Michael Madsen - A Liar : An Adventure to The World of Liars (FRESH MAN)

A Liar

An Adventure to The World of Liars

Michael Madsen

content

Chapter

Christopher: I am a creator, creating a TV show that is popular with everyone. Truman: Then who am I?

Christopher: You are the star of that show. Truman: So everything is fake?

Christopher: You are real, that's why so many people look at you. Listen to my advice, the outside world is as false as the world I gave you, with the same lies, the same fraud...

The above dialogue comes from the dialogue between Truman and Christopher at the last moment in the movie "Trumen's World". The protagonist of the movie, Truman, has been the protagonist of a large-scale reality show since his birth. There are thousands of cameras facing him every second of his life. Everyone around him is an actor, including his best friend, My favorite wife...Everyone is trying to conceal the truth of the matter, weaving almost perfect lies in a virtual world. After Truman learned of all this, he determined to escape this false world at all costs, which also meant that he would leave his original familiar and comfortable life. However, as the director and producer of the show, Christopher tried his best to stop it, so the above dialogue took place.

As the dialogue said, Truman's world is fake, but Truman is real. Each of us is Truman. The world we live in is indeed the same as that created by Christopher, there is no lack of lies and fraud. But just as the movie ending Truman resolutely walked out of the set false world and stepped into the real world, humans have never stopped the pace of identifying lies and searching for the truth.

Lying and knowing lies are not only the subject of many movies, but also have always been of interest to psychologists. Psychologists have conducted a lot of research, trying to understand how people lie, and how to recognize lies.

When it comes to lying, everyone seems to be familiar with it, but do you really understand lying?

"During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Fan clan of Jin Kingdom was defeated by four other nobles and led to Qi. A thief saw that Fan clan had a beautiful clock and wanted to steal it, but the bell was heavy and big, so he fetched iron. The hammer tried to break it and stole it, but the bell sounded loudly. He hurriedly covered his ears with his hands, and found that the bell was diminished. He thought that as long as he covered his ears, he could prevent others from hearing it, so he covered his ears. Continue to smash the bell, and people heard the bell and swarmed to catch the thief." This story of stealing the bell and stealing the bell depicts a typical self-deception.

In the fairy tale "The Emperor's New Clothes", the vanity-loving and incompetent emperor is also a self-deceiver. When all the people pointed out that "he really didn't wear any clothes", he felt that what the people said might be true, but for the sake of his own face, he had to put on a arrogant look and let the parade go on. The laughingstock of the world.

Self-deception in daily life also abounds. Social psychology research has found that human beings have "self-service bias". We usually view ourselves from a good perspective, attribute good results to internal factors, and attribute bad results to external factors. For example, most drivers, even most drivers who have been hospitalized in a car accident, think that they are safer and more pro icient in driving than the average driver, and they always say, "I dont know where to get out of a car and hit me in a traf ic accident." NS". So is self-deception like this in daily life a lie?

The researcher's answer is no. Paul Ekman, the protagonist prototype in the once-popular American drama " Lie to Me " and an earlier researcher on lying, believes that lying must be intentional. That is, lying is an intentional behavior of an individual. Individuals often do not realize that the above-mentioned biased perception of self- interest and image is actually self-deception, so self-deception is not a lie. See Chapter 9 for details about self- deception.

According to the intentional characteristics of lying, lies can be distinguished from lies. A lie is not necessarily a lie. The liar may provide true information, but the intention is to lie; the lie is not necessarily a lie. The honest person may also provide false information due to memory or behavior errors, or unconsciously The ground suppresses the real information, but has no intention of lying.

David Copper ield is one of today's greatest magic masters. He used extraordinary imagination to complete amazing magic shows again and again. He once transformed a 7-ton jet plane in front of millions of spectators, made the American Statue of Liberty disappear in front of tens of millions of spectators on the scene and in front of the TV, and allowed himself to loat in the air in the Grand Canyon of Colorado. Walking, crossing the Great Wall of China, etc. So, is David Copper ield lying every time in his magic show? Paul Ekman believes that lying still needs to be unwarranted, that is, the person who lies does not know the lying beforehand. The spectators of the magic show look forward to and enjoy the surprises brought by magic. They know and are willing to be "lied", so magic is not a lie.

From ancient times to the present, the use of soldiers in wars has been true and false, false and true, concealing oneself, and confusing the enemy, the so-called "soldier's tricks, surprising victory." The thirty-six strategies in "The Art of War" mostly describe military deception tactics, such as emptying the city, turning the tiger away from the mountain, concealing the sky, leaving the house behind the scenes, and wanting to capture it. Fraud in military activities is intentional and without warning, so it is a lie.

Although researchers generally agree that lying needs to have the characteristics of intentional and unwarning, but according to the purpose of their respective research, the de inition of lying is still slightly different. Jaume Masip and others believe that it does not make much sense to list the different de initions of lying given by different researchers, but it is crucial to extract some common elements from many de initions. So what are the elements of lying? Before answering this question, lets review the story of Aesops Fable "The Wolf Is Coming":

Once upon a time, there was a sheep-herding baby who went to the mountains to herd sheep every day.

One day, he felt very boring, so he thought of an idea to make fun of everyone. He shouted to the farmers who were farming at the foot of the mountain: "The wolf is coming! The wolf is coming! Help!" The farmers hurried up the mountain when they heard the shout, but they rushed to the mountain panting and found that there was no shadow of the wolf. ! Sheeping Wahaha laughed: "You are fooled!" The farmers left angrily.

The next day, the old trick of herding the sheep was repeated, and the kind farmers were fooled again.

After a few days, the wolf really came. The Sheep Baby desperately called for help to the farmer down the mountain, but the farmers thought he was lying again, and no one helped him. As a result, many sheep were killed by wolves.

This well-known story for women and children focuses on explaining the dangers of lying, but it also shows that the lying behavior of the sheep herding baby has the following three elements at the same time: the intention element-