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http://mustbefunny.org/tff.htm
TRUE, FALSE OR FUNNY?
Getting your way with triple logic.
by Derek Brownlee
As published in ETC.: A Review of General Semantics,
a quarterly published by the International Society for General Semantics
Vol. 45, No. 2, Summer 1988. Copyright © 1988 by ISGS, republished by permission
"The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe." --George Bernard Shaw.
We used to think that two logic values, true and false, would take us and our computers anywhere. We weren't even close. In fact, differing points of view and lies presented as truth make true-false a four-value system that cannot be resolved by any scientific method.
TRUE FALSE
0 0 meaningless
0 1 lie
1 0 truth
1 1 paradox, dilemma and conflict.
To escape from the dilemmas of false truth we must introduce a third variable, humor, as suggested by William E. Hawk ("An Official Fool for the White House," Et cetera, Summer 1987). The third variable increases the possibilities to eight:
TRUE FALSE FUNNY
0 0 0 Null reaction, meaningless.
0 0 1 Funny but meaningless, childish.
0 1 0 Serious lies, authoritarian.
0 1 1 Errors, jokes, the lie exposed.
1 0 0 Serious truth, belief, science.
1 0 1 True and funny, new truth, aha!
1 1 0 Paradox, dilemma and conflict.
1 1 1 Freedom from belief, hilarious ambiguity.
If we look at the three lines for true, false and funny by themselves we find the kind of personality that goes with each of these logic variables:
TRUE FALSE FUNNY
0 0 1 Funny but meaningless CHILD
0 1 0 Serious lies AUTHORITARIAN
1 0 0 Serious truth, belief SCIENTIST
This trio looks somewhat familiar. It forms a complete psychological system corresponding to the three components of the personality, per Freudian or Transactional Analysis:
PARENT superego source of LIES
ADULT ego source of TRUTH
CHILD id source of FUN
For the archetypal Parent something is true "because I say it is." The Parental worldview is held together with emotion, much stronger than reason.
The third variable, humor, is more powerful yet. Mark Twain said humor was the most powerful force for change in the world. That is why the Parent, in the pure form of the army drill instructor, will not tolerate it. We cannot just expose the lie (false-funny). We have to be more devious and look to the last line of the true-false-funny table, which includes the rich territory of the hoax and the con.
Truth, Lies and Secrets
Information has value and is a commodity that can be produced, traded, and concealed from others. In the last case it is a secret. Making information scarce raises its value.
Misinformation can also be generated to confuse competitors and conceal secrets, and the games that can be played with true-false logic are both sophisticated and familiar. Espionage and double-agentry are staples of our entertainment and a serious occupational specialty in our world.
Introducing humor may be essential to sanity in a truthless environment. False and funny turns all the lies into jokes, making them easier to tolerate and harder to believe. But humor could be a problem when presenting one's own lies. Adding humor to a lie negates it. What's the jovial spy to do? Get serious all of a sudden? What a giveaway!
What if we add humor to a truth? Aha! Humor negates truth also. Humor makes truth look just like a false-funny joke. The recipient may actually believe what we're saying for a moment, but will never make that mistake again. Instead there is a great joke to pass along. This truth, by entering the culture as a joke and a lie, is both proliferated and protected. The information is kept secret by broadcasting it everywhere.
The Republic of Zwongo has announced its intention of annexing Wall Street on a certain date, as a promotional event for its cut-glass exports. Zwongan secret agents, poised to execute the coup, are coordinated through the daily schedule published in the newspapers and PR handouts. Film crews have been lined up for all the most sensitive operations. The filming demonstrates (1) that nothing is happening--it's only a movie and (2) that the coup really did happen--as everybody can see on the evening news. Triple logic reaches its full flower in having it both ways.
Adding humor is how to get a truth past the Parent, and our contemporaries in authoritarian lands may have more experience in this art. The deception itself is funny to the perpetrators, who can laugh along with the victims but for a different reason. And telling the truth is the easiest story to produce. To camouflage it, just embed it in regular false-funny jokes.
How humorless and dull it would be to live in a land of total truth. Fortunately there is a natural mechanism to restore lies, especially among the devotees of ultimate truth:
Some people came and listened to him and understood, and left. Others came and listened and did not understand and stayed. --Alan Watts on Gurdjieff.
Unnatural behavior requires strong beliefs. Hence the strongest religions have been the least natural. --Edward De Bono, The Happiness Purpose,1977.
All of the true things I am about to tell you are shameless lies. Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either. --Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 1963.
Could it be that our fundamental beliefs rest on a foundation of error? More bluntly, are we all crazy? This dreadful possibility has been broached by a few brave souls such as Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller. Heller's Catch-22 is a classic exploration of paradox and humor and sanity in the insane environment of war, with characters occupying every part of the triple logic diagram. But such questioning of our sanity can appear only as a joke, as a premise for a comic novel.
Entertainment
Humor has more entertainment value than truth or lies. It makes more money. The biggest money-maker is Bill Cosby, and Peanuts and Garfield are not far behind. Humor depends on the conflict of truth and lies for its material. The bigger the dilemma, the bigger the joke that can be made of it. Long live lies.
If humor exposes lies and sneaks truth in through the back door, it is to be welcomed as a tool to improve our knowledge, maybe even promote real change. But we know what the real importance of humor is: it makes us laugh.
Can triple logic improve on the comedy formulas now in use? That is the vital issue facing this baby twig on the tree of mathematics.
You think I jest? Let's look at the last paragraph. Is it true, false or funny?
The statement is true for those moved by sensation or profit. It is a false-funny joke to those of more intellectual bent, who can laugh at it and look for more serious applications: How can triple logic expand our thinking, improve our communication or cast light on our psychology? On the other hand, our culture selects new ideas with regard to their sensation and profit. Such considerations may indeed be vital to the success and longevity of any new concept.
The true-false-funny statement is an example of ambiguity, to be believed by one group and treated as a joke by another, thus alienating nobody. Here is the mainstream of triple logic, where we're not doing battle with lies, but are making use of differing viewpoints. The bigger the difference, the bigger the joke. There is freedom of belief: the joker does not have to persuade, and the target is free to take it either way.
"If you tell the truth, sooner or later you'll be found out."
-- Oscar Wilde.
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