Truth is a White Lie

[Reconstructo]

Truths are lies that work. Lies are truths that don't work.

What does it mean to work? In the end it gives us pleasure. Perhaps it secures us food, builds us a better bomb and makes us feel safer. Perhaps it dazzles our mind. Perhaps it enhances our self-esteem. Perhaps it structures our experience in a pleasant way.

To call truth a lie is to insist on its dynamic nature. The truth changes.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Truths are lies that work. Lies are truths that don't work.

What does it mean to work? In the end it gives us pleasure. Perhaps it secures us food, builds us a better bomb and makes us feel safer. Perhaps it dazzles our mind. Perhaps it enhances our self-esteem. Perhaps it structures our experience in a pleasant way.

To call truth a lie is to insist on its dynamic nature. The truth changes.

Is it true that white lies work, and give us pleasure? And, is it really true that the truth changes? Does it work that the truth changes, or not?

[Zetherin]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Truths are lies that work. Lies are truths that don't work.

Please define "work" here.

[Reconstructo]

Well, work can be endlessly defined. "Gives us pleasure" is an approximation. But I also suggest the impossibility of closure. We continually reinterpret "reality" in light of the words of others and in light of our experience. I suppose some truth is static enough. 2+2 = 4. But symbolic tautology is an extreme.

We never wake up in the same world twice. We are never the same human being from moment to moment.

I don't deny that some lies stay fresher longer than others.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Well, work can be endlessly defined. "Gives us pleasure" is an approximation. But I also suggest the impossibility of closure. We continually reinterpret "reality" in light of the words of others and in light of our experience. I suppose some truth is static enough. 2+2 = 4. But symbolic tautology is an extreme.

We never wake up in the same world twice. We are never the same human being from moment to moment.

I don't deny that some lies stay fresher longer than others.

But is it true that if things work they give us pleasure? And is that the same as asking whether It works that if things work they give us pleasure?

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Truths are lies that work. Lies are truths that don't work.

This seems like an algebra problem.

Truth = lies that work
Lies = truths that don't work


Therefore:

Truth = truths that don't work that work

Lies = lies that work that don't work

the work and don't work cancel each other out:

Truth = truths that don't work that work

Lies = lies that work that don't work

Finally, we arrive at:

Truth = truths

Lies = lies

It's all clearer to me now

[Stansfield]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Truths are lies that work. Lies are truths that don't work.

What does it mean to work? In the end it gives us pleasure. Perhaps it secures us food, builds us a better bomb and makes us feel safer. Perhaps it dazzles our mind. Perhaps it enhances our self-esteem. Perhaps it structures our experience in a pleasant way.

To call truth a lie is to insist on its dynamic nature. The truth changes.

So it is your position that everything you just wrote is not the truth? So why should anyone read it then? Why did you even post it?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Stansfield

So it is your position that everything you just wrote is not the truth? So why should anyone read it then? Why did you even post it?

I guess he is trying to persuade you and me to believe it even it it isn't true. Not very successfully, I fear.

[prothero]

Originally Posted by Reconstructo

Truths are lies that work. Lies are truths that don't work.
To call truth a lie is to insist on its dynamic nature. The truth changes.

I am confused.
What happened to truth as correspondence? or even as coherence, consistency or consensus?
And does the "truth" change, or just our approximation or conception of it change. Is "man the measure of all things"?

[Reconstructo]

Ever read Nietzsche, kids? Ever heard of the sophists? Or did I interrupt the altar boys at their rosary beads.

It's an old old idea. Put into play yet again in the 1880s. And yet again with neo-pragmaticism.

Consensus -- pleasure -- persuasion -- "truth"--

I can't connect the dots for you. But I do enjoy taking on the whole Sunday school class.