1. Errol Morris has Part 1 of “Seven Lies About Lying” at the NYT website (registration may be required). I’m not sure I can buy the pedantic distinction between lying and deception, but it’s an interesting stretch of text, illustrated by some hoax-a-licious 19th century posters (for those who were intrigued by last week’s review of The Sun and the Moon).
2. This just in: crows are smart. You know this. I know this. Morlock knows this. Even Aesop knows this and he’s been dead for 2500 years or so, definitely hampering his cognitive faculties. But now the NYT knows this, which makes all the difference, I guess.
3. The Kepler spacecraft has already detected an exoplanet. That a spacecraft designed to detect planets has detected a planet may not seem newsworthy. But I just think it’s cool we have a spacecraft aloft whose job it is to find planets.
very old distinction
between “explicitly saying something false” vs “saying something in a manner that will cause someone to think something is true when it’s false.”
Usually called “lying” vs. “deception” in English. Produces many interesting philosophical discussions.
Re: very old distinction
Well, the thing is that “lie” has a broader meaning, in ordinary usage and in law (to cite two instances) than the merely verbal one they assign to it. A conceptual distinction isn’t always supported by the semantic range of specific words.
Yeah, crows are smart.
Was at a part once with Chinese takeaway. Threw the mostly cleaned out container in plastic bag in bin after finishing, as you do. You know, those rectangular plastic transparent ones with lids.
Crow comes along. Retrieves bag out of rubbish, puts it down. Sets about opening the container by removing the lid so it can polish it off.
The crows thing is casting a long shadow–every day I see a couple more links to it. But that may be due to the Aesop connection and the classically-themed ranges of the blogosphere that I typically roam.