Truth & Lies in a Noosphere:Liar’s Paradox

Adam Smith Seminar Ludwig-Maximilian’s Universitat, Munchen,

January 19 2015

Patrick A. McNutt, FRSADublin and Manchester

Follow on Twitter: @tuncnunc

Web: www.patrickmcnutt.com

WHY THIS TOPIC?

What is truth? What is a lie? What is the meaning of truth?

Scientific truth v poet’s truthStatement: ‘Time flies like an arrow’

Syntax and language generate liar’s paradox Truth as perceived by others

Statement a: if lying is the norm truth is an aversion to lying

LIAR’S PARADOX: SYNTAX & LANGUAGE

The classic statement

‘This sentence is false’ If ‘this sentence is false ‘is true then the

sentence is false. But if ‘this sentence is false’ is false, then the

sentence is true.

DE CHARDIN’S NOOSPHERE

Focus on ‘the sphere of mind’ according to HuxleyA ‘conscious awareness’ of lying through the interaction of ‘the human mind with other minds’Sensation and perception ..‘the extended mind’Kant ‘these aspects of the mind turn ‘things-in-themselves’ into the world of experience’.McGilchrist: Left prefrontal cortex and ‘wrong to believe that telling a lie can make us unhappy’. Lying awareness and experience within a lying life cycle

LIAR’S PARADOX: MEANING & ‘AWARENESS’

Masha: Isn’t there some meaning?Toozenbach: Meaning? – Look out there, it’s

snowing. What’s the meaning of that?

Mary Lincoln: Does this dress make my backside look big?

Abe Lincoln: Perhaps a bit.

MEANING & AWARENESS

We cannot judge the truth. We can only interpret the ‘sense data’ through the intellect and ‘grasp the truth’…Democritus 460-370BC

At a moment in time we recognize ‘well signed turning points’ in conversation and we have to shift to a ‘different kind of language’…Mary Midgley 21st century

ADAPTING DE CHARDIN’S NOOSPHERE

The duration of a lie is independent of the truth – a form of deception

Lying is at a moment in time. Descartes mediation ‘bring it about’ … I = you.

Observation: Jean Valjean and the loaf of bread. St Francis of Assisi and the murderer.

There is a layer of consciousness surrounded by years of thought & experience. Individuals know that they have to shift to a different kind of language.

TWO HYPOTHESES

Truthful honest individual tells a lie

Willy Loman hypothesis: an economic incentive to lie: 1:10 chance (tell the truth) of earning £5 commission or 50:50 chance (tell a lie)..

Girard’s Mimetic hypothesis: unconscious tendency to adopt the aspirations of others - lying has value because it is desired by another.

LYING LIFE CYCLE

Lukes’ power and influencing belief systems: Vladimir and Estragon ‘Waiting for Godot’

Pandering: Mr T in conversation with the distraught mother of a lost child: ‘Your daughter is in Vermont’. True or False?Example of Leo the liar L/T and a Kohlberg question ‘what is in it for me?

Rosenbaum: There is no central supervising self inside Mr T but a ‘conscious awareness’: T/L

PREFRONTAL CORTEX

Prefrontal cortex regulates emotions and behaviour: studies on sleep-deprivation [SD] and a link to person’s emotions and behaviour.

2014 Study: Journal of Applied Psychology: Students were more inclined to lie when ‘sleep deprived’

Dan Ariely’s 2008 study that showed incidence of cheating = many who cheated a little rather than a few who cheated a lot.

WHITE LIES EVOLVE INTO LYING AS A NORM: COPE’S LAW OF LYING?

We are pluralities: T evolves to T/L and L evolves to L/T: What is in it for me? My payoff?

Many T/L Few L types – Dan Ariely’s experiment with cheating amongst students as ‘many students cheating a little’

Lying because everyone is lying: Cascade effect of a lying life cycle - analogous to restaurant queues.

WAITING FOR TRUTH: LIES CONCEALED IN TRUTH; FIGURE 1

Cohen’s Non-equivalence

Statement: ‘L is T’. Statement: ‘L is like T’‘L as T’ creates a metaphorical risk that ‘L is T’

Is there an equivalence?Yes, Figure 1: a topology:

‘L proper subset T’ ‘L as T’‘L is T’ => L = T if and only if T = L

‘L is T’ is understood to be ‘L is like T’

TURING EXPERIMENT AND BENTHAM’S PANOPTICON

Turing Test: ‘if a machine convinces observers it might be rational, then it is fair to describe the machine as rational’.

Statement 1: the respondent behind the closed door is a liar

Statement 2: the respondent in Statement 1 is a liar.

Statement 2 is True if and only if Statement 1 is Not False

TABLE 2: PERSON L & MACHINE T/L

Mr L T/L Identity

Are you a liar? Yes No

Can I trust you?

Yes No Mr L

LIAR’S PARADOX; NO ‘AWARENESS’

Statement 3: L is a liar

A sentence is False if its negation is True

If Sentence 3 is not false, then it is false. It is false. But since this is what Sentence 3 says it is, it is true. So it both true and false.

Alternative No Liar’s Paradox with ‘Awareness’ Fable of West Lake

.

FABLE OF WEST LAKE:NO LIAR’S PARADOX

Bentham’s Panopticon or Hofstadter-Schelling’s ‘I-think-You-think-I-think’ strange loop

Statement 4: Chinese man: ‘The fish are unhappy’

Friend’s Reply: ‘How do you know that the fish are unhappy?’

Chinese man: ‘But you are not me. How do you know that I know……’

LYING IN A MOMENT IN TIME V ‘MIXED SPEECH’ ST JEROME

PSALMS 116:11

Manfred’s statement S: ‘Everyman is a liar’. Is Manfred telling the truth or is he lying?

If it is true that every man is a liar, and Manfred’s statement S is true, then Manfred

also is lying; he is a man. But if he is lying his statement S is not true

Since Manfred himself is a man, it follows that he also is lying; but if he is lying because

every man is a liar, then his lying is of a different sort.

FINAL CAUSE…BECAUSE

Thinking about lying and lying are the same thing

Lying is a final Aristotelean cause ‘how a thing came about’ ..’responsible’.

Lying is a final cause ‘that for the sake if which a thing is what it is’… for a cup it holds water, for a seed it might be a plant,

For Mr T/L it is telling the truth as perceived by others.

Aristotle’s Physics II.8 ‘If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature’.

TABLE 4: MR T’S PAYOFF = HIS PURPOSE, HIS AIM, HIS GOAL => TELOS OF LYING

AS MR T/L

Mr T Mr T/L Row min

Mr L 3 1 1

Mr L/T 2 0 0

Column max

Minimax

3 1

1 Maximin

Thank you for listening………

PLAUTUS THE CAPTIVES 284

‘HE’S NOT JUST TELLING LIES NOW; HE’S PHILOSOPHISING’.

Mark Twain

‘If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything’