A few confusions I had when reading the central definition of “lie” used in this post:
When I say that someone lies, I mean that they have communicated anti-information: information that predictably makes people become more wrong about the world or about what the locutor believes. This includes lies of commission, lies of omission, misdirection, and more.
Predictable by whom, under what circumstances? This makes quite a large difference to the meaning.
Certainly not by the speaker at the time, or it would be impossible to lie inadvertently (which is also a highly non-central use of the word “lie”, just in case you weren’t aware of that).
Certainly not by the listeners, because if they could predict it then they would be able to discount the communication and therefore not become more wrong.
Is it some hypothetical person who knows the true state of the world? I guess that would fit but can’t be applied in practice, and it would be very strange to say the something is “predictable” when nobody in the world could predict it.
Maybe just the speaker, but after receiving additional information? Then it becomes conditional on what information they receive. Maybe just the fact that there exists information that they could receive, that would allow them to predict it? But that’s even worse, because it may depend upon information private to the listener or possibly not known to anyone.
Maybe it’s predictable to the speaker in the presence of information that they already know, but don’t necessarily realize that they know? Or maybe a “jury of their peers” in the sense that the additional information required is generally known or expected to be known? That makes it rather subjective, though, which isn’t ideal.
So no, I’m still not really clear exactly what this definition means in its important highlighted term due to a lack of referent.
A few confusions I had when reading the central definition of “lie” used in this post:
Predictable by whom, under what circumstances? This makes quite a large difference to the meaning.
Certainly not by the speaker at the time, or it would be impossible to lie inadvertently (which is also a highly non-central use of the word “lie”, just in case you weren’t aware of that).
Certainly not by the listeners, because if they could predict it then they would be able to discount the communication and therefore not become more wrong.
Is it some hypothetical person who knows the true state of the world? I guess that would fit but can’t be applied in practice, and it would be very strange to say the something is “predictable” when nobody in the world could predict it.
Maybe just the speaker, but after receiving additional information? Then it becomes conditional on what information they receive. Maybe just the fact that there exists information that they could receive, that would allow them to predict it? But that’s even worse, because it may depend upon information private to the listener or possibly not known to anyone.
Maybe it’s predictable to the speaker in the presence of information that they already know, but don’t necessarily realize that they know? Or maybe a “jury of their peers” in the sense that the additional information required is generally known or expected to be known? That makes it rather subjective, though, which isn’t ideal.
So no, I’m still not really clear exactly what this definition means in its important highlighted term due to a lack of referent.