Quote by Dr. Gregory House
I want to play through a short thought experiment
You see a complete stranger across the street sitting on a park bench. A tall, dark-haired, well dressed man. You walk up to him with no context and ask him if he's married. He gives off a startled look at the sudden confrontation and invasion of his personal life, but he politely composes himself and says "Yes, I am - very happily". You continue casual conversation against his will and learn that his wife is an accountant at a nearby firm and she had gone off only a few minutes ago to find a restroom to use. He mentions that she drinks a lot of coffee to stay awake because her job bores her and attributes this large liquid consumption to be the reason for her need to frequently excuse herself. You find this reasonable. Abruptly, you ask him what color his wife's shirt is today. He certainly should know the answer to this question considering he claimed they were together only moments ago. The man responds with "Gray". You have no reasonable suspicions and scan the area for women of relatively equal age to the man and wearing gray colored shirts, but see no one that fits this description anywhere in the distance. Only a moment later you turn back around to the man who now has a woman under his arm. He smiles and says "This is my wife". She's wearing a pink long sleeve shirt. Pink is certainly not gray. You learn that the man was colorblind all along.
Where did your mind take you after finding out she wasn't wearing a gray shirt? Where did your mind take you after finding out he was colorblind? Every other detail about this story isn't important to the point of me writing it. Do you consider the man a liar?
What's complex about defining a lie is that it's not always simply about discerning what's untrue. The man told his truth. His wife's shirt is gray through his eyes. Therefore, he told a truth but not the truth. What do you think - does that make him a liar?
He would've answered gray regardless of what color his wife's shirt was. In this case it happened to be pink which isn't consistent, but what if he got lucky and his wife's shirt actually was gray? This parallel is unsettling because in both scenarios he said the shirt was gray with the same intentions and information. it just so happened that in one scenario he got lucky and was right.
Let's form some sort of conclusion:
In the scenario where the shirt was pink: Most wouldn't call him a liar, but most also can't say he told the truth either. If this played out in real life he would be forgiven and his statements would be chalked up to him just not knowing.
In the scenario where the shirt was gray: Most would say he told the truth. He said the shirt was gray and it was gray. Simple.
Lying is a conscious action. It's a voluntary choice to declare a falsehood.
Surprise - in both scenarios he's equally a liar. By claiming to know what color his wife's shirt was, full knowing he didn't have adequate enough information, he lied. The color of his wife's shirt never mattered. This piece was meant to distract you from this fact. When the shirt was pink he was wrong and when the shirt was gray he was right. That has nothing to do with his intentions and how he chose to approach the information he possessed. When you were in first grade and wrote that 2 times 2 was 5 you weren't lying. You were just wrong. When you guessed "C" on your multiple choice quiz and it happened to be right you weren't telling the truth. You were just right.
Conclusion: The validity of a statement should not void suspicions of deception. We are often deceived most deeply when we allow the truth of a conclusion to fully influence our perception of a faulty premise.
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