Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I explore another aspect of logical implication and how lying permits people to construct all sorts of crazy stories.

Background: If logical implication makes no sense to you, and it made no sense to me for years, I point to two prior blog posts that I hope will help you understand this odd logic. Here is one. Here is the second. Also, here are two Wikipedia pages that may help. One. Another one.

And now, here we go…

It is a terrible thing for a public official or a spokesperson for a public agency to lie. The lie is FALSE. Logical implication then permits members of the public to create crazy stories which are also FALSE. Such things allow people to link the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations and claim that the World Trade Center events of 9/11 were performed by the US government in an effort to…

World Trade Center? Sure, some false statements were issued by government spokespersons. It doesn’t matter what the statements were or how false they were, if the spokesperson said anything that was incorrect (FALSE), logical implication leads to stories of extra terrestrials doing the destruction (FALSE).

The silliness or foolishness is important. A spokesperson doesn’t have to lie about something. They merely have to say something that is FALSE. That something could be tiny. That something could be an honest mistake. The FALSE statement leads to much greater FALSE stories.

One lie allows the creation of a much greater, much different lie.

Public officials must be honest. Lies lead to mistrust which leads to any sort of wild, fantastic theories about what is coming next. The public distrusting public officials is a horrible thing for a country or city or neighborhood.

Perhaps I am naive. Perhaps everyone expects public officials to stretch the truth.

But then, perhaps we need to start over and be honest from now on.

Please.