On Why Liars Lie

_{Barry Arrington

September 15, 2015

Intelligent Design}

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In a previous post, I exposed yet another of eigenstate’s outrageous lies. Then I asked:

The real question is what motivates him to engage in such insane denials? I have to admit that I am utterly flummoxed by it. He knows he is lying. I know he is lying. Everyone else who reads his comment knows he is lying. What in the world motivates such outrageous conduct? If I did not see it myself I would not believe it.

Commenter Charles replies:

He can’t help himself. It has become his nature. I have watched liars lie for years, and I have noted their inability to admit even the simplest of truths. I have observed their self-destructive behavior (as a consequence of losing the trust and charity essential in routine communication and cooperation) over matters both mundane and mission-critical.

This fellow suggests a mechanism for something I have suspected for years:

Dishonesty reduces applied intelligence: re-wires the brain

What I am suggesting is that, although the fundamental efficiency of neural processing is an hereditary characteristic which is robust to environmental differences and changes (short of something like destructive brain pathology – encephalitis, neurotoxin, head injury, dementia etc) – habitual dishonesty (such as is mainstream among the modern intellectual elite) will generate brain changes, and a long-lasting (although probably, eventually, reversible) pathology in applied intelligence – such that what ought to be simple and obvious inferential reasoning becomes impossible.

I would add impossible not only in communication with others but equally impossible when alone and merely analyzing (rationalizing) information they find disagreeable.

UPDATE:

After observing Carpathian’s hi-jinks in the comment thread to this post, Charles adds:

Carpathian demonstrates the corollary, why liars lie badly.

A consequence of chronic, pathological intellectual dishonesty is a narrowing of ones sphere of influence to other liars. A further consequence of which is the positive reinforcement from other liars that their lies are credible and compelling. But when those lies are trotted out to an informed and experienced audience, those same lies don’t pass muster and are recognized as vapid and vacuous.

Comments

@Barry Arrington In the context of the title of this thread "On Why Liars Lie", I'd say that your statement is a lie by hyperbole - or lie by Chinese Whisper: yes, there are historians and theologians who make a case that the crucification of Jesus Christ is documented and that there is evidence for the resurrection. It takes some degree of separation to blow their research out of proportion and claim that the "death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history"! So, the question only you can answer is: why do you make such a false statement? Or for short - and a little bit inaccurate - why do you lie? Or do you take Mung's view that your statement is essentially meaningless?Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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@Barry Arrington:
The documents constituting the New Testament are vouchsafed with the blood of the martyrs. Nothing else comes remotely close.
The willingness of an Islamic terrorist to become a martyr of his course isn't a testament for the existence of 72 virgins waiting for him in the afterlife, it is just shows how severe his belief in their existence is! Many religions have their martyrs. Doesn't make them all true. And again, tell me about the dozens of eye-witnesses of the resurrection who were put to death!Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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@Barry Arrington: Germany's victory over Brazil on 8 July 2014 in the semi-final match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup is much more reliably documented than the resurrection of Jesus Christ: 1) Millions of people have seen it on TV 2) You can find ten of thousands witnesses, who have seen it happening in the Estádio Mineirão in Belo Horizonte 3) Many of those witnesses have written reports (scores of journalists were present in the stadium) 4) It isn't even necessary to torture or kill someone to get information about the event In fact, each day there are thousands of sporting events which are witnessed by more than five hundred people, many of those reported via twitter, facebook, etc.Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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@Mung, very amusing! So, even an event with a quite flimsy documentation - let's say emperor Vespasian healing a blind man - is one of the "most reliably documented events", as it is documented at all? Well, in this case, Barry Arrington's statement wouldn't be a lie, but just a misdirection.Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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BA asks:
Why does he do it? Can someone please explain that to me?
Self-inflicted insanity.William J Murray_{September 16, 2015
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KF, Thanks for your post. But after 98 comments I still stand in drop-jawed amazement at the materialists' capacity for insane denial. Consider Carpathian in comments 79. I demonstrated to him that LH at first said he could not do something. And then he said he could do something. And to say one can't do something is not the same as saying one can do something. Carpathian is having none of it. It is my problem if I don't understand how opposites mean the same thing. I can't believe he is stupid enough to believe what he writes. Therefore, he must know it is false. What's more, he must know that everyone knows it is false. That is the really amazing thing. He is not deceiving anyone with his falsehoods. Yet he insists on them anyway. Why does he do it? Can someone please explain that to me?Barry Arrington_{September 16, 2015
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Folks, Remember this is an ilk that has problems with seeing from a distinct thing A (e.g. a red ball on a table) that there is a world partition: W = {A | ~A } and that the LOI, LNC and LEM are immediately present once that is so. They are struggling even harder to recognise that thinking and communicating in language etc requires just this and that any argument therefore implicitly builds on this. So, it should not surprise us to see selectively hyperskeptical double standards on historical documentation and evidence when something so inconvenient as the founding figure of the Christian faith is on the table. (E.g. there is a whole civilisation changing church in testimony to the impact of Jesus and his disciples, e.g. most of the same objectors would never dare suggest that by the same standards they are using most classical history would be ash-canned, or that the Historicity of say Mohammed would be dismissed. Hyperskeptical dismissiveness needs to be named for what it is, and ring fenced as utterly irrational. The historicity of Jesus is not in any serious question, though the claim of his resurrection is controversial. Controversial because of its consequences not the actual strength of the direct and indirect evidence; the latter including the life transforming, miracle working power of that name across 2,000 years in literally millions of lives.) Simon Greenleaf of Harvard, a founder of the modern theory of evidence, long since took their measure:
[26] . . . It should be observed that the subject of inquiry [i.e. evidence relating to the credibility of the New Testament accounts] is a matter of fact, and not of abstract mathematical proof. The latter alone is susceptible of that high degree of proof, usually termed demonstration, which excludes the possibility of error . . . In the ordinary affairs of life we do not require nor expect demonstrative evidence, because it is inconsistent with the nature of matters of fact, and to insist on its production would be unreasonable and absurd . . . The error of the skeptic consists in pretending or supposing that there is a difference in the nature of things to be proved; and in demanding demonstrative evidence concerning things which are not susceptible of any other than moral evidence alone, and of which the utmost that can be said is, that there is no reasonable doubt about their truth . . . . [27] . . . . In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition of fact, the previous question to be determined is, when may it be said to be proved? The answer to this question is furnished by another rule of municipal law, which may be thus stated: A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence. By competent evidence, is meant such as the nature of the thing to be proved requires; and by satisfactory evidence, is meant that amount of proof, which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind, beyond any reasonable doubt. . . . . If, therefore, the subject is a problem in mathematics, its truth is to be shown by the certainty of demonstrative evidence. But if it is a question of fact in human affairs, nothing more than moral evidence can be required, for this is the best evidence which, from the nature of the case, is attainable. Now as the facts, stated in Scripture History, are not of the former kind, but are cognizable by the senses, they may be said to be proved when they are established by that kind and degree of evidence which, as we have just observed, would, in the affairs of human life, satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man. [Testimony of the Evangelists, Sections 26, 27.]
What we are seeing here is a classic manifestation of selective hyperskepticism. I point to 70 above for more direct information -- https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-why-liars-lie/#comment-580454 When we see this sort of pattern in respect of self-evident truths, abundant and well substantiated historical record and the like it tells us just how low a credit must be attached to the dismissive views of such an ilk in general. Including, when it comes to the inductive warrant for the design inference on evidence such as functionally specific complex organisation and information. The evidence is, no reasonable evidence will be acknowledged so the matter is not weight of evidence but the fallacy of the indoctrinated, polarised and hostile, ideologically captive and closed mind. From this point, the reasonable issue on the table is dealing with such. KFkairosfocus_{September 16, 2015
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Roy,
“Josephus” was altered later.
Can you point to even a single manuscript that does not contain the Testimonium Flavianum? BTW, in case you don't know, the answer is "no." The criticism of the Testimonium is 100% of the sort of "I don't think he would have said something like that."Barry Arrington_{September 16, 2015
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If you are going to lie, you may as well lie about the truth!Mung_{September 16, 2015
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Orloog:
...as there are countless events which are more reliably documented, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history.
And there are countless * countless ^ countless events which are not documented at all, which makes the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history.
Which makes Barry Arrington’s statement factually wrong.
Not even close.Mung_{September 16, 2015
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Orloog
Dozens of eye-witnesses of the resurrection who were put to death? A bold claim! Whom besides James are you thinking of?
For starters, ll out of the 12 apostles who witnessed Christ's return from the dead, were martyred.StephenB_{September 16, 2015
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Roy
“Josephus” was altered later. Tacitus may be independent confirmation of the crucifixion, although he is more likely to simply be repeating the claims of Christians in Rome crucifixion, but does not mention a resurrection. Did you really expect your question to be unanswerable?
So, now you are reduced to telling us that Tacitus didn't bother to check his facts. So far, the question hasn't been answered at all. The Gospel reports were corroborated by two independent and disinterested sources, both of whom were not even Christians. The idea that Josephus' account of Christ's activities was redacted is not credible, and Tacitus, though he did not write about the resurrection, did report about miracles. All the facts indicate that what the apostles said was true. There are no facts to indicate that what they said was false.StephenB_{September 16, 2015
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[it] was substantiated by dozens of eye-witnesses who instead of recanting their substantiation chose to die horribly painful deaths
Dozens of eye-witnesses of the resurrection who were put to death? A bold claim! Whom besides James are you thinking of?Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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Orloog,
as there are countless events which are more reliably documented
Really, there are countless other events that were documented and truth of the documentary account was substantiated by dozens of eye-witnesses who instead of recanting their substantiation chose to die horribly painful deaths? Who knew that if Peter had only had a time stamp he could have avoided being crucified upside down? The documents constituting the New Testament are vouchsafed with the blood of the martyrs. Nothing else comes remotely close. Barry Arrington_{September 16, 2015
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I forgot to mention. The Jews agree that Christ was crucified, that he was a sorcerer, a troublemaker and that his body was never found. They did blame some garden keeper for the theft but the actual body was never recovered. Now this leaves us with what happened to the 11 apostles. 3 days before the resurrection these 11 men must have been the most dissapointed men ever. The Messiah was dead, but then something happened and these 11 souls endured the most agonising torture you could imagine but never recanted their testimony. What happened? Either Christ really resurrected or they lied. But I have never met anyone that has ever been prepared to die for a known lie. Have you? Is it possible they had an hallucination? Not if you take the 500 witnesses into account and the multiple sightings that could easily have been refuted by those there. It takes a special kind of ignorance to not consider the facts and details. And it takes a special kind of stupid to just dismiss it without a very reasonable explanation. Right now there is no reasonable explanation that refutes Christ's resurrection. Nada, nothing.Andre_{September 16, 2015
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Trying to be more precise: Definition concerning 2-dimensional geometry: Given a line and a point not on the line, if a line through the given point never intersects the given line, we say the line is "parallel". Proposition P: Given a line and a point not on the line, there is one and only one line parallel to the given line. Proposition P is neither true nor false without further context. There is nothing you could do to prove that P was true, or to disprove it as it stands. Within Euclidean (flat-space) geometry, P is an axiom. It is assumed true, and then many other conclusions follow. Within the other two non-Euclidean geometries, other propositions concerning the number of parallel lines are taken as axioms, so in those systems P is false. It does not make sense to say that P is true or false without stating which geometry we are referring to because the truth or falsity of P merely depends on a decision to accept it as an axiom. Without the context of which geometry being referred to, or just as a standalone statement, P is neither true nor false. Note that this whole discussion is just about pure logic. Questions about whether P is true for a particular real surface is a subject for empirical investigation. But by itself, not only can pure logic not determine the truth or falsity of P, even asking whether P is true or false is not a sensible question. It is either an axiom or it isn't, and its truth or falsity depends on whether we adopt it as such or don't.Aleta_{September 16, 2015
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Of course the truth of a person is not spoken by those that support him but by those that oppose him.The biblical narrative of Jesus is corroborated by the Jewish writings about him, and they don't mince their words but they never deny him.... wonder why? But please don'the let evidence stand in way.Andre_{September 16, 2015
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@Mung, as there are countless events which are more reliably documented, the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history. Which makes Barry Arrington's statement factually wrong.Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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Orloog: ...there are countless (much less important) events during the last fifty years which are more reliably documented (even with a timestamp)? So?Mung_{September 16, 2015
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@StephenB
How do you explain the fact that Josephus, the Jewish Historian, and Tacitus, the Roman historian, confirm the Biblical account of those events?
They do? Tacitus doesn't say anything about the resurrection...Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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How do you explain the fact that Josephus, the Jewish Historian, and Tacitus, the Roman historian, confirm the Biblical account of those events?
"Josephus" was altered later. Tacitus may be independent confirmation of the crucifixion, although he is more likely to simply be repeating the claims of Christians in Rome crucifixion, but does not mention a resurrection. Did you really expect your question to be unanswerable?Roy_{September 16, 2015
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Barry says that
LH said that A=A is an infallible proposition, which means he is certain it is true.
What LH actually said was,
Defining A as equal to A is defining A as equal to A; the proposition is not fallible if the only metric is its own definition.
We have a category error here, similar to the one kf made when he thought I was trying to prove the parallel postulate false. Logical axioms and definitions are accepted as true within their logical system - their truth or falsity can't be determined by reference to anything outside of that system. You can change the axiom or definition and see what happens within the logical system, but what you have then is a new, different logical system, as is done with considering different versions of the parallel postulate and coming up with different non-Euclidean geometries. That doesn't make the original parallel postulate false. All three versions of the parallel postulate are equal true within their own system, but you can't say that any one of them is false just because other versions are used in other systems. None of the versions are "true" in any sense other than they are an axiom in their own system Barry's misunderstanding is similar here. To the extent that A = A is a definition/axiom in logic, it is true within that system. However, from a viewpoint outside that system, truth or falseness, falliblity or infallibility, aren't categories that apply, because a definition/axiom within a logical system can't be wrong (assuming it is not inconsistent with other propositions within the system.). It just is. It might lead to logical conclusions that have no possible use that we can see as a model for something in the world, but asking whether an axiom is right or wrong is not a meaningful question within the logical system itself.Aleta_{September 16, 2015
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@BA Can we at least agree that the claim that "The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most reliably documented events in all of human history" is false as there are countless (much less important) events during the last fifty years which are more reliably documented (even with a timestamp)?Orloog_{September 16, 2015
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Mr Barrington:
No, I stand by my statement.
Except that he doesn't. His original claim covered all of human history; he has now changed it to "the first, 4,900 years of the 5,000 years of recorded history." He has agreed that there are much better documented events since the onset of mass media. He has not, however, admitted that his original claim was wrong.
Counting only Greek copies (in other words not counting early “versions” – translations into non-Greek languages), there are over 5,600 ancient manuscripts of the various books of the New Testament. Including the versions brings the total to nearly 25,000. The earliest of such date to a few decades after the events documented. Compare that to a near contemporary event — Caesar’s Gallic Wars – 9 (yes that is right “9”) good copies, the oldest of which is 900 years after Ceasar’s time.
This is equivocating between the reliability of transmission of the text, which few people doubt, with the reliability of the text as documentation of the actual events. The bible is certainly one of the most reliably transmitted documents. That does not make it the most reliable account of events. In any case, many historical documents are originals, not copies. Egyptian hieroglyphics, for instance. Or Roman inscriptions. Or Mesapotamian clay tablets. These are more reliable than the new testament since no transcription errors can occur if there is no transcription. The new testament is not the most reliable documentation even under Mr. Arrington's own criteria. Mr Barrington has not even attempted to address the actual criticisms of his claim - that the biblical accounts are less reliable than many historical accounts because they are separated in time and space from the events they describe, while many other historical accounts are not. The Battle of Waterloo, for instance. Finally, Mr Arrington's support covers only textual documentation. There are many historical events which are documented through physical evidence. The burial of Pompeii, for instance, or the use of the Lascaux caves. While not being insane, his revised claim is still false.Roy_{September 16, 2015
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Aleta
The fact that people have written lots of words about Jesus, and that Christianity became the dominant religion in the Western world is not documentation that the actual event happened.
How do you explain the fact that Josephus, the Jewish Historian, and Tacitus, the Roman historian, confirm the Biblical account of those events?StephenB_{September 16, 2015
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Barry Arrington:
Well, I guess we are done. Your insane denial is impenetrable, and further discussion is pointless. But everyone knows the truth, including you.
Yes, I know the truth. 1) eigenstate didn't lie 2) You are claiming you don't understand a point you clearly do. 3) You are misleading myself and other readers of this very badly put together misleading post. 4) You've again resorted to personal attacks when you have no comeback in a debate.Carpathian_{September 16, 2015
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C, Your position is that statement A (I cannot be infallibly certain about absolutely anything) is totally consistent with statement B (I can in fact be infallibly certain about at least one thing-- that the defined proposition is true). Well, I guess we are done. Your insane denial is impenetrable, and further discussion is pointless. But everyone knows the truth, including you. BTW, I am very much indebted to you for providing an example of the type of thing Charles alluded to in the OP. Thank you.Barry Arrington_{September 16, 2015
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Barry, No, it means the defined proposition is true, regardless of his or anyone's opinions about it.
Because the part that I elided was not relevant to the point.
Of course it was relevant. You removed a qualifier from the second statement. Without the qualifier , the statement could be understood as saying the entity represented by A . With the qualifier he clearly shows that he is talking about the symbolic definition, not what the symbols represent. Both statements can be true at the same time. They do not mean the same thing.Carpathian_{September 16, 2015
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C
Why did you not post the whole thing?
Because the part that I elided was not relevant to the point. In the first statement LH said he could never be certain about anything. That means anything whatsoever, including, but not limited to, whether A=A. In the second statement LH said that A=A is an infallible proposition, which means he is certain it is true. So in the first statement he said he could not be certain about anything. In the second statement he said he could be certain about at least one thing. The statements cannot be logically reconciled, which, of course, does not mean that you will not try to reconcile them nevertheless. Go ahead.Barry Arrington_{September 16, 2015
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Barry Arrington:
Carpathian, let us go back to eigenstate’s statement. Do you agree with him that the two statements mean the same thing?
Here is your quote:
OK. Consider the following two statements. LH1: “I cannot . . . be . . . certain of anything” LH2: “the proposition is not fallible”
Here are his two statements:
LH before: I cannot therefore be logically, absolutely certain of anything—not even that A=A. LH today: Defining A as equal to A is defining A as equal to A; the proposition is not fallible if the only metric is its own definition.
Look at the last part of the sentence. "...the proposition is not fallible if the only metric is its own definition. " Why did you not post the whole thing?Carpathian_{September 16, 2015
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