As of writing this, I am only 20 years old. I will turn 21 in February. Obviously, I am still quite young and have most of life to still experience. Because of this, the information I hold might have a lower signal to noise ratio compared to what it will be when I am older and gain more experience and wisdom.

For example, let’s say my signal to noise ratio for information I hold is something like 1:10 (adjusting for inflation) right now. That is, for every true1 piece of information I hold, there are 10 pieces of information that are either partially untrue or just untrue. I believe this ratio is higher because of the dominance of social media. However, as we mature and gain more life experience (and some other factors), we gain the ability to more easily filter out the signal from the noise, thus increasing our signal to noise ratio (if your sensemaking stays sharp and does not become compromised). So, if you’re a 40 year old male with lots of diverse life experience and you continue to learn about yourself and mature, your signal to noise ratio might be something like 5:10 or even 7:10.

The point being, the things I write about are just my ideas and opinions that are juvenile in nature and will provably be refined or outright changed in the future. I realize this and will use this blog as almost a journal for my ideas in which I can look back on and reflect on what I’ve been right about and what I’ve been wrong about. I do not claim to hold any true, objective ideas or thoughts that should trump others. I simply want to prime readers to think about ideas I write about and maybe come out the other end a little more wise or a little more thoughtful.

Thank you for reading.

Notes

  1. The word true here means that the piece of information represents reality as it objectively is. The information can either be partial or whole, but the information should not secluded from context. This type of information is very hard to come by considering how complex reality actually is. I am probably unrealistically judging the signal to noise ratios here.