I pushed that down and said, "I didnt know you were in therapy.". Im going to use Remem to get a honest picture at myself, take a kind of personal inventory. He pointed at the sheet of paper. The same thing happens to us as individuals when our memories become more accurate: we get better, not just at doing our jobs, but at living our lives. He wrote down numbers he no longer wanted to remember on slips of paper and then burnt them, a kind of slash-and-burn approach to clearing out the undergrowth of his mind, but to no avail. ", "No, not at all. I trust you to write down what I say.". The complaints Sabe heard were variedone might be about a stolen bicycle, another might be about whether a man was responsible for his neighbors crops failingbut most had to do with wives. The inconvenience acted as a barrier, limiting the searching of lifelogs to those situations in which effort was warranted, namely situations in which justice was the motivating factor. The implication was that these problems The assertion or statement of a thing done or existing; sometimes, even when false, improperly put, by a transfer of meaning, for the thing done, or supposed to be done; a thing supposed or asserted to be done; as, history abounds with false facts. But it wasnt because you had magically become a good father. Thats why we leave a space in those places when we write. Sabe told everyone not to worry. It means something. Organic memory was what enabled me to construct a whitewashed narrative of my parenting skills, but by using digital memory from now on, I hope to keep that from happening. "Is this what you think is important, now that youve learned the art of writing? Would I want to be presented with actual footage of that afternoon? "Questions of kinship cannot be resolved by paper. I remember the way she hugged me at her college graduation, and I realized my years of effort had paid off. My relationship with Nicole felt strong enough now for me to safely revisit the fights wed had when she was young. "Our language has two words for what in your language is called true. There is whats right, . We cant prevent the adoption of digital memory any more than oral cultures could stop the arrival of literacy, so the best I can do is look for something positive in it. You can leave too, for all I care. In a dispute the principals say what they consider right; they speak, . Ted Chiang's best short story yet. I conceded that she may have had a point in this particular case. lifelogs that previously lay all but ignored are now being scrutinized as if they were crime scenes, thickly strewn with evidence for use in domestic squabbles. being less harsh on others for their imperfections, acknowledging that were more imperfect than well ever know. The real truth unites people; it does not divide them. The elders considered it absurd. Nicole has begun using Remem as well, and discovered that her recollection of events isnt perfect either. "It was Maisho of the Kwande clan who warned me about the scribes; they were installed in Kwande villages first. But that era is coming to an end. It remains to dene precisely what we mean by "fact," 3. Today's media and political landscapes are littered with untrustworthy sources and the dangerous concept of fake news. ", "We should join with the clans that were most closely related to; thats the Tiv way. "Its not your place to judge Jijingi. ", "No," said Kokwa, "I told it just as I told it before. People consult their lifelogs for a variety of reasonseverything from reliving favorite . Literacy encourages a culture to place more value on documentation and less on subjective experience, and overall I think the positives outweigh the negatives. ", "No, I can teach it to you. The marks were arranged in rows like plants in a field; you looked at the marks as if you were walking down a row, made the sound each mark indicated, and you would find yourself speaking what the original person had said. In the near future, a journalist observes how the world, his daughter, and he himself are affected by "Remem", a form of lifelogging whose advanced search algorithms effectively grant its users eidetic memory of everything that ever happened to them, and the ability to perfectly and objectively share those memories. Moseby explained to Jijingi how each sound a person spoke could be indicated with different marks on the paper. ", "But if lineage is so important, how can the elders from the west argue that the Shangev clan ought to join with the Jechira clan? She looked incredulous. "Im so sorry. The issue wasnt confined to marriages; all sorts of relationships rely on forgiving and forgetting. But he didnt need to keep the other notebooks, the ones in which hed written down his thoughts. "Very good. two things i'm really really into. What a strange art writing was. But just as worrying to me as the prospect of technological failure was that of technological success: how will it change a persons conception of herself when shes only seen her past through the unblinking eye of a video camera? All you have is paper. In "The Truth of Fact," Chiang examines the development of assistive-memory technologies, which make your memories of your life fully searchable thanks to the pervasive use of "lifelogs" to record every minute of your existence. Before a culture adopts the use of writing, when its knowledge is transmitted exclusively through oral means, it can very easily revise its history. "Cant you tell the Europeans about this? A fact is an observed situation, while a truth could happen from superstitions. Now hes done for. Now those boys have returned, and they feel no kinship with anyone. But this wasnt the context in which Id said those things, was it? ", "You didnt always think that. One day, when Moseby had been eloquent, Jijingi complimented him. ", "Many have," Sabe answered. Old. Now I can. However, Ive been much more skeptical about the use of lifelogging in purely personal situations. ", "Then why did you say you pause after each word?". She shrugged. "Do you remember that day?". My first thought was that it must be a fake, that Nicole had edited the video to put her words into my mouth. "What have we done wrong?" He currently works as a technical writer in the software industry and resides in Bellevue, near Seattle, Washington. ", "Im not asking the clan to trust me. "How long ago did the Europeans first come to Tivland? . Why was only the witness sworn in?" I would rate this as one of his best stories. "You deserve better," I said. "Making information more accessible is an intrinsic good," she says. How will it change us as people, to be able to have instant perfect recall of every event from our lives . The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling | Detailed Pedia The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" is a science fiction story by American writer Ted Chiang. A fact is a scientific law that deals with realistic items, while the truth is more a philosophical, religious, artistic thought that deals with beliefs. Scientific "facts" may change from generation to generation as new methods of observation come into use, but for the most part, it's safe to define fact as "an assertion that can be proved." Truth, on the other hand, is not so easy to pin down. Within the nested video, Joel and Deirdre are sitting in a caf, and Joel is saying, "Hes a scapegoat. "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" is a science fiction story by American writer Ted Chiang. You know how that made me feel? "Have you studied paper so much that youve forgotten what it is to be Tiv?". November 24, 2022. "Tell me the story that the paper tells," he said. "Remem didnt give them a scorekeeping mentality; they developed that on their own. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth. Jijingi walked beside him. But those men arent here. The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling is actually made up of two concurrent stories. Instead, Ive written this. ", "Not unless he can afford a high-powered defense team, and Ill bet you he cant. They are I do not know what you call them." "I want to be sure I give my sermons as well as possible. You do not pause in the middle of it. he asked. I had been voicing my concern, not berating her. Sabe told everyone not to worry. "When I tell a story it doesnt change, no matter how much time passes. As for my account of my argument with Nicole, Ive tried to make it as accurate as I possibly could. The hare favors one food, the hippo favors another. He just hadnt known it until now. "The Jechira are our closer kin. What did it say about me that I put those words in Nicoles mouth instead of mine? Im sorry. Its obvious were fighting. They wield their knowledge of writing like a long gun; they demand their chiefs find them wives, or else theyll write lies about them and have the Europeans depose them. I had imagined a narrative of redemption and self-improvement in which I was the heroic single father, rising to meet the challenge. ", Sabe shrugged. "I dont know. She didnt try to get anyone to adopt European practices; where Moseby had insisted that there were no such thing as curses and that everything was Gods will, Reiss asked about how curses worked, and listened attentively to explanations of how your kin on your fathers side could curse you while your kin on your mothers side could protect you from curses. It seemed to me that continuous video of my entire childhood would be, , simply because cameras couldnt capture the emotional dimension of events. There was no denying their wealth or power, but who knew what was the cause? Related Standard ", I felt sick to my stomach. "This paper is the story you told last year, and there were many differences." He himself had been speaking in words all along. You look to paper to tell you what you should already know, here." ", The missionary spoke as if his tongue were too large for his mouth, but Jijingi could tell what he was saying. And that means we dont really know ourselves. Now a woman could marry the man she favored, as long as he could afford to pay the bridewealth. Jijingi understood. The footage is from Nicoles point of view, and Im standing in front of the stove. Ive made mistakes." ", "Im not sure. People consult their lifelogs for a variety of reasonseverything from reliving favorite moments to tracking down the cause of allergic reactionsbut only intermittently; no one wants to spend all their time formulating queries and sifting through the results. I said that even people who are obviously guilty deserve a fair trial. I did not write this! What is truth? so even better. But, writing the words down does more than help me remember. I figured Id start out with something I did remember. Sabe requested witnesses for both sides. "That paper cant be so old. "This wouldnt have happened when I was a boy.". And while I thought Id been doing a good job of being a father, obviously I needed to do better. 500 years ago, only a small minority of people recognized the truth that the world is round. It creates clarity, not confusion. Theres no video of the event, but there are snapshots in the family album, and they are consistent with what I remember. Anongo says he has no money at the moment, and moreover that he was only paid 6. But this is a good story. I started skimming through the video, looking for inconsistencies that would indicate where the edited footage had been spliced in. Have I distorted events so they more closely follow the arc expected of a confessional narrative? Nicole had been keeping a lifelog since she was a teenager, so an unexpectedly large segment of my domestic life was present. It was when Nicole was sixteen, a junior in high school. Jijingi had seen paper before; when the Europeans collected taxes, they gave paper in return so that the village had proof of what theyd paid. He told you the story with his whole body, and you understood it the same way. I listened to Vincent rave about scuba diving for a minute. When Jijingi asked if she would make another copy for him, she agreed, much to his excitement. I used to think it could be valuable for individuals to tell stories about themselves, valuable in a way that it couldnt be for cultures, but Im a product of my time, and times change. An opinion is a self-report of feelings or personal judgment, e.g., I'm thirsty. What digital memory will do is change those stories from fabulations that emphasize our best acts and elide our worst, into ones thatI hopeacknowledge our fallibility and make us less judgmental about the fallibility of others. From the beginning of the story, the narrator indicated how he is interested in technologies, but fears that it would transform natural human skills. Spend some time using Remem, and youll find out. "She pretty much saved my life. "I will think more about how to explain what I mean. "I know you think highly of all your sermons, but todays sermon was a good one. ", Jijingi shook his head. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Fiction is a way to express the truth, whether it's what we think or what we are afraid to say out loud, without actually telling the truth in the first place. And, if Id grown up with access to all the video footage, thered have been no way for me to assign more emotional weight to any particular day. But Ive certainly spent time in the presence of people who kept lifelogs, and I could make use of what theyd recorded. For example, recently we were talking about the McKittridge kidnapping case.". ", "It does not matter how fast you speak. Part of me wanted to stop this, to protect childrens ability to see the beginning of their lives filtered through gauze, to, keep those origin stories from being replaced by cold, desaturated video. Then something occurred to him. The paper version of the story was curiously disappointing. Would you like that?". Toggle the table of contents Talk: The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling 2 results "You know me as well as you need to.". Im asking them to trust the men who were elders when you were young. "But how can you get the others to admit that? What might it be like to have a perfect memory? I know I felt terrible when I thought you had said it to me. Youre telling me I cant do the same?". "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Fiction," is a scientific novella published by Ted Chiang. "Selling vegetables to pay back bridewealth," he said afterwards, shaking his head. The obvious reason is convenience; if we wanted a book on the birds of North America, we could consult one that an ornithologist has written, but if we wanted a daily diary, we had to write it for ourselves. It was first told long before your ancestor Tiv was born. The sounds a person made while speaking were as smooth and unbroken as the hide of a goats leg, but the words were like the bones underneath the meat, and the space between them was the joint where youd cut if you wanted to separate it into pieces. You may say, "I know Im not perfect. 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