only reason I was afraid was because I (rightly) believed that I was vulnerable in the darkness to the many predators that were about.
I was in Alaska, so I wasn't just fantasizing about predators.
This same principle is at work in all our considerations of the world we perceive, and we interpret our perceptions based on what world we believe in.
I have learned that fear is a good thing, but that reason is a better thing. We fear the darkness for good reasons, and snapping twigs set our hair on end, because we will die if the bear comes for our leftovers.
So do the dishes. By taking reasonable steps to mitigate danger, we can overwhelm fear with reason, and then enjoy the phenomenon as we gain insight into our beliefs, and our mind itself.
That fear of the darkness is now a comfortable condition for me. It's like having a friend over for dinner.
I've spent a lot of time running around in dark forests too. I lived in one of the least populated counties of the United States a good portion of my life that is deep in the middle of the San Juan mountains and heavily forested. I came to love the dark. :) I could actually see the stars very nicely there... in the city I can barely see them.
It feels like a comfy blanket is wrapped around you =)