The Truth Paradox: Sorting Fact from Fiction in the Age of Information

We live in an amazing time of electric cars, space travel for tourists, telephones in everyone pocket with which we instantaneously speak to some on the other side of the world, satellite navigation that can brings us within inches of any point on the globe, instant access to a volume of information even the Great Library of Alexandria would be envious of. Notice I said information – didn’t identify that information as factual or true. And, yes, we are talking about the internet, the World Wide Web, the miraculous digital information superhighway. According to a reference I found on the internet, Mark Twain once wrote, “In the vast realm of information on the World Wide Web, fact and fiction doth dance together, much like a pair of mischievous pickpockets.”And though he never said this – he is right. How can you know if something is factual? What is true? What is good?