T
oday, I received a piece of news. It was told to me by my brother. Our friend told it to him. My brother doesn't know exactly who told our friend, but we have a suspicion who it was. The news probably had at least one more intermediary to this suspected person, before it arrives at the original source. That is, today I received sixth-hand information. Though I'm not telling you what the news is, dear reader, if I did, it would be seventh-hand by the time it reached you.
How reliable is this information? I trust my brother to relay things of this type pretty accurately, but every step definitely introduces the chance of misunderstanding or falsity. If I had to bet, I'd say the information is correct, but it's definitely not 100%. It's probably not even 90%. Maybe 80% is where I'd hazard to draw the line. If it turned out to be false, I wouldn't be shocked.
We receive very, very little of the knowledge in our heads firsthand. The vast majority is, minimum, third-hand, more regularly fourth or fifth. However, networks of confirmation help us to regularize this incoming knowledge, and construct lines of trust, and build internal paradigms to judge further learning. Never forget that the greater part of knowledge is trust, or faith.