Sunday, August 1, 2021

Other Minds And Lies

Lies do not always have to be overt.  They could hypothetically be so subtle as to never be detected, particularly if they involve a person's motives.  Each person can immediately see the intent behind their exact thoughts.  A vital part of existence as a conscious being, the infallibility of seeing one's own mental states lets anyone have absolute certainty about the fact that they have certain thoughts and certain intentions, not that the absolute certainty of introspection is truly understood by many non-rationalists.  I always know precisely what I am thinking, feeling, or experiencing in a broader sense and that I am not dishonest in my communication with others about my thoughts.

Anyone else with my limitations does not have this absolute certainty with regard to my intentions.  Likewise, I do not have this benefit with regard to theirs.  The epistemological gulf between non-telepathic minds means that separate consciousnesses without telepathy have no real awareness of what the other is actually thinking.  Yes, there are words and outwardly visible actions, comprehensible to other minds, yet this is evidence as opposed to proof of what another mind feels, hopes for, and is driven by.  Even a very familiar person in one's life could be intentionally trying to hide their truest self.

One thing that cannot actually be ultimately proven is that someone who constantly espouses purely rational claims is doing so out of rationalistic motives.  The inability to see into the minds of others means any logically possible relationship between beliefs, words, and actions could actually be held by another person.  Of course, literally all outward evidences might suggest that a person is or is not a liar.  The mere possibility of someone having deceptive or irrational motives for doing something that is otherwise not philosophically problematic does not mean that they truly are only trying to deceive others (and vice versa).

Telepathy, the only way to truly see into other minds and therefore the only way to know if they exist at all, would be the only way to know if other beings are presenting themselves in accordance with their true motives and beliefs.  Anything short of this is perception-based at best and does not prove anything more than that things seem a certain way.  Actions can be seen as they are carried out by the physical body; motives and thoughts (by thoughts here I do not mean any mental process but the specific ideas and images that a person has in their mind) are within the mind, an immaterial thing animating the body, and cannot be directly observed by non-telepathic beings.

The seeming privacy of a person's mind--a privacy that could be illusory because a non-telepath could never know if another being it encounters can see the minds of others--is something that could so easily be taken for granted, but it is also exactly why other beings cannot do anything more than unceasingly provide evidence that they are not liars with absolute consistency.  It would be impossible to lie about everything: even a self-contradictory lie contains a less overt admission of how logical axioms are true.  Everything else about the truth of their words is epistemologically but capable of being unflinchingly evidenced in their words and behaviors.

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