Deception And Belief

Anyone could be lied to, that is, told something false in an intentionally inaccurate way.  To withhold information is not to lie, nor is to say something true that might be perceived in a misleading way.  One can manipulate or appease others with words in certain situations while never distorting the truth in communication.  Indeed, this can be both pragmatic and pleasurable, particularly when a rationalist toys with an unrepentant irrationalist, perhaps relishing their superiority.  Without the voluntary belief on the part of the deceived, though, there could be no successful deception even when this is the intention.  There could still be lies and liars, but no one would be deceived, for no one would believe that which the liar asserts.

A great number of ideas are philosophically unverifiable, no matter how persuasive or appealing they are to non-rationalists.  For instance, I cannot know if anyone is ever telling me the truth about what they feel in a given moment.  It is logically possible for them to be correct in whatever they tell me as long as nothing about the concept itself contradicts reason, and it is logically possible for anything they say about their mental states to also be false (as in, "I am exhausted" or "I enjoy talking with you") even if it is logically possible.  This means it is already irrational to believe such things, whether they come from one's best friend or spouse or a total stranger.  One can recognize that they might seem true and probably be true, yet this is different than outright belief.

Still, belief is a prerequisite to being deceived.  It is never the deceived's fault that they were lied to in the same way it could never be someone's fault for being murdered or assaulted, but it absolutely is their fault, short of literal mind control, if they believe what anyone tells them when it is not some strictly logical truth being communicated.  No one can force them to make assumptions if anything else is conveyed.  No one can make them believe anything, true or false or verifiable or unverifiable.  Since a strictly logical and therefore necessary truth like axioms or the fact that self-creation or infinite regress are impossible can be immediately discovered (if for the first time) or recalled in each moment, these can be known to be true with absolute certainty if someone speaks of them.

All else is epistemologically probabilistic at best or only believable on faith at worst no matter the source.  I mean faith in the asinine sense of assumptions here and not commitment based upon evidence that is not misinterpreted or treated as a basis for believing what mere evidence cannot prove.  Whatever is unknowable or unknown is something that one could be lied to about, yes.  Regardless of the content of the unverifiable claim, there is no deception that is completed without literal belief on the part of the one being lied to.  One does not have to assume others are lying in order to not assume they are telling the truth, as neutrality, or agnosticism, in these matters is the only valid position in light of human limitations.  People might wonder how to know if they can trust someone; the objective truth is that non-telepathic beings can never have a basis for this.