On Lying (Again)
Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2021-11-05 15:07:12 UTC | Tags: gains lies lying meaning truth truthfulness
A couple of years ago, I made a blog post: The categories of truthfulness of information. I'm now finding that some of that information is viewed not quite as I had written.
Lies
So I've recently been researching the meaning of lying, and there seems to be quite the divide.
On one hand, some believe that lying is a deliberate act, and some believe that it directly translates to "untruth", whether deliberate or accidental. What is your understanding?
Would I be lying if I told you something I legitimately believed, which turned out not to be true? Are people actually invested in pseudoscience lying, or is it just the people who told them that?
As soon as I get this blog ready with comments again, I shall also add the ability to poll, so you can easily tell me your side of the story.
That's all for now.
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The categories of truthfulness of information
Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2019-06-15 16:17:00 UTC | Tags: danganronpa detector falsehood falsehoods kokichi lies lying mistake mistakes nonsense oma truth truthfulness unknown unknowns
I keep hearing so much about the distinction between truth and lies. People say that things that aren't objectively true are "obviously lies". This isn't so, and there's a lot of different levels of truth.
What inspired me to write this was the detective visual novel and anime Danganronpa series, specifically the character Kokichi Oma, who uses lies to deceive playfully, and is often not known to either be telling the truth or lies. Other parts in the series revolve around finding truth using either other truths or lies.
However, there's a lot more fine detail to the level of truthfulness of information, that I'll briefly cover here.
Truths
Generally true facts
Things that are generally agreed upon that it is impossible to absolutely verify (at least for now), such as observations about the universe, and deductions based on it. This includes things "as far as anyone can tell".
Examples:
- We are living in a galaxy.
Specifically / subjectively true facts
Based on experience, what a person may internally observe, remember or prefer, whether or not what they remember is verifiable. This may not necessarily be a truth for everybody. Opinions are included in this.
Examples:
- I am writing a blog post.
- I like sushi.
- Any kind of delusion is an example, because the speaker genuinely believes it.
Unknowns
Rumsfeld Known Unknowns
Something that is known to be unknown, either for now or always.
Examples:
- I do not know whether my great-great-great-times-a-thousand-grandfather had three or fewer children.
Rumsfeld Unknown Knowns
What is not known to be known.
Examples:
- "It was right in front of our nose the entire time!"
Rumsfeld Unknown Unknowns
What is not known to not be known - at all, without any reference or guesses.
Secrets
What is known up to the specifically true range, but hidden and not explained, to protect people, data or knowledge. This information may later be leaked if it is not protected well enough, or deemed later to be not necessary to protect.
Falsehoods
Mistakes
Often misattributed as lies, somebody may think that they know something, but they get it wrong, either by mis-remembering, citing an incorrect source or being told by somebody who also made a mistake.
Lies What is known up to the specifically true range, but deliberately obfuscated or told wrongly. There are several broad reasons for lying.
Malicious lies
Told to deceive, confuse, avoid consequences, or to protect secrets or feelings
Political lies
Told by many to get out of trouble.
Religious lies
Told to ensure loyalty, or to induce fear and panic.
Forced lies
Told to ensure an authority will not punish the liar.
Deluded lies
When the alternative to lying is too painful, physically or mentally, but the liar knows that it is a lie. Different to a delusion, which is a personal truth.
Playful lies
Told for fun, such as playing pretend, spreading chaos or to make things interesting. Often not serious in the slightest.
Non-categorised
Things that cannot be rated in terms of truth because they don't relate to a statement, such as a question.
Nonsense
Things that cannot be understood at all.
Let me know if I missed anything or if you think something should be changed!
Answers to the big questions
Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2009-06-29 12:30:00 UTC | Tags: answers creation how life robots truth universe where why
Questions like "Why is the universe made mostly of matter?", "Why are we here?", "Is there a god?", and "Is there life on other planets?" are answered scientifically here.
Why is the universe made mostly of matter? Simply because it had to have matter and antimatter to come out of pure energy. Antimatter, doubtless, is hanging around somewhere, perhaps it's the "dark matter" or locked up in that "dark energy" that scientists are theorising about so much. But the fact remains, if we are here to question it, there must be one type of matter primarily in the same region of space as us. Otherwise we wouldn't be here to ask. If there were matter and antimatter in the universe, one would annihilate the other and we wouldn't have got here.
Why are we here?
This question is quite vague. By "why are we here" I mean, why did humans exist in the first place? Not "why am I living here specifically".
Imagine the early universe. Googolplexes of things bashing into each other at phenomenal rate. One is bound to create an atom of some sort. In a universe of such ridiculous amounts of matter, one somewhere is bound to create something useful. So chances are, one is bound to create life. Now this life may or may not die out almost instantly, so it needs a way to duplicate itself if it's going to survive. It may or may not care, but the important thing is, that if a life form is created during the early time of Earth, only life forms that do reproduce actually get to evolve. And evolution, obviously, is tiny changes in genetic structure, randomly happening. So, only the life that evolves into the "right" kind of life gets to stay reproducing. Granted, other forms of life mutated too, but only the "best" kept its longevity. So random life just happened to appear our of the primordial ooze of the early Earth. It was of course bound to happen somewhere. So up and up went the forms of life that were best suited to surviving. Eventually, humans evolved out of those plants and animals. We discovered machines, and they help us to do what we want. In fact, some believe we are going lower and lower on the evolutionary ladder, because we are getting more and more used to technology helping us along, and become less and less needy of the things we are born with naturally.
Now, so why did we have to be HERE, specifically? Well, we'd be asking that wherever we were, because if we weren't here, we'd be asking the same elsewhere. It's all just a factor of chance.
Is there a god?
Since we've gone this far from randomness alone, and what pretty randomness it is, there is unlikely to be an external force needed, except for whatever the big bang was created out of. People have created imaginary deities in their mind, tried to believe there was a familiar "being" that could not be explained or argued against, and that we were at the centre of the universe, and let others believe this too. This was to stop them from going mad, because if anyone knew the truth about how insignificant we were, or how we didn't matter that much, cosmically speaking, they would, to put it bluntly, not be content,
Are there other forms of life on other planets?
Almost certainly. In the random beginnings of the early universe, there was bound to be more than one life form that evolved. Some believe close planets such as Mars may have contained life at some point, but do not now. In our theory, life as we know it has to have water as one of its important constituent components. But who says all forms of life have to have water? For all we know, planets might be alive. But here, we do not quite know what defines as life. Maybe a different form of life has some of the forms of life as we do and not others. We wouldn't classify it as life. Just as we wouldn't classify robots as life, aliens might do. They reproduce (create other robots), eat (electricity), excrete (fumes), move, and all manner of things that might be attributable to life. Even intelligence is not necessary in life. Just look at plants. We do not think they are particularly intelligent, but if they've survived this long, they must be doing something right. So to me, it's almost a certainty that life exists elsewhere, it's just a matter of us understanding what life is.
Next time, how many dimensions are there? How many universes are there? How far can we perceive?
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