This just seems like a Wittgensteinian Language Game crossed with the Symbol Grounding Problem. It’s not so much that “lying can’t exist” as “it is impossible to distinguish intentional deception from using different symbols”. A person can confidently and truthfully state “two plus two equals duck”—all we need is for “duck” to be their symbol for “four”. They’re not “lying”, or even “wrong” or “incoherent”, their symbols are just different. Those symbols are incompatible with our own, but we don’t “really” disagree. A different person could, alternatively, say “two plus two equals duck” and be intentionally deceiving—but there’s nothing that can be observed about the situation to prove it, just by looking at a transcription of the text. There’s also no way, exclusively through textual conversation, to “prove” that another person is using their symbols in the same way as you! Even kiki-bouba effects aren’t universal—symbols can be arbitrary, once pulled out of their original context. If everyone’s playing their own Language Game, shared maps are illusory—How Can Maps Be Real If Our Words Aren’t Real?
P. rey consistently and unambiguously uses the symbol to mean “mating time”. P. redator consistently and unambiguously uses the symbol to mean “I would like to eat you, please”. Neither, in this language game, is lying to each other, or violating their own norms—but the same behaviour as above happens. Lying is just dependent on reference frame; just because there’s a hole in one map doesn’t open a hole in another. In any given example of “deception”, we can (however artificially) construct a language game where everyone acted honestly. Lying isn’t a part of what we can check on the maps here—it’s an element of territory, in so far as we could only tell if someone was “really lying” if we could make direct neurological observations. Maybe not even then, if that understanding’s some privileged qualia. The only time you can observe a lie with certainty is if you’re the liar, as the only beliefs you can directly observe with confidence are your own.
The territory only contains signals, consequences, and benefits. Lying postulates about intention, which is unverifiable from the outside. That doesn’t make “lying” meaningless, though—we can absolutely lie, and be certain that we lied—so it has meaning, but it’s dependent on reference frame. When two people observe a relativistic object moving at different speeds, they can both provide truthful yet contradictory claims. When each claims the other “lied”, in so far as they have their own evidence and certainty, it’s a consequence of reference frame. Lying is centrifugal force, signals are centripetal. Both can be treated as real when useful for analysis. Hooray for compatibilism!
This just seems like a Wittgensteinian Language Game crossed with the Symbol Grounding Problem. It’s not so much that “lying can’t exist” as “it is impossible to distinguish intentional deception from using different symbols”. A person can confidently and truthfully state “two plus two equals duck”—all we need is for “duck” to be their symbol for “four”. They’re not “lying”, or even “wrong” or “incoherent”, their symbols are just different. Those symbols are incompatible with our own, but we don’t “really” disagree. A different person could, alternatively, say “two plus two equals duck” and be intentionally deceiving—but there’s nothing that can be observed about the situation to prove it, just by looking at a transcription of the text. There’s also no way, exclusively through textual conversation, to “prove” that another person is using their symbols in the same way as you! Even kiki-bouba effects aren’t universal—symbols can be arbitrary, once pulled out of their original context. If everyone’s playing their own Language Game, shared maps are illusory—How Can Maps Be Real If Our Words Aren’t Real?
P. rey consistently and unambiguously uses the symbol to mean “mating time”. P. redator consistently and unambiguously uses the symbol to mean “I would like to eat you, please”. Neither, in this language game, is lying to each other, or violating their own norms—but the same behaviour as above happens. Lying is just dependent on reference frame; just because there’s a hole in one map doesn’t open a hole in another. In any given example of “deception”, we can (however artificially) construct a language game where everyone acted honestly. Lying isn’t a part of what we can check on the maps here—it’s an element of territory, in so far as we could only tell if someone was “really lying” if we could make direct neurological observations. Maybe not even then, if that understanding’s some privileged qualia. The only time you can observe a lie with certainty is if you’re the liar, as the only beliefs you can directly observe with confidence are your own.
The territory only contains signals, consequences, and benefits. Lying postulates about intention, which is unverifiable from the outside. That doesn’t make “lying” meaningless, though—we can absolutely lie, and be certain that we lied—so it has meaning, but it’s dependent on reference frame. When two people observe a relativistic object moving at different speeds, they can both provide truthful yet contradictory claims. When each claims the other “lied”, in so far as they have their own evidence and certainty, it’s a consequence of reference frame. Lying is centrifugal force, signals are centripetal. Both can be treated as real when useful for analysis. Hooray for compatibilism!