Re: the Zapno (tm) anti-static device and dishonesty

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

[OT]   (mental phenomena rather than physics!)


> At 09:38 PM 7/30/02, Bernard, you wrote:
>
> > What if one believed in the claim -- is that lying?
> >
> > A Bill Moyers video discussed lying -- I think his conclusion is one
> > had to know it was untrue for it to be a lie.

This brings up a topic that I find fascinating since I experienced the
phenomenon up close.

Some people tell lies, but then they change their own beliefs so that they
"know" those lies are truth.  It's very strange, like a chain of logic
which turns into a closed loop and evaporates.  If I first tell a lie, but
then I later talk myself into believing that I'm telling the truth... am I
still lying?

If we observe the whole process and not just the end result, then yes,
choosing to believe our own lies does not convert lies into truth, it only
drives them below the conscious level.  Therefore it's dangerous to base
our judgements of others' honesty on whether someone believes their own
statements.  In some cases their belief is up front and genuine.  In other
cases it is nothing but a carefully constructed facade; a distortion which
is intended to cover up the dishonesty inside.  It's hard to tell the
difference between false and real "genuineness," but one symptom is common
for the false type: the presence of many small dishonesties which "leak
out" from under the facade.

Suppose that a person starts selling "dealerships" in order to get funding
to build a perpetual motion machine.  Suppose that the research is never
performed, but the salesperson spends large amounts of time pretending to
believe that the money is for research rather than for personal gain.
Finally, suppose that the person lives the lie, and never confronts the
fact that the money from selling "dealerships" is not funding any
research.  In fact, that person is a ripoff-artist even though they
"really believe" in what they sell.  The act has taken over the actor, the
mask has become their real face.  But it's still an act.  This is most
probably what happened to Dennis Lee and his "free electricity" scheme.
He is a scam artist, yet he apparently believes in his own scam.


Robert Park discusses this phenomenon indirectly in his recent book VOODOO
SCIENCE:  THE ROAD FROM FOOLISHNESS TO FRAUD.  What starts out as bad or
"pathological" science can slowly mutate until the scientist is
perpetrating a full-blown fraud without consciously being aware that this
has occurred.  It's one more reason why extremely high standards of
honesty are required in science:  if we tolerate small amounts of
dishonesty in ourselves, then these small amounts have a way of increasing
slowly without notice.  And if we're in the habit of lying, we can easily
slip into the habit of forgetting that the lies are lies.  If the phrase
"down that road lies insanity" apply to anything, it applies to concealing
our own dishonesty from ourselves.  If we do such things habitually, our
entire "reality" can fracture, and it can unexpectedly collapse when small
stress is applied from outside.

I had my nose rubbed in this topic and hopefully learned a bit from my
experience:

   Pathological dishonesty disease
   http://www.amasci.com/maglev/levbill1.html



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William J. Beaty                            SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
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