While misattributions can have disastrous consequences, most are not so dramatic in everyday circumstances. Like the other sins of memory, misattributions are probably a daily occurrence for most people. Some examples that have been studied in the lab are:

Misattributing the source of memories. People regularly say they read something in the newspaper, when actually a friend told them or they saw it in an advert. In one study participants with 'normal' memories regularly made the mistake of thinking they had acquired a trivial fact from a newspaper, when actually the experimenters had supplied it (Schacter, Harbluk, & McLachlan, 1984).
Misattributing a face to the wrong context. This is exactly what happened to Donald Thomson. Studies have shown that memories can become blended together, so that faces and circumstances are merged.
Misattributing an imagined event to reality. A neat experiment by Goff and Roediger (1998) demonstrates how easily our memory can transform fantasy into reality. Participants were asked either to imagine performing an action or actually asked to perform it, e.g. breaking a toothpick. Sometime later they went through the same process again. Then, later still they were asked whether they had performed that action or just imagined it. Those who imagined the actions more frequently the second time were more likely to think they'd actually performed the actions the first time.

Is "y" the truth?

Is in not true that the act is what causes damage and not the intent to commit it? We punish actuality, not potentiality, and damage does not spring from potentiality, but actuality, for though the intent to commit an act might be considered evil, it is only so because of the actuality of committing it. It is not that I am angry that is evil, but what is borne of that anger that makes it so. If I were hateful of everyone but it could not be externally verified and it does not affect my goals and actions, the hate would be without consequence and thus benign and not evil.

If an X falls in a forest and no one is around to Y it, does it make a Z?

The great philosopher George Costanza once said, "It's not a lie, if you believe it."

Let's say you do "x", and you later tell your family and friends and anyone else, "y".

No one saw you do "x", no cameras were at you, no dogs or cats sniffed you doing "x", no evidence at all that can contradict your "y" story.

Soon enough though, you begin to believe your "y" story; you have pushed the memory of "x" to the farthest reaches of your brain; you consciously remember "y" as what actually happened for the rest of your life.

You die, and with your death, the last remnants of "x" disappear forever.

Is "y" the truth?

I think you mean, George Santayana, not "Constanza".

Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it.

Surprisingly, he means Costanza, and is correct.

George Costanza - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unless of course Constanza was quoting Santayana there, but if Santayana said that, I'm not aware of it.

'you think you have deceived him', and as far as you are concerned you have lied;
p.s what if it then turns out the oil is mud?

Dan.

Thank you. I never heard of the man. I'll read the Wiki article.

I bet you have. He was the character played by actor Jason Alexander on the TV sit-com Seinfeld.



So the quote wasn't said by a philosopher (not in the strict sense anyway) but an actor/comedian. Which is funny because some people are probably thinking the man that said the quote was some deep thinker.
Nonetheless, I find the quote philosophically interesting.

"It's not a lie, if you believe it."

It's actually true.. even if what you say is false, it's only a mistruth and not technically a lie. So a lie and a mistruth aren't exactly the same thing. Ulimately, what you say isn't true then... it's just not a lie.

Debudding, you completely misunerstood the intent of my post. Earlier it was claimed that the intent to steal might equate the act, but it is lesser, the intent cannot be all that there is, you must also consider the outcome. That was the main point of my post. I would hold your accusations of ignorance in check.

I doubt man X would be charged with manslaughter, it wouldn't stick at all, even involuntary manslaughter, there is no legal basis for any charge in any of those cases. In no way do any of the scenarios fit manslaughter, even criminal negligence.

Now, the subtleties of intent do well play into murder versus manslaughter, but the line is very blurry when considering attempted murder. Preventative law is on the weakest footing, this is one major line which is often crossed. How do we prevent crimes? After all, it is better to never have crimes than to have to punish and still have them.

I never watched "Seinfeld".

I don't know the word, "mistruth: and it is not in the dictionary. So it must be a word you just made up. So, how could you expect me to know what it means? Or how lies differ from "mistruths". I do know, however, that if I intend to deceive, and I do deceive, I am lying. And, even if I intend to deceive and through no doing of my own, I don't deceive because I happened to tell the truth, I was not being truthful, and that is still lying.

Easy there.

From the way you protest, you'd think what I had said wasn't compatible with what you've said above.

First of all, "mistruth" is in the dictionary. Specifically page 743 of my Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. "mis" is a prefix that can mean "opposite or lack of" and can be added to the noun "truth" to create the valid word that I did not make up "mistruth". If you'd lke online proof, simply go here mistruth - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary , read the defintion of the prefix "mis", and then scroll down to where "mistruth" is listed. "Mistruth" then means "the opposite, or lack of, truth". Perhaps you're familair with the word "falsehood". It is more commonly used for the concept I was describing. But how serendipitous! What you have done, accuse me of making a word up when I have not, is basically an example of what I was explaining about the quote. Did you do that on purpose?
Again, the quote was "It's not a lie, if you believe it." You (kennethamy) apparently believed that "mistruth" wasn't a word, so when you told me that I must have made it up, you actually believed it wasn't a word. Therefore when you stated that it is not is the dictionary, you were not lying; you were just wrong. If you believe some piece of information is true, when you state that information as true, you are not lying, you are just being incorrect. You never had the intent to decieve. This is completely consistent with the correct point you have made which is that when one tells information with the intent to deceive, they are lying, even if they accidently end up having told the truth. What I was describing was the opposite phenomena that when one's intent is to tell the truth, they are not lying, even if it turns out they were wrong. This is what would literally be meant by the quote "It's not a lie, if you believe it."