Lie and Liars

[skip.knox]

On a different thread concerning the likely employment of wizards, it was suggested (more than once) that one role a wizard might play is to detect lies. This could be invaluable to a ruler.

I'd like to propose a contra, just to see how it plays out.

Contra: lie detection is not reliable for monarchs.

Item: the Detector (one who can magically detect lies) might say the Questioned (the one who might be lying) speaks true, and this itself might be true. But the Questioned might in fact simply be ill informed. The Questioned might say So-and-so intends to invade, but the Questioned has himself been lied to. He speaks truth as far as he knows, the Detector detects truth, yet the monarch is misled.

Item: the converse. The Detector might say, the Question lies, and this may be so. Yet the Questioned, being himself deceived, unwittingly says a thing that turns out to be true. Or, the Questioned might indeed be lying intentionally, yet is nevertheless mistaken, and the converse turns out to be true. Either way, the monarch is deceived.

Item: the truth may be insufficient. The Detector detects truth or falsehood, but the information as stated is, unknown to the Questioned, incomplete. A partial truth, or partial lie, can be more misleading than an outright lie.

Item: Even a Detector can lie. The Detector might be a secret agent, working for a rival power. Or might have been recently suborned. Either way, the monarch has no way of knowing whether any single statement by the Detector is itself true or false. It is a case of who guards the guardians.

Item: If magic can detect truth, there must surely be a spell that can counteract this, thus deceiving the Detector. The monarch has no way to know whether or not this has happened.

Ergo: most monarchs, being by nature confident and in command, are more likely to rely on their own natural judgment of other beings. Their ability to read voice and face would be supplemented by the torturer's skills. A Detector might be more trouble than they're worth.

Postscriptum: it would be interesting to add the ability to detect lies in other forms. For example, whether a lie is contained in writing. Or whether someone approaching is doing so with honest intent. And for another wrinkle, the ability to detect lies could vary across types--elves, humans, dwarves, etc. Or vary by circumstance or any of a dozen other variables. The above considerations would still apply, though.

 

[LAG]

Makes sense, one of the many reasons a ruler would tend to expand and maintain their own network of spies rather than trusting all covert matters of the realm to a magi, or a cabal of them. Magical detection would still play a role, but diversification is always a good bet regardless of whether it comes to intrigue or farming.

As a counterpoint to this would be those worlds with a sort of 'divine truth', where, regardless of the knowledge contained in target's brain, the truth spell always shows the true answer to the question, whether through vision or simply knowing, whether through the hand of deities or not. Basically, a universe where truth is not as relative as it is in ours.

In such instances I would up the cost of casting tho, as a spell of the true trues would be very powerful indeed, world-altering if used right.

 

[Chasejxyz]

I don't like the concept of lie detectors (both in reality and in fiction) for many reasons. As someone who had to lie daily for a large portion of their life as a matter of survival, I can tell you it's not a binary truth/lie distinction, it never is. Lying is, inherently, storytelling, where you're shaping information for a specific audience to fulfill certain expectations and accomplish specific goals. You want to achieve a specific emotional reaction or mental thought process, you have to think on your feet and adapt it based on the feedback you're getting in real-time. It is an art form, and like all art, it is incredibly subjective and there's countless ways to do it.

The detector has to work by reading some sort of signal; IRL ones measure "stress responses," which is very easy to get false positives (and you can practice "passing" them). Magical ones can read something like an aura or a person's thoughts, but those can also be manipulated and give false positives. Someone might be physically or neurologically different and give non-standard "responses" to telling a truth and a lie, so they can't pass even if they want to. When you present evidence, it's never "this bullet came from this gun," "you are the father," it's "because of x/y/z factors, I, an expert, say that I believe there is a 99% chance that this person is the father. But of course he might have an evil genetic twin, or a clone, so I can't say this is 100% true." So, ethically, the results of any lie detector test needs to be presented as such. But they don't do that on Maury because it's more dramatic to do it otherwise. Most states do not allow lie detectors to be used in court for these reasions.

Police dogs, which are supposed to be impartial, are reacting (consciously or otherwise) to the handler, not to the things being sniffed/tested, so the dogs are confirming the handler's own assumptions/biases. Any human/elf/dwarf/whatever lie-detecting wizard is going to have similar issues, especially if they're in the employ of someone like a king. If it's already suspected that the person is a liar, then they're going to be looking for reasons that this person is lying. If the assumption that the person is telling the truth, then they won't dig as deep. Dr. Yueh got away with his scheme for so long in Dune because everyone assumed his mental conditioning couldn't be undone, no one found any reason to look for signs of betrayal until it already happened.

Lie detectors also imply that there is an absolute truth that exists somewhere, and who is it that decides that? You might say this paint chip is red, I may say it's green, but some higher being might say it's actually smargadeen because we foolish humans aren't able to see the full spectrum of light. Every being experiences a different reality, so every being has their own version of "the truth," and they're all equally as valid. Unless you wanna get authoritarian about it and there's a state(or god)-sponsored truth that everyone MUST abide by, which sucks for those of you that cannot experience or even comprehend that "reality" for whatever reason.

There's also the "boundaries" of what is a "lie." If I said it rained for an hour when it only rained for 59 minutes, is that a lie? What if it rained 50 minutes? 30? What if I just assumed it rained for an hour and I just made up that detail in our conversation for the sake of filler? If I say we're breaking up because I think I can't give you what you deserve but it's actually because I fell out of love with you, is that a lie? At what point does the sentiment of the words or concept need to shift into a different shape for it to be a lie? Even if you made some sort of robot that could "accurately" or "unbiasedly" detect "lies," it would struggle with concepts like emotions and sentiment, so it would still be inherently flawed.

So yeah, I do not like the concept of lie detectors, especially when they're presented as infallible. Which people almost always do. Of course, if your story goes over these flaws and that is integral to the plot, or the concept of what is "truth" and what is a "lie," then yeah, do it! Two of my longer projects focus on the nature of """""""truth""""" and the manipulation of information by various parties for various motives (both "good" and "bad")(and my personal history), so this is a subject matter that I'm very passionate about and something I would like to see more people approach critically and think of the full ramifications of using speculative elements to determine "truth."

 

[pmmg]

If i were a monarch, i would want information from many sources. A lie detecting mage being one of them. There is no reason to assume magic might produce false readings. That is just up to the author. In the many times i ran stuff i actually did not care if someone was lying or not. I was able to set a course regardless. Lies are not always unuseful. Just, dont believe your own lies.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Ergo: most monarchs, being by nature confident and in command, are more likely to rely on their own natural judgment of other beings. Their ability to read voice and face would be supplemented by the torturer's skills. A Detector might be more trouble than they're worth.

I don't think this necessarilly followes from the flaws of a lie detector. It would very much depend on the setting and the believes of the monarch. In real history there have been plenty of truth-sayers and augurs which were employed by the ruling class or consulted on important matters. And I think most people would agree that whatever those said would be nothing more than fancy sounding mumbo-jumbo. They would probably be wrong as often as they were right (though vague enough to be able to twist whatever they were saying to match the events).

And yet they were consulted. Why? Because we like the idea of having more information than the opponent. And we think we're smarter / better than them, so we can work around the shortcommings of any given method.

The same would be the case here. Having more information than your opponent is very powerful in almost all situations. That would outweigh the risk of the information being incorrect.

Of course, the problems mentioned are indeed the common problems with any lie detection in fiction. In the Wheel of Time the Aes Sedai can't lie due to magic. They work around it by stating half-truths or meaning something different with the same words. And at some point in the series there's a bunch of them who aren't under the magic spell which prevents them from lying and they abuse that fact. And there's hidden agents among them who can lie. It makes for powerful plot devices.

 

[skip.knox]

There's a distinction that's getting blurred here. Detecting lies is not the same thing as clairvoyance. The latter is its own interesting topic that I think could be made more complex (interesting) than is usually done. But here I'm talking specifically about the ability of a mage to detect a lie, and I'm suggesting that it's not nearly so straightforward as to make that alone useful to a ruler.

I take pmmg's point that a ruler might want information from as many sources as possible. Maybe. Maybe if the wizard had other abilities and this lie detection busines was an additional skill, maybe it'd be worth asking how the wizard read a particular person. But just that skill alone? Not reliable enough to justify the expense of retaining the wizard. imo, of course.

@Chasejyz makes the point that mechanical lie detectors are rarely admissible in law, which raises an interesting possibility. What about the testimony of a Detector Mage in law? Not enough for a story there, but it could be interesting as backdrop. I could see, for example, a case where in a town or village there was a local mage who gained a reputation as a Lie Detector (odd, isn't it, that there's not a Truth Detector). The person might or might not be infallible, but the people of the town believe he is. Along comes Our Hero who gets unjustly accused. Story ensues.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Detecting lies is not the same thing as clairvoyance.

I should have been more clear perhaps. I didn't mean it as them being equal or related. I merely intended it as a real world example of a magical power which was used despite being less then perfect. Monarchs still used clairvoyance despite the obvious flaws in it.

I think the same applies to lie detection. A ruler would use it. Depending on the skill of the mage and the trust the ruler had in the mage, the ruler would either 100% believe the mage or he would use his own judgement and use it as an extra source of information.

I agree that there's a good chance the mage would be too expensive to maintain if that's all he does. Though maybe the mage could double as a judge. It's a very useful skill for a judge to have after all. Or some other extra tasks.

Then again, throughout history rich royals have had plenty of people on staff just because it either entertained them or made them look important. In the grand scheme of things employing a single mage would probably not make a difference on the expenses of a country. So a royal might very well have one simply for that purpose. Lower nobility might not. The smaller your holdings the more a single expensive item becomes a drag on your finances. Though then it might also become a matter of prestige to actually afford a mage and having to let one go from your staff would be a serious signal of being in dire straits. If losing face is a big thing in a noble's society then it would be a very big deal.

 

[skip.knox]

Ah, I get that. Now I'm wondering if any real-world court astrologers were wholly and solely that, or whether they had other skills to offer.

I do take the point, though, that at least early modern kings were wealthy enough to afford what amounted to human adornments, especially once the kings figured out the racket of selling titles without conferring land. I always have one eye on that lower nobility because I find them far more interesting than kings. In story terms, there's real potential in the viscount who is totally sold on this one astrologer (or Detector), can't really afford him, and nearly ruins his family's fortunes in supporting him and following his less-than-reliable advice.

Also interesting would be situations in which a ruler had more than one astrologer (or Detector) and received conflicting advice. Or if all advice urged one way, but the ruler's instincts, or actual interests, ran in a contrary direction. You could set it up, story-wise, by having the Detector be right, be crucially right, for the first part of the story, then comes up with a finding that just seems wrong, wrong, wrong. Either choice the ruler makes at that point would provide tension.

 

[FifthView]

There is an odd assumption here, namely that a truth or lie of the told kind is directly related to whatever event, situation, etc., it purports to describe or represent.

Similarly to Chasejxyz's point of view, I'd say that whatever comes out of the mouth or from the page is more like a narrative than anything else. It's merely a created description of something. When are descriptions false? When, true? How much accuracy is needed for a description to be considered true?

Example. Star Trek: Into Darkness opened early with a scene of Jim and Bones on a planet running for their lives from primitive natives. The two eventually leap into the ocean, swim to the Enterprise where it is hidden beneath the waves, and are safe. But Spock, who is in a volcano elsewhere on the planet, is unsafe, so they have to go rescue him. Unfortunately, the only way they can do this is by flying the Enterprise out of the ocean and toward Spock's location. The primitives who were chasing Jim and Bones have barely invented the wheel, much less a starship, heh. They see the Enterprise rise from the ocean and are amazed.

So. If the natives tell other villages, and succeeded generations from their own village, that they saw a god rise from the ocean that day...are they lying?

They are telling a narrative of the event. From our perspective—namely, of having watched the movie, heh—we know the Enterprise is not a god, and any statement to the contrary rings false—by our definition of "god" at least. Similarly, the crew of the Enterprise and at least the vast majority of the Federation would think such a statement to be wrong. But the natives don't have the knowledge and cultural heritage to make a truer statement. Does this mean they are lying when they tell neighboring villages they saw a god rise from the ocean?

It is true that they saw something rise from the ocean. It is true that what they saw was something far, far beyond them and beyond anything they've witnessed before. Heck, even Kirk gets demoted later for this very reason, heh. But the word "god" is a kind of catch-all abstract here. They saw something that actually happened and they are not trying to lie about what they saw, even if they have limited ability to give an accurate narrative of events and have limited words.

And who among us has never been in that situation, heh? How accurate is our telling when we tell tales? Does an inability to write like Shakespeare or some other master of the word mean we are all of us, without exception, liars? Heh.

So I have lots of other thoughts springing from this foundation, but for now how about this. The Detector doesn't detect what happened vs what is said, but rather the Detector detects whether the person speaking wishes to deceive:

"My liege, I cannot say whether what he describes is the case, but only that he harbors no intent to deceive."

"My liege, he intends to deceive. About what, I cannot be certain."

From there, additional probing might be required. But have we not seen this in Star Trek also, heh? I mean, a mind meld or the like could reveal a lot. Doesn't mean that the senses of the person being probed weren't deceived or didn't receive only limited input—our powers of observation being almost as limited as our powers to create wonderfully accurate narratives, heh.

You could have a team of Detectors, each checking different aspects of a narrative, a psyche, and multiple witnesses.

Ultimately, yes, things come down to either one judge—the king—or a jury—i.e., a trusted panel of advisors, even so.

Here's the thing though. None of the above is high tech beyond our comprehension. People have known this quality of narration for quite a long time, so strategies for using the narratives of others, including judging those narratives, already exist. The addition of magic may or may not make much of a difference in this—depending on how you create that magic for your own narrative! Heh.

 

[skip.knox]

There is an odd assumption here, namely that a truth or lie of the told kind is directly related to whatever event, situation, etc., it purports to describe or represent.

That's not what I was assuming, but the contrary. That's why I was thinking having a magical Detector wouldn't actually be very useful. Others have proposed some ways in which such a Detector might actually be helpful. And FifthView adds another:

"My liege, I cannot say whether what he describes is the case, but only that he harbors no intent to deceive."
"My liege, he intends to deceive. About what, I cannot be certain."

I can see that one. Knowing if the fellow is or is not intending to deceive would be useful to know. Not in every case, but in important cases it would be important. There's still the possibility of counter-magic, but maybe if there's a magical way to detect lies, there would also be a Detect Magic spell so you'd know if one was present. Then we get could get fun logic puzzles.

At least I'm beginning to get a handle on how I would use this in Altearth, or whether I would use it at all. Haven't really seen a place for it yet, but one never knows. And if one should need to know, then Mythic Scribes is the place to go!

 

[FifthView]

That's not what I was assuming, but the contrary.

Well it felt almost like a straw man argument. As in, "Oh no, here are all the examples of narratives not matching realities!"

So for the one, there must be the other; the assumption is hidden under all its contraries. That sort of thing.

Now if we only had a wizard who could straighten out this unfortunate tangle of events and reports and counter-reports.....!

 

[skip.knox]

But how would we know if we could trust the wizard?!

 

[FifthView]

But how would we know if we could trust the wizard?!

Obviously, if the wizard supported the narrative we desired most!

 

[FifthView]

There must always be a guillotine put aside for said wizard, in any case. Just in case.

Here's the deal. What would make for the most interesting narrative? I mean, our narrative. The tale we are telling. A truthful, always accurate, infallible wizard + an infallible king? Or some other combination.

 

[S J Lee]

Ever played DnD (2nd and 3rd ed, at least?)

In DnD, there is a cleric spell "Commune" - you get to ask your "god" yes-or-no questions (the player gets to ask the GamesMaster the questions). The rulebooks DO give some ways to shield things from a god's sight (eg the Mind Blank spell) (I myself say things done/said in the temple of god 2 are hidden from the sight of god 1, and every conspirator worth his salt turns his basement into a shrine of god 2 to evade the Qs of the clerics of god 1...) and of course your god could lie to you to stir up trouble - he wants that holy war started NOW, not next year..

BUT overall the rulebooks say the spell works, and players are NOT to be punished for relying on it - it is part of the cleric's powers, part of the game. If you did not use very elaborate magical precautions, powerful clerics will ALWAYS find a way to sniff out almost any secret. "Did the killer's name start with any letter from the first half of the alphabet?" is a valid question. Rinse and repeat.

The rulebook says "it is to be used as an aid to players in making decisions"


However, the clerics have their own agenda. They could of course lie to the king. There is no visible proof to show anyone else. Rival clerics (or fake clerics) can contradict them. The GM should structure the game so that finding out who killed the duke is not as relevant as asking, where is the killer now? And the killer is on the move and already picking his next target.... the spell gives the game a "kick up the ass" when the players reach a dead end, all to facilitate an exciting adventure. It works well on that basis.

 

[S J Lee]

As regards writing, it all comes down to - does it make for a good plot?

Look at Dune. The Emperor's truthsayer Bene Gesserit will ask Baron Harkonnen whether he had Paul killed. The Baron wants to be able to deny it...hence he tells his men to dump them ALIVE in the middle of the desert...this gives them a chance to escape etc. So the writer used this to get around the old cliche "FFS! You have James Bond in your power! Just shoot him in the head!" which all "hero captured by villain" plots wrestle with. If you just dump truth-seeing into your world without a PLAN for it, it will probably make for a worse story. If it helps develop the plot, then great.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Some thoughts on how truth or lies might be detected, magically:

The wizard could make a truth serum. Then it would be administered to whoever the king wanted to get information out of. That wouldn't solve the problem of the witness telling an untruth that they believe is true, but it would ensure that the witness must say what they believe to be true; they can't lie.

Or magic could be used as a form of trial by ordeal. Stick your hand in this boiling water; if you're telling the truth, you'll be unharmed, but if you lie, it will burn you. Just like ancient courts used to do, only in a world with magic, it actually works the way it's claimed to.

Or we could go back to the idea that the wizard/mage is also the court astrologer. There is a branch of astrology called horary that's used for specific question/answer divination (for example, "Will I marry so-and-so?" or "Is this property I'm considering buying a good investment?"). It's possible for a horary chart to indicate that someone isn't being truthful, if that's the question asked. It's also possible for the chart to indicate that the client isn't being completely truthful with the astrologer. That doesn't tell you, in itself, what the real truth is, but it does suggest digging deeper.

 

[Mad Swede]

Another way of looking at this is to consider what might happen if the King had a court mage whom he used to (amongst other things) detect lies. Word about this would get out, in fact the King might spread the word himself as a way of encouraging people to be truthful under questioning. But, as can be seen in the real world, the development or addition of a new capability to someones armament tends to lead others to develop similar capabiltiies and/or to develop ways of countering this new capability.

So what might happen? Well, other Kings mighthire court mages to provide similar services. Less scrupulous Kings might ask their court mage to develop ways of making it seem that what people have been told to say is the absolute truth, that is, giving them some form of aura to make their statements seem truthful. This would be part of a wider strategy to deliberately deceive their rivals. So then of course our King has to get his court mage to detect this sort of aura before trying to remove it. And so on. Put another way, having a mage who can detect the truth might start s sort of magical arms race.

 

[skip.knox]

>What would make for the most interesting narrative?
This, yes, absolutely. This first and last.

But one of the fun aspects of world building is one gets to range over the full panoply of possibilities. This can help a writer decide which particular angle to choose for use in a story, but can also lay out alternatives. It works this way *here* and that way over *there*.

I'm very much about building from inside the story. When writing in a series or, as in my case, writing multiple stories within a world, taking the inside-out approach comes with its own ramifications. The solution that works for this story might have unintended consequences in other stories--consequences I as the architect for all stories might not want. It's been worthwhile for me to take a step back now and again, to consider the wider implications. Sometimes it's been possible to jigger the storyline in ways that produced satisfactory resonances elsewhere.

So there's something to be said for throwing out a proposition to the community just to see the range of responses. Right now, I'm disinclined to have Detectors in Altearth. But some of the angles are intriguing and might play out in one way or another. Not least because this whole discussion of monarchs and courts has a distinctly human flavor. Elvish society and politics aren't like that. Neither is elvish or gnomic or ogrish. There might be a space, though, for such a role among orcs or among trolls, both of whom have organized societies.

 

[Rosemary Tea]

Here's another possibility: what if it's the power of belief, and that alone, that makes lie detection work?

Some of your societies might believe in it wholeheartedly, as in, everyone knows it works. Others might consider it absolute bunk. Even without any magic forcing truth out of people, the believers will adapt their behavior in the belief that they'll never get away with lying. See the Dune example above. The Baron makes a decision on the assumption that the Bene Gesserits can and will get the truth out of him, or his men, and he's not willing to take the risk. In the world of Dune, they really do have that power, but what if they didn't yet everyone believed they did? The Baron would have done the same thing. The end results would have been the same.