How Common Knowledge Shapes Our World
Dear Friends & Neighbors,
(Please click on red links & note magenta)
How is Freedom of Speech or Press related to common knowledge?
Dr. Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist at Harvard, a 2x Pulitzer Prize finalist, and author of notable works like The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and Enlightenment Now. Today we discuss his research on the psychology of common knowledge and what it means for democracy in a time of infinite AI slop and social media confusion. We also dive into deeper philosophical questions on AI consciousness and rogue AI — note that this was recorded before the recent Hugging Face incident, making our commentary especially urgent. His excellent most recent book: When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… inspired me to write The Noisy Room — an interactive essay that explains how we might fix the common-knowledge trap sprung by social media, in the video published on Aug 19, 2026, by Into The Machine with Tobias Rose-Stockwell, as “Steven Pinker on why reality is becoming unknowable“, below:
What Pinker is really saying
The strongest interpretation is not that objective reality has ceased to exist or that truth is unknowable. Pinker has consistently defended the opposite proposition: there is an external reality, and reason, evidence, probability and science give us imperfect but powerful ways of learning about it. His earlier discussions of rationality emphasize logic, probability, distinguishing correlation from causation, and updating beliefs from evidence. Top Podcast
The newer problem is more social: our ability to know what other people know—and what they believe other people know—is becoming increasingly complicated.
That connects directly to the idea in When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows. Human societies don’t operate merely on facts. They operate on layers such as:
I know X → I know that you know X → you know that I know that you know X → everyone knows that everyone knows X.
That last condition—common knowledge—allows people to coordinate.
Why the video is especially relevant now
This becomes fascinating when applied to AI and today’s information environment.
Imagine seeing a video of a president announcing something extraordinary. Twenty years ago, your first reaction might have been:
“Wow. The president said that.”
Now your first reaction may be:
“Is that actually the president?”
And even after determining that the video is genuine, another question appears:
“Will everyone else believe it’s genuine?”
That second problem can be socially more consequential than the first.
AI-generated video, cloned voices, edited clips, misinformation and enormous quantities of competing information therefore create what we might call an authentication problem. We don’t merely need reliable information; increasingly, we need reliable mechanisms by which everyone knows that everyone else recognizes the information as reliable.
Where I think Pinker’s argument is particularly strong
The insight becomes clearer if we distinguish three problems:
| Problem | Question |
|---|---|
| Truth | What actually happened? |
| Knowledge | How can I determine what happened? |
| Common knowledge | How do I know that other people know what happened—and know that I know it too? |
Modern technology may actually improve the first two in some circumstances. We have extraordinary sensors, databases, satellites, scientific instruments and instantaneous access to information.
But it can simultaneously damage the third.
That apparent paradox is one of the video’s most interesting implications: we could live in a civilization with more recorded information than any previous civilization while becoming less certain about which information other people collectively regard as authentic.
Description of the video below, in italics, below:
Common knowledge is the secret engine of social life, letting us coordinate everything from meet-ups to markets to international diplomacy. In this fascinating talk, experimental cognitive scientist Steven Pinker explores its momentous impact, threading together stories of why autocrats fear blank signs, why central bankers mumble and why saying the quiet part out loud can wreck a friendship. With wit and wisdom, he invites us to better understand the ways we get into each other’s heads — and what it means when shared norms wobble. (Recorded at TED2025 on April 8, 2025), in the video published on Aug 25, 2025, by TED, as “How Common Knowledge Shapes the World|Steven Pinker|TED“, below:
Description of the video below, in italics, below:
Let’s take a look at what is considered as practical Common Knowledge, in a video published on Sep 7, 2026, by Game Show Network, as “Put your knowledge to the test!|Common Knowledge| Full Episode“, below:
Gathered, written, and posted by Windermere Sun-Susan Sun Nunamaker More about the community at www.WindermereSun.com
We Need Fair Value of Solar
~Let’s Help One Another~
Please also get into the habit of checking at these sites below for more on solar energy topics:
www.kiva.org/team/sunisthefuture
www.facebook.com/sunisthefuture
