The Tower & The Truth Seeker

What is the best approach to information gathering in an era of disinformation and semi-fake news? Here is a metaphor to illustrate how we are to digest news and data.

Imagine you are locked in a 50 storey tower with a spiral staircase. Each level has a wide floor and very small windows (3" by 3").

As you climb up the stairs, the size of the window gets a bit larger so you can see parts of the outside landscape.

Here's your challenge: you have to describe all the details of the outside landscape way before reaching a normal sized window (close to the top floors).

The truth that we seek is like forming a big picture of the landscape outside, which has many contours and details. The bigger the window, the more we see of the landscape.

Some people decide not to climb further and stop at a certain level (say 15th floor) because they think they have seen enough of the landscape.

Others wish to see more of the big picture so they climb higher (say 25th floor) But few can ever reach the 50th floor at the top where they ll emerge to see the whole view. It simply takes too much work to climb.

So the 3 lessons from this metaphor are:

1. For every fact or news we receive, we need to visualise the narrative of the big picture. Is it sensible, realistic or a possible deception? The physical framing of our perception (cognitive biases) can distort our view.

2. We have to take action even before we get the full picture of the truth. We need not climb all the way to the top because it is physically tough and takes too long.

So at some level of the tower, we have to decide to stop climbing and ascertain: "is this the actual landscape and have I seen enough through the windows to visualise the truth ?"

3. Contrary to some philosophers, truth is not relative and dependent on the observer. The landscape is the same absolute truth whatever the viewpoint or description of each seeker of truth.