True or False?
Opposites do attract and that’s the ideal “marriage” if both are in balance. Homeostasis is necessary but honestly – what are opposites but something on the same spectrum in varying degrees? Heat and cold for example. They are the SAME thing. Just felt differently at varying degrees. It all depends on one’s ad-vantage point or perspective. For example, one can be feel both hot and cold at 32 degrees. The question is what unit of measure [DEFINITION] is being applied? We can feel cold at 32f but hot at 32c. Does the earth spin counterclockwise or clockwise? Well we think it would depend on whether your on the South Pole or the north pole and observing it.
The most common tactic for confusing the truth with a lie is to use words that have multiple meanings which each depend on a DIFFERENT CONTEXT, and then using equivocation to deceive the audience into believing that all contexts are the same. This tactic is a favorite in the U.S. Code and among counsel for the government. Equivocation is a type of logical fallacy. For a summary of all the various types of logical fallacies, see:
Thou Shalt Not Commit Logical Fallacies Poster – great training on how to become resistant to sophistry, such as government propaganda
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
For these reasons, we don’t think its prudent to “swear to tell the truth, the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth” WITHOUT at least defining the terms and the context, because at some level truth and falsity are both the same just at varying degrees and based on the perspective of the observer. This concept is important and finds its way into everything we do at SEDM:
- Whether you PERCEIVE it as true or false depends on your level of knowledge, your presumptions, and the definitions of the terms communicated.
- If you want to ensure the reader can never perceive what you give or tell them as false, you have to include the definitions and the essential premises of those definitions in authoritative form. You don’t need to tell them the whole context for the term, but at least give them the basics.
This is exactly what we do in our Disclaimer and at the beginning of our most important documents as damage control to prevent sophists from abusing us by inventing new definitions or changing the context:
https://sedm.org/disclaimer.htm
If you don’t do this, then your audience may contain a sophist intent on doing you harm. That sophist will maliciously CHOOSE to perceive it falsely by writing their own definition, changing the context, or substituting their malicious presumptions for the truth.
Politicians inherently know this, because when something they say is attacked, they always respond with the following defense:
“What I said was taken out of context.”
Describing the context and the definition IN ADVANCE of speaking about an important subject forestalls any possibility that such a response will even be necessary and completely silences the sophists. More on sophistry at:
An Introduction to Sophistry, Form #12.042
https://sedm.org/an-introduction-to-sophistry/
The bible says the same thing!
“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men [or sophists, who want to APPEAR wise but in fact are FOOLISH by God’s standards]”
[1 Peter 2:15, Bible, NKJV]“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their own craftiness”;”
[1 Cor. 3:19, Bible, NKJV]
George Carlin, a now deceased comedian, made a business out of making FUN of politicians who deceive by the above methods. Here is his BEST example of this:
More on political and legal deception at:
- William Lutz: “Doublespeak”
https://sedm.org/william-lutz-doublespeak/ - Legal Deception, Propaganda, and Fraud, Form #05.014
https://sedm.org/Forms/05-MemLaw/LegalDecPropFraud.pdf