Five years?

It was this day, five years ago, that the blog got its start. The first post asked the question: Can truth be engineered? Of course, to even ponder such a question requires us to cover a whole lot of groundwork. And, bunches of meanderings over the 'landscape' (nod to Susskind, for starters) ensued.

Too, though, there were side-tracks, some of which were quite involved. Why? It was only a few months later (first post with some content related to the problems that started to lurk - anticipating the 99%-ers outrage that would come about later?) that it became apparent that the financial world's transformation of beautiful work (mathematics) from its associated realm of the physical sciences to that of the "money'd" spaces where we find things like greed, and such. It's not that the sciences are pure (though, many would like to think so), yet, none of the putrid smells that we get from the likes of some bankers (and others in that realm) are in the sciences (at least, not as pervasive - after all, people are people). So, we had to look at that whole class of idiocy.

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At the time of the beginning, truth was to be considered from the small 't' side for a long while. And, the interest was very much directed toward computational aspects. There were many motivations from the effort some of which go back to the blogger's early experiences at knowledge, and messes related thereunto. Of course, that, then, leads to mathematics which, from the beginning, was addressed from the 'effectiveness' angle that is argued under quasi-empiricism (7oops7, FEDaerated). But, too, delving into matters brought out the fact that the focus of the blog ought to be complemented with a couple of other approaches (actually, more), namely the 7oops7 and FEDaerated (referenced in the prior sentence).

During the past five years, there have been many technological changes brought to us in the form of the web. Did you think much of the 'cloud' then? Facebook, in its current mode? Basically, much progress was due to clever use of technology. As things are defined and demonstrated, efforts at standards can help ratchet up the basis shared by everyone. Look at HTML5, for example.

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So, here we are, after a little hiatus that was spent in a grand search both in reality and virtual worlds. Are we any closer to determining the basis with which to discuss truth? Well, perhaps, if you consider that it would be a type of situational closure (or compactification) for the purpose of attempting definitions with which to found arguments. Example, Either/Or is an example. Actually, the intent there may be to describe some 'meme' like characteristics that would allow pause to vociferous views on either side so that reason (yes, Richard) might be considered in a new light. But, there are many other voices in the mix.

For example, the blogger ran across this one today while doing a specific search (Bing) on Susskind: Closer to truth and Edge. But, someone using truth in a business sense came from another search. That is, when the blog started 'truth engineering' came back with results that concerned 'truth in engineering' which is still the most prevalent search result. Now, this blog will come up, many times. But there are other results, like these two: Truth Technologies, Inc. and Truth Technologies LLC. The former's interest deals with compliance with laws that relate to limiting financial misdeeds (why does that strike a bell?).

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So, this might be the time for a few words about the approach as things go forward. Expect that the tone will be more considered and technical (as opposed to the groundless 'opinion' that seems to be the main flavor of blogs). One thing about the latter is that mathematical concepts can be expressed in words as we see with Susskind's efforts at explaining his work. At some point, we might actually get formal and rigorous. Even without that, the topic will never be trivial nor can it be exhausted.

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The 'engineering' focus here has an analog with that which was done with chaos. Some 'truth' determinations will require heavy computation, thereby be reliant on computer assistance. A lot (and this is measurable) will be resolved through human expertise, including educated intuition. The movement outward on the abstraction scale almost everywhere, which is about 300 years in development, has been fun yet it carried a whole lot of trouble with it, the evidence of which abounds around us (very densely, folks).

Remarks:

08/04/2012 -- We'll start our technical trek and look.

07/24/2012 -- Chompsky on the Magna Carta and our rights to Commons.

Modified: 08/04/2012