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The Inability to Lie
Topic Started: May 24 2011, 11:43 AM (1,017 Views)
lamna
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This has been does several times in fiction, creatures that's just can't lie and get away with it, currently I'm reading the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy and their muzzles flush blue when they tell lies.

I'm wondering if their is anyway that this could evolve? Normally in nature you don't see many adaptation for honesty, it's mostly about fooling predators, competitors and mates
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colddigger
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I think it would easily form in a species which is more along the lines of a superorganism, though I suppose the superorganism could lie couldn't it... so it would have to be in a transitional state...
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Holben
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Lying can have perks.

Any kind of deception (camouflage, mimicry, emitting the chemicals of others) is kinda lying.

Aliens without the ability to lie are feasible, but not really probable. Scenarios... scenarios...
... perhaps the punishment for lying is exile. They'd have to have had language for yonks though.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Ànraich
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Lying is useful and not limited to humans. Birds, monkeys, squirrels; any animal that stores food and has any kind of communication with others of their species lie. They deceive others into believing they've hidden the food one place, and then hide it in another. At the same time, the "fooled" animal deceives the hider into thinking it's been fooled, when really it is following it to find out where it really stashed its food. I don't see why any organism of even simple intelligence and communication would evolve total honesty. Deception is just too good a trait to pass up evolutionarily speaking.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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lamna
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Quote:
 
... perhaps the punishment for lying is exile. They'd have to have had language for yonks though.
Not what I mean, and people would still lie if you horribly tortured anyone caught lying.

I really don't see any reason for it to arise naturally, I was wondering if anyone else had.
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Are you plausible?

If a particular sensorium was keen enough it could pick up when we lie too; we have our own physiological giveaways as well. Even though the field of lie detection is a fledgling and occasionally controversial field, a sensitivity to the variance in voice stress or microexpressions has produced positive results.

As far as I know, the inclusion of such obvious giveaways in science fiction usually serves a point of the plot, and isn't always under the most scientific scrutiny. In my opinion the most plausible of such instances would mean that the species itself is unaware of the giveaway even if it's blatant to humans; to use your example, lamna, the blue muzzle would necessarily not be obvious to the aliens or it would be evolved away.

colddigger does have a point, though: mendacity may be less common in superorganisms. It could still possibly crop up in some form or another, though...
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food for thought
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Zoroaster
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there's a huge difference between hardwired behavioural or mimicry deceit (which evolves by accident!) and an actual conscious decision - "whether to lie and continue the lie" or own up right there and then - or never even ever think of deceiving... and yes, there are all sorts of behaviours that we engage in when we're attempting to deceive, that well schooled individuals can pick up on. But there are also seasoned lyers who can pass lie detector tests...

Anyone here ever been tortured? it can get pretty hairy trying to maintain any form of deception when under constant threat of violence, and actual violence, practised by seasoned professionals...

I was bashed and abducted by police when I was 14 (in Australia!) - and tortured until I let something slip... I've hated ALL cops ever since... I like it when they are killed... I love gangster rap bands that glorify cop killers... there's no such thing as a good one... ever since then I've pretty much been "on the wrong side of the law"... hence the biker lifestyle. I might also add, that lying to your brother in our club is VERY taboo - and I never do... but there are ways to avoid lying...

In some of those sick twisted societies in Europe and Russia in the 20th Century, people would lie under torture just for release (yes I am a counter-revolutionary!)... In 1984 - Winston at first believes that 2 + 2 = 5, but then later on lies that he believes it when he realises that 2 + 2 <> 5...

oops - sorry to change the subject!

There's white lies, there's outright deception, and then there's "stretching" the truth, or skirting the details? We're so sophisticated, it's hard to tell a lie from a stretch of the truth or a "skirt of the details or quantities"... We're lied to every day by the media - but they're not "lies" - they're exaggerations, under-estimates etc given to them by cagey or over-optimistic government media machines...

anyway - hard to figure out a sapient species so self-less as to act selflessly and to never deceive for its own benefit? I think it's plausible, but would take the likes of a great philosopher to theorise about...
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lamna
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No, it's obvious and important in the novels. Actors need to wear masks, etc.

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Zoroaster
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I kinda imagine my "star-slugs" as never using or needing deceipt in their inter-individual interactions - but I find it hard, as a member of a habitually deceitful species to theorize how that might arise...

I am sure, if humanity survives for another 100,000 years - we'll have moved beyond this... somewhere, somehow, government and individuals will reach a compromise on "privacy" - who needs privacy, unless we have secrets we want kept secret? Are the desire for privacy and deceit related?

Or perhaps all homo descendants will be "trustable" to act in good faith when seeking privacy? Can you trust them?

But lies? What are they? They exist along a scale from black to white, where grey is the truth... that's how I see it... Deny the truth (black or 000000000), the truth (grey or 128128128), and a false truth that was never there (white or 255255255)... hmmm - that's an ideal system for "ternary" thinkers like my star slugs....
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T.Neo
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Wanting privacy isn't about having things to hide. People don't hide explosive devices on their bodies (generally) yet we don't go around naked all the time...
A hard mathematical figure provides a sort of enlightenment to one's understanding of an idea that is never matched by mere guesswork.
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Zoroaster
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ahhh... clothing.. the ultimate deception... I'd forgotten about that... hide your sexual organs, maybe even hide your gender... but especially, if you're a receiver of gametes and incubator of the next generation - don't let up whether or when or if ever you're going to be receptive to being raped...

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Holben
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Clothes insulate too. ;)

Other functions... wikipedia will know.
Quote:
 
Clothes also enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking, by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Further, clothes provide a hygienic barrier, keeping toxins away from the body and limiting the transmission of germs.

Clothing performs a range of social and cultural functions, such as individual, occupational and sexual differentiation, and social status. A uniform, for example, may identify civil authority figures, such as police and military personnel, or it may identify team, group or political affiliations.

In many societies, norms about clothing reflect standards of modesty, religion, gender, and social status. Clothing may also function as a form of adornment and an expression of personal taste or style.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Ànraich
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May 24 2011, 08:17 PM
If a particular sensorium was keen enough it could pick up when we lie too; we have our own physiological giveaways as well.
Not if you learn to lie well. If you're not scared of being caught there's no physiological giveaway.
We should all aspire to die surrounded by our dearest friends. Just like Julius Caesar.

"The Lord Universe said: 'The same fate I have given to all things from stones to stars, that one day they shall become naught but memories aloft upon the winds of time. From dust all was born, and to dust all shall return.' He then looked upon His greatest creation, life, and pitied them, for unlike stars and stones they would soon learn of this fate and despair in the futility of their own existence. And so the Lord Universe decided to give life two gifts to save them from this despair. The first of these gifts was the soul, that life might more readily accept their fate, and the second was fear, that they might in time learn to avoid it altogether." - Excerpt from a Chanagwan creation myth, Legends and Folklore of the Planet Ghar, collected and published by Yieju Bai'an, explorer from the Celestial Commonwealth of Qonming

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Zoroaster
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then - when finally the Victorian Filth allow you your human rights - i.e. pigs can't torture you or question you without a legally appointed guardian present ... they find the tape where apparently you said you were happy for the Sargent's fat mate to be your confidant a "appointed guardian"... trust a policeman? Never... if ever society had a culture practiced in deceit, lies, corruption and general malevolence, it was police forces world-wide...
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Zoroaster
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Magoo
May 25 2011, 03:25 PM
then - when finally the Victorian Filth allow you your human rights - i.e. pigs can't torture you or question you without a legally appointed guardian present ... they find the tape where apparently you said you were happy for the Sargent's fat mate to be your confidant a "appointed guardian"... trust a policeman? Never... if ever society had a culture practiced in deceit, lies, corruption and general malevolence, it was police forces world-wide...
this practice is called "verballling" and has been used by the filthy jacks in Australia for at least the last 150 years...

Edited by Zoroaster, May 25 2011, 03:28 PM.
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