The Internet is an impartial tool with which we can support our delusions of reality, or conversely build an objective and valid world-view.  The tendency is toward the former, it takes intention and education to pursue the latter course…

I’ve been reading “The Varieties of Scientific Experience” by the late Carl Sagan. I love Sagan’s publicly available writings, and I agree whole-heartedly with every bit of his thinking I’ve come across regarding skepticism, reason, agnosticism, scientific investigation and his recommendations for social agendas. In fact, I agree so vehemently that I wonder why I should bother reading his book. It is essentially mental masturbation; an opportunity for pounding my fist, clapping my hands and exclaiming “YEAH!!”. From my personal perspective the book is mostly bereft of new material which might persuade or inform me. But I love Carl, and the book contains some interesting anecdotes which were otherwise unknown to me. I find myself feeling guilty about “wasting time” while reading it though, since it does not really move my mind into new territory.

I often attend meetings of the Kendall County Democrats, where I am able to join folks with some similar opinions about politics, policy and candidates. So far, we have never discussed policy, theory, position or strategy. In any case, there has never been any debate which challenges me, or causes me to question my preexisting conclusions. Again, I wonder if the benefit of my attendance is limited due to the homogeneity of the experience.

My favorite websites include those which convey information about current scientific discoveries, pragmatic and rational political theory, scientifically-augmented positions on economic and social policy and environmentally sustainable conservation. I never visit sites with active dialogues about the Christian Rapture, anti-abortion, theories of politics or policy viewed as divinely sanctioned, anti-minority rants, those with unscientifically supportable contentions about global warming or the environment, theories regarding mystical “energy”, homeopathy, pseudoscience, or any of a million other perspective which are anathema to my personal preference for pragmatic, scientific and compassionate philosophies of life. I like learning new things and discovering alternative perspectives, but a vast number of my fundamental views are never likely to change – and I don’t seek to do so.

The Internet is a fantastic tool for finding information. One can find an arbitrarily large amount of argumentation, “data”, pithy quotes, personal claims and opinions and passionately held positions on pretty much anything one wishes to investigate. Certainly a similar statement can be made regarding other media – whether print, television, radio or special-interest clubs; but the Internet brings the largest quantity of information, it brings it for a trivially low price, and it can bring it to you in private.

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There’s an old aphorism, “No man is an island.” The wisdom this phrase tries to encapsulate is the notion that no person can live in complete isolation or be absolutely self-sufficient. In principle, we can imagine a person who does live on an island indefinitely (such as Alexander Selkirk of “Robinson Caruso” fame). Even in such extreme cases though, the isolated person must necessarily obtain at least food, water and shelter by first recognizing then manipulating his environment. He is not, of himself, the island“ external support, even if minimal, is absolutely required. The necessity of recognizing what the environment has to offer (and especially those aspects required for survival), can be stated differently: To provide for one’s self (or others) one must correctly take in information, or apprehend the world in which one must live – even if that world shrinks to but an island.

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