Dissecting Lies



I can't remember when the last time i lied was. Not very long ago i'm sure. Everyone lies a little sometimes. I've seen people living in a perpetual lie, where they think they're fat when they're not. Kind of like me thinking i'm extremely gorgeous, ya noe :)



Investigating into lies, I find that a lie could be hypothetically identified by several aspects. Consider the following scenarios.



Scenario One

I'm walking with my friend and i point and say "Look! That tree ate up a little boy." Then my friend turns to look and i proclaim "April's Fool!"



Scenario Two

I'm bored with nothing to do. Then my friend calls me and asks me some questions about his assignment. Not willing to help him, i told him that i'm busy with something. (Don't worry, this never did occur. I always help people with their assignments, if i can. This is only a hypothetical scenario.)



The most basic aspect of a lie would be the purpose of the lie. (No, this is not like the matrix where all things have a purpose and should expire when the purpose is fulfilled. I'm neither a fortune teller nor a doom sayer :p) The purpose of the lie in scenario One is to solicit an activity from my friend, the act of looking at the tree. The purpose of the lie in scenario Two is to solicit the lack of activity from my friend, in that i don't want him to pester me further.



The second aspect would be the intentions of the lie. Although the scenarios are common in that the intention to lie is present in both. The flavor is definitely different. One has the intention of introducing humor while the other has the intention of being unhelpful.



These aspects of the lie, while interesting, is not sufficient in quantifying the severity of a lie.



Scenario Three

I tell a friend i'm in trouble and asks for a monetary loan. After getting the dough, i disappear.



The third aspect of a lie would be the kind of harm done. Consider the above scenario, and without going into lengthy issues of debating what is moral, we'll treat the scenario as immoral. The third scenario has the intentions of benefit and not only solicits an activity (the act of forking out dough) from my friend but also causes financial harm to him. From this perspective, it then is possible to quantify the severity of a lie if it were proportional to the kind and amount of harm done.



Another aspect is forgivability (Yup, no such word). Forgivability is not inversely proportional to severity of a lie. Although severe lies are usually hard to forgive, there are also non-severe lies which are also hard to forgive. How so? One possibility is incessant lying.



Do note however that even if a lie is forgivable in the forgivability range, it might not be forgiven. This would be due to properties that reside beyond the lie, how easily the person being lied to forgives. However, this would be beyond the scope of this article.



There are issues that are not the properties of lies but figure rather importantly. One of these issues is trust. Levels of trust would depend on the intentions and severity of the lie. Similar to forgivability even if a lie is not trust breaking, it can cause the loss of trust, which again is not in the scope of discussion.



So please do consider these issues and forgivability of the lie the next time a seemingly severe lie is about to be made.



Oh... this article is dedicated to a couple of my friends, with a rather unique habit.