Thread: Can deception be Good?

This topic is for the sake of discussion, please feel more than free(doubleplusfree) to share your opinion(there is no opinion, and there is no no for that matter, there is only minustruth 8) )

I'm tired and discussions have been lacking

.....

So here is a list of common things that may or may not be forms of deception, practiced both on oneself and on others.

Religion: Is it useful to think your being watched? Judged? Loved? Forgiven? Tested? Assuming these things are not true. When you know your being observed it changes you psychologically(I'll find a source if anyone contests this, just don't have one on hand) It makes you more efficient, could this effect be gotten by thinking you are being observed if it was actually believed? It might also help make you more courageous, but you could argue semantics and say that this is feign-courage, but you could also argue effectiveness and say that it helps you accomplish a goal... but then you could argue it might hinder you in future goals, such as those that require objective reasoning.

Atheism: Assuming there is a God, could it be useful to ignore God? I have opinion on this I'll share if/when someone questions this. For now, maybe God doesn't want to be bothered or noticed? Maybe God just contemplates as Aristotle says, in which case we shouldn't bother God at all, even in thought, but then again, in a state of pure contemplation can anything really bother you?

Prophecy: Is it useful to put stake into possibilities like "the world coming to an end?" Assuming it isn't, but if it was coming to an end, could it be useful in thinking that it wasn't?

Conspiracy: Even if there are no secret societies in charge of the world, is there a useful purpose to think there are?

Self Help: It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does. You can argue that the self help didn't do anything that the person couldn't do on their own, but then again, THAT isn't the deception, after all, it is called SELF help. "This thread has a purpose, this thread has a purpose, this thread has a purpose" "It's going to attract lots of interest and cause a chain reaction of interesting posts, It's going to attract lots of interest and cause a chain reaction of interesting posts, It's going to attract lots of interest and cause a chain reaction of interesting posts." we'll see

Psychiatry: In the same field as self help, except there is at least SOME rather convincing circumstantial evidence that goes into psychiatry.

Leadership Training: In the same field as the two above, but leadership training is endorsed by military, super rich corporations as well as spiritual and political leaders... there must be some truth to it, but again, you don't change at all, a different part of you is brought out, and/or you learn to use your different parts in a different way... leadership itself can be seen as a deception in some of it's forms, you really are not leading you are giving the impression of leadership and so people follow you and the cards fall into place... this might be the exception and not the rule, but it still inevitably occurs, people are thirsty for leadership. Something as little as standing tall with your chest out makes people respect you more, so long as you don't over do it.

Entertainment
Propaganda
Ego/Personality: YOU know who YOU are!

Meatless hot-dogs: not deception for everyone, but SOMEONE out there is fooling themselves... then again maybe "curd tubes" didn't sell so well

Masturbation: This ISN'T deception on it's own, but it tends to work better when it is



My main concern with self deception is the anxiety it can create. For example thinking there is a God(assuming there is not) can create a lot of anxiety for someone, depending on the nature of that God and the individuals relationship with the God.

Mastubation is deception. You are decieving your brain into thinking something is happening, when it really isn't. HAD to throw that one out there... Sorry...

P.S. can be very fun though.

also, (taking the counter example) one can deceive themselves into believing that there is no God when there really is. (no way to know for sure, after all) That can bread depression as one thinks of non-existence after they die, and can lead to apathy, and, possibly, eventually suicide. self delusion can be extremely detrimental to ones heath, potentially.

Did you ask yourself the gain, of asking, if delusion/illusion has a gain itself, by asking the question and hearing the opinions from others. Did you notice that you're deluding yourself by your own curiousity, while being partially aware of the thing you speak of?

No seriously, ask yourself a question and analyse it till you think; Life is "Your definition here". The longer you think about it the more deluded you are.

I don't believe i can comprehend the universe without another perspective.

This is more a question for psychology than philosophy and I think psychologists have already documented cases where the mind creates delusions in response to extreme trauma as a way of coping and thus surviving.

Here is a question in relation to deception, for psychology, philosophy and intelligent appraisal.

Could there possibly be a case for maybe the greatest deception of all time; strangely enough involving the most amazing conspiratorial protagonists of our universe? Big statements you say? Perhaps, yet please weigh the following 'details' in the balances of probability.

Imagine we were all born into a world where there was no blue sky, but only clouds overhead - day after day, which has also been the state of things for our parents back (say) 5 generations. In such a hypothesis, we would have long forgotten that there was any other possibility to what we wake up to every morning, so likely would have ceased asking any questions about it.

Now whilst it is true that someone might come up to us and proclaim that at some time in the past, the sky looked very different, as blue and clean; nevertheless it would easily be dismissed as mythical conjecture, for the overriding physical observation would be such an extremely powerful thing to our mentality, that we would only be able to assess our world and the possibilities of ourselves via a generated 'default' belief system - that only clouds overhead was a possibility.

The above hypothetical scenario (of a physical nature) may seem obvious enough yet unlikely to have a parallel reality - in the physical. However I would contend that there is a very significant spiritual parallel, such that we have forgotten there exists a question, much less an answer. Strangely enough, this 'spiritual' observation (if indeed a reality) is the result of an amazing web of supposedly spiritual conspiracists - otherwise known and respected as 'religion'.

It would seem that for at least thousands of years, every culture has had some varying concept of ‘God’, by whatever name it employs at any time, and the place to go in the respective culture in order to discover the local ‘God’ would, naturally be the local religious leader/s. Everyone in the respective locale would then fall into one of two baskets – either
1. Believing in the local ‘God’ or ‘Gods’, or;
2. Not a believer.

However I would suggest that in the above, via our human default setting, everyone is a believer whether they like it or not; unless they have managed to come up with a plausible BETTER alternative; which would necessarily be some(thing) that the charge of an alternative ‘God’ could not rightly be levelled at. Yet even with such a concept under his belt, the weight of public accordance would likely see him eventually buckle; and the clouds would again fill the only void that had opened up for a few minutes.

It is my suspicion that we have all been subject to a generalised ‘default setting’ all our lives. For terms such as ‘God’ (by any variation) and 'spiritual' have become concepts so deeply rooted in our culture via ancestral heritage that we have forgotten to ask if there is an alternative to the continuing cloud cover – until Charles Darwin entered our thinking process.

So has Darwin really provided a plausible alternative to the millenium old prevailing religious default setting cloud cover?

I do not wish to enter into a discussion re. Darwinism and evolution vs 'God'; even so, the staunchest Darwinist still retains a general concept of ‘God’ – despite their rejection of their peculiarly cultural ‘Him’, which may well be an all powerful old guy sitting high up in the sky, hidden from our eyes in some manner – perhaps behind the continual cloud cover overhead.

So what is the point of all this conjecture? ‘God’ by whatever title, necessarily has for all known developments; some level of physical component. Most religions will proclaim ‘Him’ to be ‘spiritual’, yet cannot explain why ‘He’ also seems to have some physical aspect. And more essentially, what is all this religious 'spiritual' anyways?

The most ardent evolutionist/Darwinist would have to concede that intelligence is responsible for anything of worth eventuating. Even the ink in his pen was intelligently ‘imagined’ prior to its development. So can we truly entertain the concept that the non-physical reality of intelligence, being the fundamental building block it is, originally emerging from out of some primordial physical thing entirely devoid of intelligence? For mine, such a concept is laughable in the extreme.

Fundamentally, if the physical environment we know, is in every dimension subject to some level of (non-physical) intelligence, then how could it also be possible for this same (non-physical) intelligence to be ultimately subject to the physical? Surely our deception is profound if we determine to have it both ways.

In any case, can it be at all possible that we have become so used to a relentless societal cloud cover generously provided by religion, that we can only now relate to any concepts such as ‘spirit’, ‘spiritual’ etc. via an overall drenching of such? If so, can we even entertain the notion of imagining our world without such a cloud cover – indeed, can we imagine a clean blue sky again?

For mine, the religions of our world have hijacked Biblical terms such as 'spirit' and managed to transform them into some kind of esoteric default setting 'unknowable', such that we have forgotten that there so much as exists a question in this regard. For it is my contention that we have been forever looking at 'spirit' without recognising that it is the very same highly KNOWABLE commodity, for which we have been using (at least one) alternative empiric scientific term.

Responding to Ravendell's post(please excuse the double posting, using the quote button is a bit tedius)

"Did you ask yourself the gain, of asking, if delusion/illusion has a gain itself, by asking the question and hearing the opinions from others."
No. I also didn't ask myself the gain of asking myself the same thing. I'm more of an act cautiously first ask bluntly later, apologize and learn from my mistakes, sorta guy.

"Did you notice that you're deluding yourself by your own curiousity, while being partially aware of the thing you speak of?"

No, but since you brought it up: Do you think you can choose to not be deluded?

It seems to be inevitable. The older you get the more habits you develop, this is why education focuses on children. The only influence you have is over what those habits are. If your deluding makes you less knowledgeable and more observant, or more knowledgeable and less observant, I will choose this second option any day and let other people more able to, to collect knowledge. I'm much more fit to ask questions and wonder than I am to remember and organize information. Chances are I have already learned the answer to most of the things I ask, but i also wonder if the same can't be said for most people. It really does seem that we collect and organize false information rather than ask and wonder.

"No seriously, ask yourself a question and analyse it till you think; Life is "Your definition here". The longer you think about it the more deluded you are."

Are you suggesting that I delude myself? Either way, no thanks. I have always thought "life is life" and by your definition this deludes me the second least, the first least would be "life is" and a much more deluded but logical answer would be "life is the effect of chemical reactions in a suitable environment"

How the second answer, developed with the least bit of analysis, is any less deluding than this third answer, developed with quite a bit of prior analysis, is beyond me.

"I don't believe i can comprehend the universe without another perspective."
I don't believe that you can comprehend any other perspective without another perspective.

Perspective is deluding. Beware of strength.

Further to my previous post.

When we look at terms such as 'spirit' or 'spiritual', is it completely out of the realms of possibility that such scriptural concepts, first penned as they were thousands of years ago, could have been referring to observations of things entirely knowable at that time and ever since, and that the religious march through the milleniums since, has progressively succeeded in closing our eyes to the abundant realities on offer?

Please understand I am aware of how such an observation might be sounding right now, especially to anyone (like myself) who comes from a 'churchy' influence. Even so, consider the possibilities if the (scriptural) realm of 'spiritual' has never been anything more removed and ethereal than than those things we all well know and understand - things which have no physical properties whatsoever, such as 'energy', 'thought' and 'emotion'.

For mine, if the above question emerges as fact, we could be looking at the world we know becoming an infinitely simpler place.

Indeed Reject, that is a possibility.

It is also a possibility that modern religion is true and perfect, but individuals in those religions are not.

There are many possibilities. It is also a possibility that looking for answers is contrary to finding them.

Sorry Marcus, I fail to see how looking for an answer is contrary to finding it, unless of course we have forgotten (or fail for some reason) to realise what is the real question under investigation.

For it would seem to me that, perhaps for a variety of reasons, many people are asking the wrong questions. Which may just mean that they will invariably arrive at a solution which by definition may present as reasonable enough, yet lacks harmony with the realities.

Now, if you would indulge me; which variety of the millions of 'modern religions' on offer - might I regard is 'true and perfect'?

Well, the thing about being true and perfect, is that we don't need to regard them or even recognize them as such unless our powers of judgment and/or observation are perfect, which they do not seem to be. If there are such things that are true and perfect, who is to say we would recognize them? We ultimately decide what we consider true and perfect, or we decide to accept whatever it happens to be.

Is it more true to decide and possibly be wrong? Or is it more true to accept whatever is right but in doing so preventing yourself from knowing?

The conundrum is that if you answer yes to A you have a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong, if you answer yes to B you are guaranteed wrong. If you actually believed B, you would not answer or think either way, and then you could not be wrong.

What things seem to be, seems to be wrong.

I notice that you avoided my query regarding the 'true and perfect' religion.

Is it more true to decide and possibly be wrong? Or is it more true to accept whatever is right but in doing so preventing yourself from knowing?

Again I apologise, for I lack insight into how anyone can accept what is right, but end up without knowledge, unless they have no inclination in intelligently understanding why it is correct - which would be a sad thing to observe. On the other hand, this could well present as the condition of the religionist, which I suspect may be the direction of your drive.

In any case, I think you would have to qualify your definition of 'true'.

We ultimately decide what we consider true and perfect, or we decide to accept whatever it happens to be.

Accepting something is not exactly the same as understanding it. I would personally much rather understand via intelligent appraisal than to accrept via some emotional resonance - at the time.

There is a rock song doing the rounds right now, which has a couple of impressive lines in it such; "We choose what we see, and we see what we choose to believe", which to me is in a nutshell, the condition in which we all find ourselves, being a fundamental observation that our decisions are almost entirely founded in only one of the two spiritual halves of 'me' - my emotions, despite 'my' earnest protestations at such a statement. Such a condition will (and has) invariably lead us around in ever decreasing emotional circles, ever lacking insight into the 'true' - as only being sourced via the intellect.