Patrick A. McNutt, FRSA Dublin and Manchester Follow on Twitter: @tuncnunc

Truth & Lies in a Noosphere:Liar’s ParadoxAdam Smith Seminar Ludwig-Maximilian’s Universitat, Munchen, January 19 2015 Patrick A. McNutt, FRSA Dublin 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 truth Statement: ‘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’sNoosphere • Focus on ‘the sphere of mind’ according to Huxley • A ‘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’snoosphere • 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

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

Thank you for listening………PlautusThe 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’

Patrick A. McNutt, FRSA Dublin and Manchester Follow on Twitter: @tuncnunc