The app for independent voices
I think it’s definitely possible (albeit difficult) to study the distribution of the unknown, and map these silences as you put it.
But it’s of course it’s a lot harder than having real information. There are many more realities that could be than the reality that is, and a key goal of censorship is creating fear, uncertainty and overall confusion about the space of possible realities.
Studying the distribution of the unknown, particularly what’s often called “unknown unknowns”, for things that for whatever reason you cannot directly observe, has been interesting for me for many years.
Recent examples/subproblems of mapping the unknown that interest me:
In philosophy of mind and philosophy of science, the concept of “cognitive closure” — ideas that human minds are incapable of solving or in some cases even comprehending. See both Daniel Muñoz’s excellent article on related concepts and my comment here: bigifftrue.substack.com…
In ethics and meta-ethics, the possibility of an ongoing moral catastrophe, arguments for believing that our society is unknowingly guilty of serious, large-scale wrongdoing. I wrote a summary here:
In philosophy of science and existential risk analysis, the possibility of an “anthropic shadow”: catastrophes that fully destroy humanity (or at least significantly the number of observers), which by definition limit the number of survivors, thus artificially biasing our observations to believe the world is safer than it is.
In existential risk analysis, trying to map out the risk of “unknown existential risks” that people haven’t discovered or thought of yet, eg via inductive arguments of the rate of discovery of risks over the last century.
In science fiction, the concept of the “antimeme”, concepts/ideas that are inherently difficult or impossible to think of/recall/remember, either because of self-sealing properties or because remembering/connecting those ideas together are catastrophically bad for you.
Information control in an autocracy: What can intelligent citizens reasonably infer in an autocracy that actively suppresses information and divert attention away from events/facts that are embarrassing for the autocracy?
Company NDAs and other legal information hiding: In the shadow of NDAs, bans against trading on insider information etc, what can companies reasonably infer from the silences of their competitors?
Recent OpenAI stuff.
