Tell a lie and the story of the lie exists. "I did not eat the cookie" is a lie because the truth was that I did eat the cookie. The statement, "I did not eat the cookie," is real because it exists as an expression for me and, for anyone who heard it and processed it, it exists in their mind as what I said.
Those who heard the statement may or may not assign it a truth claim, whether as true or false. But if they do, it doesn't matter whether they assigned true or false to the statement in relation to the reality of the statement. They can either prolong and grow the statement's reality or they can forget about it as unimportant and the reality of the statement will have existed only for those moments for them. I also can either allow the reality of that statement being uttered to continue living within me after its utterance or I can allow it to dissipate from my consciousness. While the other parties and I may not allow our awareness of that reality to persist, the statement may continue its existence within the underlying frameworks (possibly related to what is called subconscious) defining how the world was, is, and may become.
So, the reality may persist and have an impact in more than one way within each person engaged with that statement. At issue, to some extent, is whether the truth value of that statement matters within the underlying framework of one's internal reality. It's commonly believed that "white lies" are "innocent" lies (racial overtones, anyone? A white lie is a lesser evil than a black lie? Ah, the script is flipped: for white supremacists, Black Lies Matter; for the woke, All Lies Matter). And it may be true that one lie about an issue of seemingly minor importance will not seriously diminish one's integrity, but it may also be false. Internal integrity or public-facing integrity? They are in relation, but not the one-and-the-same.
What about a volume of small lies, perhaps daily over months, years, decades? The damage is always measured in relation to the harmful impacts to others and the world. But the sheer volume of lies, if substantial, is as dangerous for the person uttering them as anyone else, because that person is in the continuous practice of disordering their internal processing mechanisms.
Why is that dangerous, though? Because those mechanisms turn input into knowledge, knowledge that becomes the basis for understanding oneself, others, and the world. If most of this knowledge has been translated from the original wording of the lies told (or even harbored), then the world is seen through fractured glass. The other and the world look distorted, but self both looks and is distorted. A sincere offering of help looks like a manipulation while hyperbole or underselling by others are translated into internal truths, one type of kernel of knowledge, and such a knowledge, constructed from lies, misperceptions, half-truths, omissions, and so on, does not match the merit of the world. Thus, the actions such persons take seem irrational and unpredictable.
A basic propositional logic may be used by someone with a fractured truth network, meaning that the source of logical error exists within the proposition rather than the logical processing mechanism itself. Persons experiencing delusions may be exceptionally logical through process and, oddly, discover that sometimes acting illogically results in the desired outcome more reliably than solid logical processing, but only because a flawless processing mechanism will always produce an inadequate result if propositions are false.
Unfortunately, delusions are sometimes interpreted by professional third parties (therapists, counselors) as resulting from processing errors rather than propositional errors. Therapists want clients to expose the inner workings of their minds so that they can help clients reassemble themselves in ways in which they'll be able to perceive the world through a clear, unbroken glass that will allow them to radically improve the quality of their experiences. In theory, a wonderful idea. In practice? A discussion for another day.
Until others perceive the one who lied as a significant victim in the aftermath of the lie, the world will never be able to adequately call for truth and realistically expect to receive it. If the punishment for telling one lie is too severe, a volume of lies will ensue to cover the original lie. The federal and state criminal justice systems of the United States, for example, do not necessarily care about whether one lie was told in a designated crime or a thousand lies were told if the end result related to the act of the crime is perceived to be the same. In sentencing or the assessment of fines, the number of lies may be a factor. Usually, though, it's the nature of the lie(s) in a specific context that factor(s) most heavily.
Is there a ratio for measuring the damage done through a thousand "minor" lies in relation to one super-lie? Doubtful, certainly not legally. Justice, in practice, is always subjective. Laws and rules may provide a respect for factuality, but not for proportionality. Even in the most clear cut legal cases, too few variables would be available for broad and deep understanding even if the prosecutors and defendants collaborated to find the truth together. They attempt to do so, particularly within sentencing: the defendant was abused as a child, they had recently gone through a divorce while losing a job at the same time, their only son just died, and they'd spent their life in service to those in need before the out-of-character heinous act versus the defendant had spent the past decade embezzling, committing fraud, and lying to investors which led to a hospital closing, eliminating an important health care resource for tens of thousands of area residents.
As you can see through all of this, what is not true has a multitude of significant realities in the world.
No comments:
Post a Comment