Is it possible to lie telepathically?

In a world where people can feel each other's thoughts and emotions, is it possible to lie? Is it possible to think something different from what you really think? It doesn't make sense...

When you lie in spoken language, you are aware that what you are saying is different from the truth. The process of forming a lie involves thinking: trying to make it sound plausible, avoiding the truth, even thinking about what you don't want to say. The only explanation I can think of is a natural instinct to say something, in which case you would think it before thinking about what you are thinking.

In this case however, it is not truly a lie, right?

The form of telepathy I envision is one where people can sense every thought, feeling, and process going on in your head. Everything that happens in your mind which you are aware of, other people are also aware of it.

If a civilisation such as this existed, would lying even be possible and how would it work?

Here are two plausible answers:

1: Making yourself believe something enough that you appear to be telling the truth. This would only work if after lying you can recover knowledge that it was in fact a lie, otherwise you are misleading yourself as well as the party being lied to. Possibly, training yourself not to think about the fact you made yourself believe something.

2: Misinterpretation. Saying part of the truth, but not the whole truth. This way, the other person/people may interpret your thoughts in a different way. This can be used to mislead others, while all the time what you appear sincere. This would only work if you don't think about the things you are missing out.

Both of these have disadvantages which need to be covered before you can successfully lie to another.

posted about 8 years ago

Aric‭

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