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Comment by zsoltkacsandi | Hacker News Reader

> and the descriotions of the same thing are different for different persons

When my son says, "I wasn't there" when the glass broke, it's not just a matter of differing descriptions, it's a clear denial of a fact. There are facts, and when someone deliberately twists or denies them, that's not just a different perspective. That's a lie.

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You are right, for somethings, the truth is clear, but for other things, it is difficult to find the last truth, only reach its truth over time

> it is difficult to find the last truth, only reach its truth over time

The fact that is difficult to find out the truth, does not mean that something was or wasn't a lie. Paradoxically this is an attribute of a "good" lie: it is difficult to find out that it wasn't the truth.

I think this is a good example of a lie because you and your son both have a shared understanding of the world and he is deliberately saying something he does not believe to be true (that does not match his own internal recall of events).

There is a physical component to this lie but it seems to me that the social part dominates.

Yes, They have the same understanding of the meanings of the words "I", "was", "not" and "there", and the sentence.

That’s not the point. You know your son knows what happened - knowledge of his mental state. Not that you have a physical proof about the chain of causality.

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