Épistémologie du web

Convergence, collaboration, affiliation

Abstract

Within thirty years, the relation between the Internet and the scientific activity has changed profoundly. The Internet has shifted from being an instrument of academic collaboration to being a tool used by social media, allowing for a maximum diffusion of irrationalism and alt-factualism. To understand this change, one needs re-examine the mechanisms of opinion convergence. This convergence stems primarily from the existence of the world we share, which exposes us to the same facts and determines the constant revision of each person’s beliefs. In this process of asymptotic opinion convergence, no communication between individuals is required. Of course, if the facts known by some are communicated to others, this convergence accelerates considerably, so much so that we must regard knowledge as a result of collective activity, and the exchange of information as one of its crucial sources. On the one hand, this epistemic cooperation seems natural and easy to implement. Given the properties of information, which is an asset we keep even if we share it, the sharing of information is not subject to the usual difficulties related to cooperation. Defection provides no profit, making the prisoner’s dilemma not applicable to epistemic cooperation. On the other hand, such cooperation is productive by nature: the collaboration of the one who knowns φ and the one who knows that φ implies ψ results in both agents having the knowledge of ψ, which neither of them had before the exchange. The earlier Internet allowed for an extreme intensity of this informational cooperation.

At present, we are dealing with a different kind of situation. Several factors, including the growing porosity between scientists and the public, have strengthened the role of exchange. It is not an exchange of information, but an exchange of opinions. The biases inherent to human nature, and especially the confirmation bias, tends to reverse the relationship between facts and opinions. We search for the facts confirming the opinions we hold, doubt those which undermine them and create facts to corroborate what we believe. Hence, we go from cooperation to affiliation, dividing the Internet into homogenic groups of believers.