Should One Lie?
Like every other yes or no question a
person can only provide one answer, that is, either yes or no.
NO
Plenty people would probably rush in and say NO, one should
never lie. They may say, ‘it is bad.’ Many of the people who say this actually
do not mean it to the bone. They just do not want to be seen as immoral. They
are trying to protect their fictional pride brought about by their fictional
importance to society.
There are two major reasons why
people say that one should never lie, they are:
1. Moral reason:
Many people view lying as an immoral act. But ‘morals’ is a flexible variable
subject to location. What is immoral in one place may be moral in another. For
example, in Nigeria and some other countries having pre-marital sex is considered
an immoral act, although even the people who condemn others, do/did it themselves
while in the United States of America and some other countries, pre-marital sex
is encouraged by doctors and even parents most of the time.
There is no encyclopedia for what is
moral and what is immoral. Killing, stealing, raping, and other actions which
many people may see as immoral is viewed otherwise by many others.
Plenty brilliant philosophers in
history have stated clearly that morals can be damned. Many Philosophers and
great minds have pointed out that a person’s goal should be the motivator for
action or inaction, not the moral status of an action in a location.
2. Religious reason: many popular religions condemn lying. They portray it as an unholy act.
This is completely understandable and
justifiable. In a world with multiple religions and constant questioning of the
being or beings greater than humans, no wise person would want to be a part of
a religion that supports lying. That means the fundamentals of such a religion
may as well be a lie.
Many religions are very strict about
their no lying policy, for example, Christianity. In Christianity, “Do not
lie,” is one of the Ten Commandments which humans must obey, failure of which
will lead an assailant to spend a very long time in Hell fire.
In the world today, circularity is a
fundamental part of civilization. Freedom of Religion is one of the factors
that are supposed to provide peace in a democratic society. For this reason, it
would be inaccurate to condemn the act of lying, just because your religion
says so. Not everyone lives by the same doctrines as you do and not everyone
believes in your God, as is their legal right.
YES
Many people believe that lying is warranted in plenty
occasions and embarking on a ‘No Lie’ life is a hypocritical unachievable goal.
Many people also believe that lying is a fundamental part of becoming
successful in life.
THE TRUTH
ABOUT LYING
Before
reading this section, I have to insist that you give this your full attention.
Human
brain is an independent being
Humans are Robots that can alter
their own programing. Robots have sensors that collect data which they can
diagnose and respond to. The program of a Robot specifies the output to be
giving for every kind of sensed input.
Like Robots humans
collect data from their sense organs (input devices), analyze the data and
react either by action or inaction to the data received.
The decision on how to
react is made by a human’s brain far long before his body actually responds.
I/O (Input-Output) relationship of a
Robot is linear and unidirectional
Input Devices Processor Output Devices
While that
of humans is cyclic
Brain
Sense Organs Output devices (Other
human body parts)
This means
that whatever you say would be heard by your ear and analyzed by your brain.
Most of the data noted by our senses
and analyzed by our brain produces no reaction. The brain just stores the
analyzed data and uses it for more analysis. For example, what is the colour of
your room floor? or how long is your bed? When asked these questions, you can
answer them easily and correctly but you may have never consciously noted these
things. Your brain noted them for you.
This does not only apply to things
that you have seen repetitively. If I meet you for the first time and I say,
“Hello. My name is Stroller.” Say, for a brief milli second, you noticed that I
am tall and muscular and say, “Hi. My name is Teriza.” After that instant, you
may think nothing of our conference but the night of that same day, if you are
to have a conversation or think about the activities of a tall and muscular
black man, your brain would use an image of me for analysis. Your friend may
say, “All tall black dudes are violent” but you will strongly believe that not
all tall and muscular black boys are violent because unknowing to you, your
brain is using me as a case study.
It
has been established that the human brain is a very independent being. The human
brain would give a man all he asks of it from its library, men just do not ask
the right questions.
Lying Makes
a Human Being Dumber.
The human brain is extremely fast in
its operations but doubt slows it down. When you hold a pen and identify it as
a pen, you can do so because you have seen it many times and with each time of
seeing it, you become more certain that it is a pen.
Everything a human being has ever
sensed is always stored in his brain, yet we forget. This is because of doubt.
For example, if I take Tiana to Afe Babalola’s University’s Robotics laboratory
and show her a 3-D printer, her brain would store that image as 3-D printer.
Few weeks later, if I take her back to the lab and ask her to identify the 3-D
printer, here is what would happen. When she does a quick scan of the room, her
brain will instantly identify the 3-D printer. Her subconscious will
continuously reject the answer given to her by her brain because she believes
that she cannot remember. The more she focuses, the more she would
subconsciously dwell on the false fact that she cannot remember. Because of
this, she will not be able to remember. She may not even have a little hint as
to how it looks like. If she has a hint or remembers a little about the 3-D
printer, she doubted a little less. If she remembers vividly, then she trusted
her brain completely.
From the example, it is underline
that doubt whether on a subconscious level or otherwise makes us give wrong
answers to question. It is also noted that the brain constantly asks itself
questions about every thought a human has and answers these questions based on
the degree of trust a human put on the positive and negative answer to a posed
question. Examples of questions the brain asks itself are:
1. Is that a phone?
2. I’m I smart enough to understand it?
3. I’m I fast enough to run that
distance?
4. I’m I strong enough to do one more
press up?
Negative TOPIC Positive
Every time human being
lies, his/her ears receive the data and his brain crosschecks it with the data
it already has on that topic. This thus reduces the degree of positivity of the
previously possessed data by an infinitesimal degree. The more you lie about
that topic, the more your brain questions the data it has on that topic and all
data brought by the ear. This is why liars will never believe someone telling
them the truth. Their brain has received too many lies from their mouth and
then from their ear that it does not trust their ear any longer. This is why
the human senses cannot be completely trusted but the brain never lies.
The continuous lying
would continuously increase the doubt the brain has for the human senses. This
would make the brain slow to respond and the human would be dumb. He would not
be able to answer simple questions as easily as he used to.
As the lie gets too much, the human’s
brain would no longer trust itself. At this stage, the human is close to
complete retardation.
Conclusively, lying
makes a human being dumber.
NOTE: DO NOT SAY TO YOURSELF,
‘I LIE ALL THE TIME, YET I AM NOT DUMB. I HAVE A FIRST CLASS GPA OR OTHERWISE.
IF YOU ARE A FREQUENT LIAR, YOU ARE DEFINITELY NOT AS SMART AS YOU SHOULD HAVE
BEEN.’
By
Blessing Edirin (@StrollerSyto on twitter)
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