The same equation applies to all areas worldwide. Well-known reference books must be serious, otherwise they would not really be known. Renowned publishers are, well, we already know. Scientists publishing extensively must also be wiser. This is the basic equation. The one who fails to accept, will “gather moss”.
As mentioned above, we are being bathed in, almost drowned by an unmanageable quantity of “information” at an increasing speed. And there seems to be no end to it. Though mankind experienced quite a number of “quantum leaps” in regard to exchanges of observation, experience and opinion – the invention of the script, printing, film, telegraphy, radio, telephone, television, internet, digitalisation – do we still have a chance nowadays to distinguish between a forgery and the original? Do we reflect on an issue like this? Can we spare the time? Has it not become increasingly difficult to track back and determine the reliability of a source? To separate the wheat from the chaff? Are we conscious of our malady? We are unable to cope with the status quo. Therefore we try out unusual tracks and put unusual questions. More and more questions. We are searching for answers and getting almost none. Not in the reference sources, not in the so-called scientific books. We do not know whether we shall ever get reliable replies to our queries. But this fact alone, that we have began to formulate unusual questions, is helping us to decrease the pressure put on us by the machinery of the “might-media-manipulation”.
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Obviously, before the “script” was invented our ancestors did mutually exchange observations, experiences, findings and opinions. How dependable were they? The “Linguists” and experts of “Communication” do not tell us anything about this question. How can they find out? There is no “evidence”. And after all, it is a non-question for current scientific discourses. We are not to “gather moss”. Fortunately we live in a highly advanced age, with the highest developed culture of all times. Shouldn’t we “be happy and don’t worry”?
In comparison to the times of letters and printing the diligent “scientists”, however, fail to tell us anything about the reliability, the accuracy of knowledge transfer in that pre-script age. But we too have not yet raised this question unambiguously. And the rule is: no questions, no answers. The basic rule of the market. No demand, no supply. In spite of this market mechanism we often get more answers than questions, don’t we? Is anything wrong with our ways of perception? What does it mean if answers are given before the question is put?
In regard to our question on the reliability of mutual exchanges of observations, experiences, findings and opinions by our ancestors in the pre-writing period, we have to depend on our common sense and imagination alone. We assume that the initial communication of our ancestors must have been based on face-to-face exchange of sounds and gesticulations. Everywhere. All over the world. Whether sense organs other than eyes and ears were also used, we would not like to talk about because it lies beyond our imagination.
There cannot be any doubt that sound, gesture and gesticulation of human beings have always possessed only a limited possibility of variation. Different species have different means of communication and different possibilities of variation. If cats all over the world can communicate with each other without being supported by “meticulous modern scientific studies”, human beings should also be able to do so. The fact is that they always did, and they still do it today. Without being supported by “Linguistics” and/or some allied “sciences”. When did these sciences actually emerge?
We further imagine that our ancestors observed their environment in an increasingly differentiated manner, that they did use sounds, expressions, gesture and gesticulation for mutual exchanges and in the process gradually reached the level of written “Literature and Art”. We can also imagine that this was a long and toilsome journey, which would not have been possible without the mode of face-to-face exchange. Different observations, perceptions, interpretations and opinions were continuously exchanged, reviewed, adjusted and mutually agreed upon. Continuously. Everything was saved in the brain and stored in our memory. External-memory-devices were not needed in this phase. Also in our time the face-to-face mode of exchange is mainly being practised in everyday life. Without major and long lasting misunderstandings. So people have always been able to communicate their urges, feelings, needs and thoughts without the support of “modern sciences”. The quality of this mode of exchange has obviously been convincing and efficient. It has led to a vast accumulation of comprehensive knowledge. At some stage in this development a need for an external memory must have been felt. A need for an external “back up” for the memory. However, it was to be saved as copies only, and not as substitutes for the audio visually supported memory.
All mutual exchanges—whether experiences, observations, opinions, fantasies, reports on events, or lies, false stories and so on—do influence us, change us. We grow through them, in whichever direction. In the face-to-face-mode we listen to each other, look at each other without any intervening technical device. We register the accentuation of the language and modulation of the voice, and we observe the emotions on our partners’ faces and their gesticulations. We are accessible to immediate questions and can demand clarification. Thus, no other mode of exchange can provide a higher degree of accuracy, and it is guaranteed that the exchanged contents are not distorted and remain authentic.
When did we start to tell lies deliberately? When did we start forging? We do not know. And we won’t get distracted by fruitless questions like: since when have we been lying, since when have we been forging, since when have we been taking someone for a ride to meet our selfish ends, when and where was forgery detected and made public for the first time. We focus our attention on the fact that often distortions are caused by the ”malice of the object”, which can be detected only under scrutiny. Knowing this one may also be tempted to smuggle in similar ”mistakes” without getting noticed and take advantage of it. Why not? This conclusion leads us to a simple question. How big is the risk of forging? Is it calculable? Can it be estimated? Is there a probability that it will not be detected at all; or that forgery is detected but not the forger; or that forgery is detected too late and neither can the damage be repaired, nor the forger be accounted for? Unless the forger is caught on the spot, how can we find out whether something has been forged or has just become distorted by the ”malice of the object”, so to speak? Even if the ”malice of the object” can be ruled out, how do we decide whether it has been caused by a mistake or intention? Assuming that a forgery is detected early enough and there is a suspect: Aren’t there too many chances of escape without being harmed? As a last resort, loss of memory, ”black-outs”, can be claimed as it has been by so many local and international politicians as well as celebrities representing ”western democracies”. Who does not remember such recent ”blackouts”? Suspicion may sustain for a while. But does it really matter? New events will distract our attention. Where is the risk?
We all know one of the ”fundamental laws” of our times: whenever someone gains something, someone else suffers a loss. Whenever social goods are ”distributed”, the probability of unjust distribution is extremely high. This we know too well. We are not eager to examine for how long this has been going on. Why should we? We would be barking up the wrong tree. Therefore, we stick to ”distribution” itself. Whatever is sought after is soon going to run short. Often there are unintentional distributional mistakes. Are we not tempted to take a distributional advantage by manipulation, which might have occurred through the ”malice of the object” as well? Where is the risk? No one will deny that lies and forgeries have been practised widely for centuries with an increasing tendency, supported by an unbelievably rapid growth of marketable technologies.
The technology of digitalisation, for example, makes it possible to manipulate without being detected and enables to make any number of copies of an original and copies of copies without a loss in quality and without any difference from the original. Is this a tremendous cultural achievement? Are we not made believe that it is? Doesn’t this technology open up the floodgates to forgery? This technology dissolves any object in digits, a document, a picture, and a sound, which can be written again and again and converted into the document, the
