The past is not true • Hacker News Board

Re: The past is not true

#111

Post by wbobeirne » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:24 PM UTC

ideamotor wrote: post #106

We lose this when everything is recorded forever. Stated more eloquently: https://twitter.com/BrianRoemmele/status/1681340407857422336... : “I need to say this, even if it does not make sense until decades ahead: Human intelligence and a foundation of consciousness is just as much the ability to forget somethings as it is to remember. We will have to face eternal memories with AI technologies and this will be hard.”…

> We lose this when everything is recorded forever.

I'd argue the opposite, we've amplified this affect. Off-hand statements from the past recorded forever get re-examined through a new lens in the present. What previously might have been totally innocuous become a scandal later. Whenever someone rockets into being main character for the day on the internet, their entire history is pulled up and re-assessed.

So like many things, it's amplified by the internet, but largely for the negative.

Re: The past is not true

#112

Post by sharkjacobs » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #105

keepamovin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of: https://thedailyzen.org/2015/03/20/zen-story-maybe/ There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaime…

This is a rip off of the story "Ed" told in the TV show "Northern Exposure", but it has always been one of my favorites from that show.

I don't know exactly when that episode of Northern Exposure aired but this story dates back to 2nd century BCE[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

Re: The past is not true

#113

Post by speak_plainly » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

stared wrote: post #72

There is a common conception that we don't know the future, but we know the past. In our heads, we have models of the past and models of the future. Sure, there is an asymmetry between knowing the past and the future - due to thermodynamics. Still, in both cases, it is good to think of these as probabilistic models, far from any certainty.

And neither of those models have any reality, they're a product of imagination.

Re: The past is not true

#114

Post by electrondood » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

Not only the past, but all thoughts of the future, all interpretations about present events, all religions, all expressions in any language, even the seemingly separate self "you" take yourself to be... the very center of the narrative, are all only stories.

They are only conceptual representations made of thought.

Re: The past is not true

#115

Post by BSEdlMMldESB » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:29 PM UTC

history doesn't exist. at most we have "historiography": the made up mythical tale of the past[3]. why? it's easier to remember[2,4]

in oral cultures people just re-adjust their memory, subconsciously[1]

in written culture, people burn books, driven by their leaders.[2]

in transitional cultures, 'bad' comments are donwvoted, or moderated away, or the users get shadowbanned[2]

[1] "Orality and Literacy" by Walter J. Ong, An american jesuit monk and academic.

[2] I made this up just now

[3] my highschool history teacher taught me this

[4] arguably, [1] also says this

Re: The past is not true

#116

Post by notacoward » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:30 PM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #105

keepamovin wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of: https://thedailyzen.org/2015/03/20/zen-story-maybe/ There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically. “Maybe,” the farmer replied. The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaime…

This is a rip off of the story "Ed" told in the TV show "Northern Exposure", but it has always been one of my favorites from that show.

Maybe you shouldn't have used "rip off" unless you were absolutely sure that you had the relationship the right way around. And it seems you didn't. There's a lesson to be learned there.

Re: The past is not true

#117

Post by Jun8 » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:32 PM UTC

For an excellent story on this theme you can read Ted Chiang’s “ The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_and_the_Alchemi....

I think it’s one his best.

Re: The past is not true

#118

Post by wpietri » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:33 PM UTC

sharkjacobs wrote: post #112

BatFastard wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a rip off of the story "Ed" told in the TV show "Northern Exposure", but it has always been one of my favorites from that show.

I don't know exactly when that episode of Northern Exposure aired but this story dates back to 2nd century BCE[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_old_man_lost_his_horse

That only shows how wily the Chinese are about IP theft, building time-viewing technology 2,000 years ago so that they could rip off American pop culture. Especially clever of them to steal things that sound like ancient parables and plant them in ancient times.

Re: The past is not true

#119

Post by denton-scratch » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:34 PM UTC

Corny:

"The past is history, the future's a mystery, the present's a gift".

My memory has been getting worse for years. People can take advantage of me by insisting confidently that I've misremembered something.

Crime witnesses often confabulate; they don't know what they saw, so they "enrich" their memory by adding spurious information.

The title's wrong, though; the past is true, it's just that we can't remember it.

Re: The past is not true

#120

Post by UncleMeat » Thu, Jul 20, 2023, 3:35 PM UTC

If you are interested in this topic but would like to understand how historians think about things, look into writing about Historiography and Historical Memory. This person appears to just be some guy who describes himself as an entrepreneur and TED speaker.

The way we understand the past is a deep topic that is analyzed and discussed by actual professionals constantly. Better to read their writing than this kind of stuff, IMO.