My what a tangled web we weave, when we aim to decieve.

What is truth? Conviction. It need not align with reality; it is subjective, not objective. When an individual speaks their truth they warp reality, introducing new possible explanations for the reality that surrounds us. There are things that are more true than others. For example: if all except for one believe one thing, while that single individual believes another then there exist two conflicting truths. Reality is likely more in line with the larger truth, or the idea with more conviction behind it. True reality is the point in the middle where all perspectives meet and agree. True reality is divine; it is piercing the veil of uncertainty that surrounds us. Yaweh/Allah for example, is believed in by millions of people so it is a force to be reckoned with. However in a vast, possibly infinite universe there surely are comparable entities composed of the axiomatic or conclusory belief of perspectives that we have not yet even conceived of. Is it then true that Yaweh/Allah is the god of all? To many people the answer is a definitive yes, and thus it is true and exists in their reality. To others the answer is a firm no, and therefore it is unlikely that an all powerfull being will ever exist in their experiences.

So what then is a lie? Something said or even thought that goes against your convictions. Lies also warp reality; They warp your perspective and they can affect those that hear them in good faith. The lie can be axiomatic, or a core belief about the nature of being from which other conclusions are taken, or they can be false conclusions, drawn against the evidence of what the liar truly believes. Axiomatic lies are usually more potent; if they are taken as truth they become the foundation of convictions built from conclusions drawn from that core belief. Lies shift the agreed upon reality between perspectives by altering the truth of those perspectives. We can even tell ourselves lies to alter our reality. When we conceive of or are told something that is inconsistent with our truth it introduces something new into our ideal existence. The more we think of our untrue notion, the more weight it gains in the realm of ideas, and it is more likely that our lived experiences may allign with the untrue idea, changing our convictions and making it our truth.

So why lie? Well almost always it is to try to shift entities truths towards a truth that we do not believe exists currently, but we want. For example, if someone asks if you took the last slice of cake (which you did) and you say no, then if they in good faith believe you, you have spread an untruth to you into a truth for them. Your agreed upon reality splits (with only you knowing), and the other entity will behave according to their truth, which you do as well, so nobody believes that you ate the last piece of cake. On a basic level your deceipt was to avoid the consequences of taking the last slice of cake, which you accomplish. On a more metaphysical level you have crafted a truth that would benefit you in the belief of others, creating an alternate agreed reality where you did not eat the cake. Only you live in the reality where you ate the cake and told a lie, and as long as you continue the deceit the greater truth is that you did not eat the cake. If you manage to convince yourself that you did not eat the cake then the only truth is that you did not, and reality therefore diverges from your experience. The only reality where you did eat the cake would exist in the doubts of you and the others, or the experiences of previously unmentioned and unknown observing entities.

Is lying morally wrong? It depends upon your axiomatic beliefs. For example if you believe in Yaweh and the story of Moses than the creator of your universe has dictated in the ninth commandment that lying is never justified. However if your axiomatic belief is that one should try to do the least amount of bad and the most amount of good, then depending on what you think is good or bad and the level of significance of things comes into play. For example, imagine there is a doctor and a friend of yours is in a coma and brought to your hospital and put under your care. That friend has told you specifically that if they are in a coma for an indefinite time that they want the plug pulled, and made you promise them that. Their partner refuses to do this. As the doctor in charge, you could lie and say that EKG shows that your friend is in terrible pain in order to convince her to pull the plug. You would be lying, but doing it in order to fulfill your friend’s wishes. Are you morally in the right? Yahweh would say “thou shall not kill”, cut and dry. If you took a utilitarian stance it becomes more complicated. You would be fulfilling your friend’s wish, but at the expense of what their partner wants. It is further complicated by the fact that fulfilling the wish may not make anyone happy; if their is nothing after death then your friend is not even capable of appreciating your actions. If you subscribe to many value sets, you value promises and may feel bound by the promise you made in spite of how anyone feels about it. What a mess.

Reality is a tangled web, whether you aim to deceive or not; Truth and untruth are relative, lying is morally ambiguous. As you navigate your way through the universe, you will do as you judge best.