Now I know why Richard Feynman was right. It is the Principle of Explosion. Let a Twitter stranger explain it to me:
one of the first things you learn when you start writing mathematical proofs is the principle of explosion: from a single false premise you can derive any conclusion, true or false. interesting to reflect on how this has shaped my thinking and orientation towards truth
https://twitter.com/qiaochuyuan/status/1527334796900245504?s=21&t=WRjsggNP7Xr2YJk02b8E6g
One undiscovered lie. That’s all it takes. From that seed you can justify anything you want.
The perceptive Twitter stranger explains the end result:
i do think though that the principle of explosion correctly points towards the consequences of holding a false belief sufficiently rigidly and globally. if there’s a thing you’ve decided is always good or always bad, and you’re committed to ignoring exceptions…
https://twitter.com/qiaochuyuan/status/1527336093216956449?s=21&t=WRjsggNP7Xr2YJk02b8E6g
…then the principle of explosion suggests, correctly imo, that there’s no upper limit to how insane your beliefs or your behavior can get, starting from that false, rigid, global premise. the more universally and rigidly you apply your pet falsehood the worse things get
https://twitter.com/qiaochuyuan/status/1527336095179935749?s=21&t=WRjsggNP7Xr2YJk02b8E6g
It’s a good thread. I think it’s hard sometimes to spot a lie you’re telling yourself in the present moment. Yes, there are tells. There is cringe, for instance, or intense desire. Both are emotions signaling danger. But they are routinely overridden by impulse. We want the end state.
It’s like certain legal opinions I have seen, where a desire to justify an end result in a transaction will contain, for the careful reader, a paragraph that can only be interpreted as “and then a moment of magic occurs.”
Everything before and after that paragraph sounds sober and sane. Even your grandmother would understand the logic. But that one pivot on a moment of magic takes the argument to a funhouse mirror conclusion.
But it’s easier to look backwards from an unexpected and crazy conclusion (you find yourself saying, in a whiny voice, “why did this happen to me?”) and lie you told yourself. If you’re rigorously self-honest.
Not easy. Easier.