philosophy – Latitude Post

The latin phrase “nullius in verba” means “take no one’s word for it” and is the motto of the Royal Society.

It is important that we don’t take everything we read and hear as gospel and that we verify all information. This is more vital than ever today in the current “post truth” social media age in which we live. But it is not just within the realms of social media and the free for all ocean of misinformation. Whenever we are presented with or discover new information, it is always important that we do our own research.

In a way “nullius in verba” really means “find out for yourself” or “think for yourself”. It is an antidote to groupthink and encourages us to always draw our own conclusions on something regardless of how believable and credible it may seem to us.

The problem we often have as humans is that we are prone to cognitive biases. It is sometimes too much effort to always verify something and thus we sometimes fail to heed these words. Beyond the effort part, there is also a social stigma issue. That is why groupthink is often so popular. Many people don’t want to stand out and be seen as a tall poppy. They would prefer to fit in and not rock the boat.

But taking no one’s word for something and finding out for ourselves is worth the effort. It can be a rewarding path as we discover unique truths or even secrets. This is something I touched on in an earlier post of mine entitled Just Gimme Some Secrets. In this post I explore truths that very few people agree on, whilst simultaneously unpacking truths or statements that many people believe in yet contain lots of holes. However, I certainly do not advocate contrianism willy nilly. Contrarianism can also be a cognitive bias in itself if abused. Not all universal truths are untrue!

But this is something we have to find out for ourselves.

By Nicholas Peart

4th October 2026

This is an essay I wrote towards the end of 2014 about being an artist and living in the context of our digital world. I have made a few changes since then but the general gist of the essay remains the same.

Today art can be split into two categories; “Pre-Internet” and “Post-Internet” art.

All the important and influential art movements are all of the Pre-Internet age. It seems to me that in this current Post-Internet age, there are no real lasting and meaningful art movements. There are of course many interesting artists today creating challenging and original works of art via digital media and who are very much in tune with the zeitgeist and more power to them. Yet there is something I long for which I feel is missing. And this is not strictly limited to artists and art. This applies to (and perhaps to a much greater degree) general living.

Before the internet the main media sources were television/video, the telephone, the radio and the printing press. The internet is all this and much much more. It enables us access to diverse and limitless quantities of information. In order to source information before the internet, most people went to libraries and even these institutions were no guarantee that you would find the specific information you were looking for. But with the internet almost all kinds of information can be accessed without having to travel to libraries or even spend valuable time and money employing people to find certain bits of information. Access to information has been truly democratised (assuming everyone has an internet connection) since the development and growth of the World Wide Web.

Today we have a whole plethora of internet related social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc. to communicate/express ourselves through. Before the internet, the only possible ways to communicate with one another apart from face to face, were via the telephone, fax, telegram or via mail (in the form of letter writing which save for a few dedicated souls is well and truly six feet underground as an art). The channels of far flung communication were limited. People were more in the woods with regards to what was happening globally.
People did not lose themselves or devote much of their time to living in “electronic virtual reality”. People actually spent much time reading books, spending their free time outside, having real relationships (we still have real relationships but these are decreasing and I believe in the wake of “hyper-immersive 3D virtual reality” more and more people will be cutting themselves off and almost be living at least half of their entire existence in this new type of virtual world. More and more people will even cease having sexual relationships since the stimulated virtual way will feel even better than the real thing).

Via the array of social media sites there are many different groups that artists join. Too many groups. A humongous vertigo-inducing fragmentation of different groups. In the context of today’s world, everything changes faster than before. This is a faster world. News travels faster. There is less mystery. Life is documented more than ever before. Through the internet, everyone can now express themselves. There are more artists today than before. Art or being an artist is not something that is taboo or contentious anymore. Things that may have been considered ‘renegade’ or less accepted in the past such as being an artist, a musician or traveling around the world are now accepted and quite conventional. To travel around the world for a year as part of a ‘gap year’ is now the done thing.

I think that to be a true artist (a most overused weird) in this current digital age is to leave no traces; no evidence of art or living. To disappear and be an eternal apparition.

Often I don’t have the guts or the humility to leave no traces. There is something intricately hardwired in me about having to ‘be somebody’. Yet as the great Indian sage Juddi Krishnamurti once said, ‘the moment we want to be someone we are no longer free’

By Nicholas Peart

Originally written on 27th December 2014

Image source: http://www.blouinartinfo.com

Tag: philosophy

Nullius In Verba

Art And Living In The Digital World