WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So imagine that you had your smartphone minituarized 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and hooked up directly to your brain. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you had this sort of brain chip, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you'd be able to upload and download to the Internet at the speed of thought. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Accessing social media or Wikipedia would be a lot like -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well, from the inside at least -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like consulting your own memory. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It would be as easy and as intimate as thinking. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But would it make it easier for you to know what's true? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Just because a way of accessing information is faster 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doesn't mean it's more reliable of course, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and it doesn't mean that we would all interpret it the same way. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It doesn't mean that you would be any better at evaluating it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in fact you might even we worse 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because, you know, more data, less time for evaluation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Something like this is already happening to us right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We already carry a world of information around in our pockets, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but it seems as if the more information that we share and access online, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the more difficult it can be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 for us to tell the difference between what's real and what's fake. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's as if we know more but understand less. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now, it's a feature of modern like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I supposed, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that large swaths of the public live in isolated information bubbles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We're polarized not just over values but over the facts, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and one reason for that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that the data analytics that drive the Internet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 get us not just more information but more of the information that we want. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Our online life is personalized, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 everything from the ads we read 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the news that comes down our Facebook feed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is tailored to satisfy our preferences. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so while we get more information, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of that information ends up reflecting ourselves 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as much as it does reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It ends up, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I suppose, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 inflating our bubbles rather than bursting them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so maybe it's not surprise 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we're in a situation -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a paradoxical situation of thinking that we know so much more 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and yet not agreeing on what it is we know. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So how are we going to solve this problem of knowledge polarization? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One obvious tactic is to try to fix our technology -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to redesign our digital platform 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so as to make them less susceptible to polarization. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I'm happy to report that many smart people at Google and Facebook 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are working on just that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 These projects are vital. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think that fixing technology is obviously really important, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but I don't think that technology alone -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 fixing it is going to solve the problem of knowledge polarization. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't think that because I don't think, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at the end of the day, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it is a technological problem. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think it's a human problem, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 having to do with how we think a what we value. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In order to solve it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think we're going to need help. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We're going to need help from psychology and political science, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but we're also going to need help, I think, from philosophy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because to solve the problem of knowledge polarization, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we're going to need to reconnect with one fundament, philosophical idea -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that we live in a common reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The idea of a common reality is like, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I suppose, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of philosophical concepts -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 easy to state, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but mysteriously difficult to put into practice. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To really accept it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think we need to do three things, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 each of which is a challenge right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 First, we need to believe in truth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You might have noticed that our culture 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is having something of a troubled relationship with that concept right now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It seems as if we disagree so much that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as one political commentator put it not long ago, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's as if there are no facts anymore. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But that thought is actually an expression 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of a sort of seductive line of argument that's in the air. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It goes like this: 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we just can't step outside of our own perspectives; 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we can't step outside of our biases. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Every time we try, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we just get more information from our perpesctive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, this line of thought goes, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we might as well admit that objective truth is an illusion, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or it doesn't matter, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because either we'll never know what it is or it doesn't exist in the first place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's not a new philosophical thought -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 skepticism about truth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 During the end of the last century, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as some of you know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it was very popular in certain academic circles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it really goes back all the way to the Greek philosopher Protagoras, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if not father back. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Protagoras said that objective truth was an illusion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because man is the measure of all things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Man is the measure of all things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That can seem like a bracing bit of real politic to people, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or liberating because it allows each of us to discover or make our own truth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But actually, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think it's a bit of self-serving rationalization disguised as philosophy. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It confuses the difficulty of being certain with the possibility of truth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Look, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of course it's difficult to be certain about anything, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we might all be living in "The Matrix," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you might have a brain chip in your head feeding you all the wrong information. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But in practice, we do agree on all sorts of facts. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We agree that bullets can kill people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We agree that you can't flap your arms and fly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We agree -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or we should -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that there is an external reality, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and ignoring it can get you hurt. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Nonetheless, skepticism about truth can be tempting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because it allows us to rationalize away our own biases. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When we do that, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we're sort of like the guy in the movie who knew he was living in "The Matix," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but decided he liked it there anyway. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 After all, getting what you want feels good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Being right all the time feels good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So often it's easier for us to wrap ourselves in our cozy information bubbles, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 live in bad faith, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and take those bubbles as the measure of reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 An example I think of how this bad faith gets into our action 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is our reaction to the phenomenon of fake news. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The fake news that spread on the Internet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 during the American presidential election of 2016 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was designed to feed into our biases, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 designed to inflate our bubbles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But what was really striking about it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was not just that it fooled so many people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What was really striking to me about fake news, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the phenomenon, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is how quickly it itself became the subject of knowledge polarization. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So much so that the very term -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the very term, "fake news," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 now just means "news story I don't like." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's an example of the bad faith towards the truth that I'm talking about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But the really, I think, dangerous thing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 about skepticism with regard to truth 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that it leads to despotism. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Man is the measure of all things" 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 inevitably becomes "the man is the measure of all things." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Just as, "every man for himself" seems to turn out to be 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "only the strong survive." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At the end of Orwell's "1984," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the thought policeman O'Brien is torturing the protagonist, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Winston Smith, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into believe two plus two equals five. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What O'Brien says is the point 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that he wants to convince Smith that whatever the party says is the truth, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and the truth is whatever the party says. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And what O'Brien knows is that once this thought is accepted, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 critical descent is impossible. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You can't speak truth to power 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if the power speaks truth by definition. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 OK, so I said that in order to accept that we really live in a common reality 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we have to do three things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The first thing is to believe in truth. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The second thing can be summed up 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by the Latin phrase that Kant took as the motto for the enlightenment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Sapere aude, or "dare to know," 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or as Kant [.... it], 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 "Dare to know for yourself." 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think in the early days of the Internet, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of us thought that information technology was always 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 going to make it easier for us to know for ourselves, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and of course in many ways, it has. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But as the Internet has become more and more a part of our lives, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 our reliance on it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 our use of it has become often more passive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Much of what we know today we Google now. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We download prepackaged sets of facts 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and sort of shuffle them along the assembly line of social media. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Google knowing is useful 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because it involves a sort of intellectual outsourcing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We offload our effort onto a network of others and algorithms. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And that allows us of course to not clutter our minds 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 with all sorts of facts. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We can just download them when we need them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that's awesome. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But there's a difference between downloading a set of facts 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and really understanding how or why those facts are as they are. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Understanding why a particular disease spreads, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or how a mathematical proof works, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or why your friend is depressed 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 involves more than just downloading. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's going to require, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 most likely, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doing some work for yourself. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Having a little creative insight. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Using your imagination, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 getting out into the field, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 doing the experiment, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 working through the proof, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 talking to someone. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm not saying of course that we should stop Google-knowing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm just saying we shouldn't overvalue it either. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We need to find ways of encouraging forms of knowing that are more active 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and don't always involve passing off our effort into our bubble. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because the thing about Google-knowing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is that too often it ends up being bubble-knowing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And bubble-knowing means always being right. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But daring to know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 daring to understand, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 means risking the possibility that you could be wrong. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It means risking the possibility 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that what you want and what's true are different things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which brings me to the third thing that I think we need to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if we want to accept that we live in a common reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That third thing is have a little humility. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 By humility here, I mean epistemic humility, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which means, in a sense, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 knowing that you don't know at all. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But it also means something more than that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It means seeing your worldview as open to improvement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by the evidence and experience of others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Seeing your worldview as open to improvement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by the evidence of experience of others. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's more than just being open to change. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's more than just being open to self-improvement. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It means seeing your knowledge as capable of enhancing 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or being enriched by what others contribute. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's part of what is involved 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in recognizing that there's a common reality, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you too are responsible for. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't think it's much of a stretch 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to say that our society is not particularly great 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at enhancing or encouraging that sort of humility. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's partly because, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well, we tend to confuse arrogance and confidence. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it's partly because, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 well, you know, arrogance is just easier. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's just easier to think of yourself as knowing it all. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's just easier to think of yourself as having it all figured out. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But that's another example 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the bad faith towards the truth that I've been talking about. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So the concept of a common reality, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like a lot of philosophical concepts, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 can seem so obvious that we can look right past it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and forget why it's important. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Democracies can't function if their citizens don't stive, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at least some of the time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to inhabit a common space. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A space where they can pass ideas back and forth when -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and especially when -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they disagree. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But you can't strive to inhabit that space 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if you don't already accept that you live in the same reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 To accept that we've got to believe in truth, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we've got to encourage more active ways of knowing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And we've got to have the humility 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to realize that we're not the measure of all things. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We may yet one day realize the vision of having the Internet in our brains, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 but if we want that to be liberating and not terrifying, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 if we want it to expand our understanding and not just our passive knowing, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we need to remember that our perspectives, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as wondrous, as beautiful as they are, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are just that -- 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 perspectives on one reality. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Thank you. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 (Applause)