When the scientist complained that just about everything he knew to be true was not, he heard his mind sing, “When the truth is found—duh-duh—to be-e-e-e-e lies!”
“I only said that it wasn’t true, not that it was a lie,” the scientist corrected his mind.
“Sorry,” his mind replied, “but you do know that it was a lie, don’t you?“
“Lie, schmie, who cares?”
“You do, but apparently you don’t know it yet.”
What the scientist did know was this interchange with whatever it was he kept calling his “mind” could go on and on—and on—and on and on and on and on and on and so he put an end to it by saying, “And with that we move on to the confused conclusion of the last sentence of our story.”
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Denise offers the prompt word “move” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
In the 19th century logicians simulated, and thereby simplified, the real world understanding of truth by assigning true/false (one/zero) values to logical connectives in truth tables. Although this was ingenious, the ancient liar paradox remained to haunt the simulation.
The liar paradox gets started by assuming the existence of a Liar who always lies. It immediately reaches its punchline by having that Liar assert as true: This statement is false.
What was forgotten in modern attempts to sanitize the liar was that a truth table only discerns between true and false, one and zero, not between truth and lie. The real world ethical understanding of truth gets covered by a coat of white paint in modern logic. Even in the ancient paradox, the ethical problem got a white-wash as well because a real world deceiver is worse than this hypothetical Liar. A real world deceiver is even more deceptive because he doesn’t always lie.
There’s an older story than the Greek one about the Liar. In Genesis 3, we read about the first deception with death being its real world consequence.
There are many today who see themselves as too “rational” to believe that the deception and fall as mentioned in Genesis 3 actually happened. I suspect that their belief in modern rationality has led them to prefer reality white-washed into truth tables containing only ones and zeros. With a truth table it is easy to forget that a falsehood is the word of a lying deceiver. Speaking such deception is an act of evil, not just a zero in a computer program.
A solution to the Liar paradox would be to reject the Liar without taking seriously anything he had to say. This is what people do in the real world. When they hear lies, they reject the liars. They don’t fret about the English language’s ability to express garbage. People are free to lie. The structure of language itself doesn’t stop them.
If falsehood is a lying deception, what then is truth? The truth has been white-washed as well. We find it easier today to think of truth as an “it”. But if one wants to recover the real world significance of falsehood as deception, as I do, then truth would have to be ethical as well.
Only a living person can be ethical. Only an ethical person can show others through His true words the way to life. Such a Person could be seen as being the truth.
Ezekiel 37:1-10 KJV 1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which [was] full of bones, 2 And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, [there were] very many in the open valley; and, lo, [they were] very dry. 3 And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. 4 Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. 5 Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: 6 And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I [am] the LORD. 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. 8 And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but [there was] no breath in them. 9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.
I was aware that soft tissue had been found in dinosaur fossils.
What I didn’t realize until watching this 11 minute video is that soft tissue has now been found all over the fossil record including tissue from a worm that allegedly lived over half a billion years ago.
What can I conclude from this?
Well, for one thing, when I told my aunt decades ago that chickens came from dinosaurs, I was wrong. The only things that come from dinosaurs are more dinosaurs.
Another conclusion I can safely make is that the earth isn’t anywhere near as old as “scientists” claim it to be.
Alice wandered through the weeds crediting strange flowers as a source of strength. Regardless, and in spite of appearances, she also trusted that miraculous Light she had grown to long for Who guided her with His caressing warmth and His disciplining heart every time she strayed.
Given all the detours and deceptions she had entertained, as she approached her journey’s end she wondered how she would be received. Would anyone be there to greet her whom she knew over the years? How many allowed themselves to be caught in the quicksand having grown faint along the way?
When Alice finally arrived she found everyone she could now remember waiting for her rejoicing that even she, indeed miraculously even they, made it home.
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Denise offers the prompt word “faint” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 