/12
In this extract from book 3, shaping, members of the project's international team talk about rethinking everything, and how stories and narratives shaped our world.

/11
This is an extract from THE END OF ALL WARS where a group of thinkers talks about the troubles with truth.

/10
The frequent review is particularly important because that guarantees that no one comes along with some ultimate truth, but that we continue to keep thinking and exploring — together.

/9
If you think about it, some things might deserve the label truth, but it is actually more effective to assume that we don’t know anything for certain, and therefore we should develop a culture where we think, explore and act together, and frequently review our findings.

/8
The same happens with truth. If I have two or more sides, each of which is convinced of their truth and of the absolute nature of truth, then nothing will ever get resolved.

/7
If we, for example, had a culture of exploring together, if a situation needs our action, then we would do just that: explore together. But since we have a culture where we can buy, invent, popularise so-called facts, facts become a problem.

/6
A substantiated fact allows us to assess a situation with a certain accuracy. That’s good. It becomes problematic if you have two opponents, each throwing around their sets of facts, each claiming to be right. And that’s where the very idea of having facts, is unhelpful.

/5
On to the tricky dig.

What is the benefit of facts?

/4b
Though I personally prefer to say that truth can only ever be an approximation, often biased, too often a generalisation.

/4
However, today, with the knowledge we have, we are capable of establishing what is factually true today. And so long as we are aware of the possibility that a new discovery might change the assessment of what is true, I’m fine with truth.

/3
It is no secret that what is true today might be disproven tomorrow. What looks like a fact, might lose its validity in the face of newly added findings. So to speak of facts and truths as an absolute does not reflect reality.

/2
I’ll dig in two directions here: one is about our changing perceptions and knowledge over time. The other is trickier and asks what is the benefit of facts and truths?

/12
Is it possible to learn thinking?
I think so. It requires the freedom to look at a stone and say: alright then, let’s find every possible angle relating to that stone and to stones in general. A story is the playground that can give these explorations complexity.

/11
There is no need to believe anything we hear. We can test everything we’re being told in our own minds. And every thought we have taken on a journey in our minds will have a better foundation than anything we simply repeat.

/10
Maybe the most important takeaway from this post is that every single human is capable of thinking, of discovering, of exploring. And that stories can help us not only to know but to understand what we know.

/9
Does this mean, we need no input from others?
No. It means that we can use what we hear in our explorations and that once we resurface from our story, we can check our findings with those of others.

/8b
in a way that doesn’t harm you and that, at best, gives you some healing and understanding in the sense that you have some ideas how to deal with the root causes you discovered.